Sanne Rotmeijer

Today we made a trip outside of the Training Centre. After we had done our study in the project groups, we got into two mini buses to visit the Hivos Regional Office in Bangalore, India. With some Indian music on the background and an always dancing Pradyumna we got pretty excited about where the Hivos office would be and how it would look like. We stopped at a building in the middle of the modern city centre, where we had a very warm welcome thanks to the Hivos workers. We really felt comfortable from the start! Having a drink as well as some snacks and sweets, we were able to talk with Jamuna Ramakrishna (Director, Hivos India Regional Office) and Rajendran Nathan (Programme Officer, Human Rights and Democratisation, Arts and Culture)

After they had told us about the interesting things Hivos India is working on at the moment, everyone had a lot of questions referring to the issues the Regional Office was confronted with. How do you implement the various theoretical concepts of Gender, Development, Human Rights, etc.? And how is the programme of Arts and Culture used in practice? Rajendran gave a couple of examples of the fascinating area of cross-sector initiatives. It is interesting and challenging to use several sectors to analyse and work on particular issues. One example was an initiative in which creating songs in a female music group was used to address gender issues in India. By this, the community becomes conscious of gender problems as well as different culture and art forms.

Some of the difficulties Hivos India is confronted with were also expressed in this discussion session. One issue that shocked us all was the example given on ‘bonded labour.’ This kind of involuntary labour is still widely practiced in India: with a false promise a person is tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay. Especially little girls are likely to be victims of this practice in India. They often not even reach the age of adulthood.

Next to the description of all these impressive cases, difficulties concerning the mediator role of Hivos were also reflected. On the one hand Hivos India has to translate knowledge, ideas, and policies from Europe to the reality of India. On the other hand Hivos India has to present local community issues to the head-office in the Netherlands. In addition, the mediator role becomes even more difficult, because the financial funding coming from the Netherlands is changing. There is less and less money available, so the instruments to support local partner organizations are reduced.

Due to the fact that India is economically evolving, people in Europe don’t think of it as a developing country anymore. Next to that an ‘Indian’ tendency exists to deny the problems occurring in the country. It is in between this external skepticism and the internal resistance that Hivos India must operate; surely more than 50% of the Indian population is still living beneath the poverty boundary of one dollar a day.

The visit to Hivos India Regional Office motivated us most. We could have spent a lot more time with them, but the buses were waiting for us. When we left, our minds were full of plans, ideas, and opinions. Thank you, Hivos India, for showing us a glimpse of your hard, but much appreciated work. You inspired us indeed.

Sanne Rotmeijer, University of Humanistic Studies, the Netherlands