4 August 2007

High school students get hands-on field experience at Ujjivan

This summer, three high school students from as varied locations as Hong Kong, Dubai and New York spent their summer holiday getting hands-on field experience at Ujjivan. The experience was intended to give students exposure to the ground realities of poverty and the role that microfinance can play in its alleviation.

Anoushka Vaswani, from New York, visited Ujjivan’s Whitefield branch in Bangalore. For her, the experience was a unique opportunity to see microfinance from the “ground up.” At the branch, Anoushka was able to help out by verifying that repayment records were recordly correctly in passbooks, checking life insurance and customer profile forms for missing information, and generally helping out wherever necessary in the branch. Through this experience, she was able to see the importance of branch maintenance. “I realized that even small amounts like Rs. 1 difference in a passbook is important to correct. You may not think that is much, but I realized how crucial that is to running the business well.” Apart from branch work, Anoushka attended center meetings to interact with customers. “I am from New York but would never go to Harlem, but here I was in the slums interacting with customers. It was different for me, but very rewarding.” Anoushka will be applying to universities this fall and hopes to major in Economics.

Click here for Anoushka's intern report.

Anandi Malik, from Hong Kong, visited Ujjivan’s Jakkasandra branch in Bangalore. She admits that prior to coming to Ujjivan, she didn’t know much about microfinance and was a bit skeptical at first that a loan could be given with no collateral. However, she remarks that “after seeing it in the field myself and interacting with customers, I realized that [the joint liability system] is an incredibly revolutionary approach to solve poverty.” Like Anoushka, Anandi helped the branch staff check and verify passbooks, loan documents, and customer profile forms. Anandi was also able to attend center meetings on a daily basis. There she was able to see a different side of poverty than she expected. “I didn’t know anything about a life like theirs, but I was amazed to see that they did not feel sorry for themselves. They were working hard to improve their lives.” Anandi will be applying to universities this fall and hopes to major in Economics.

Click here for Anandi's intern report.

Siddarth Cidambi, from Dubai, visited Ujjivan’s HAL branch in Bangalore. Unlike Anandi he was not new to microfinance. Siddarth spent last summer at HAL as well. “I think that Ujjivan offers a great and very versatile experience for high school students. I got exposure to the field as well as the branch office operations, and felt that I was really helping out, not just observing. That is why I decided to come back again.” Having had an initial exposure to Ujjivan, Siddarth was able to take on larger responsibilities this summer, including filling in for the cashier when he was on leave, teaching the customer pledge to customers, and checking center meeting discipline to ensure that Ujjivan policies are being maintained on the field. “I felt that I got an even more in-depth experience this summer, but was surprised to see how much had changed since last summer when Ujjivan had just started. I feel that the problems are more complex now and that it is harder to maintain discipline, keep morale up through difficult problems, and motivate the staff to work such long hours now that the branch handles so many more customers. I really got to understand how challenging it is this time.” Siddarth will be applying to universities this fall and hopes to major in Mathematics or Economics.

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