“Can someone please pitch me!” were the constant words repeated in my head when I arrived to India at the early hours on Monday morning. My reality of being in India finally set in when I ended up hitting my head against the marble sink in my hotel’s bathroom. I have a tendency of being a klutz, but this time around I am going to blame it on the jet-leg. As I put my hand over my throbbing head to stop the pain. A sense of reality finally set in that to be in India is not a dream, but the path I am meant to walk as I pursue my passion for learning and public health.
My life-long compassion to help the disenfranchised has always pushed me to leave the comforts of my regular life in the United States. My life experience and public health education has taken me to countries and cultures where the aftermath of war, natural disasters, inequality, and the plague of diseases are a norm. It is these settings where I have witness the human suffering of others and has allowed me to redefine how I should view the world as a social entrepreneur in-training that will one day help create innovating and out-of-the-box solutions to the most common health problems. It is the power to fearlessly take the opportunity to crisscross traditional paths and become the facilitator to make a change in our niche of the world.
Organizations such as Global Giving, Kiva, Global India Fund, and Samhita in India have taken the opportunity to crisscross traditional paths by changing the playing field in how to help the disenfranchised population by providing accountability, transparency, and strong partnerships with donors, corporate organizations, and NGOs. It is the spirit of social entrepreneurship, but the building blocks of trust that these strong partnerships are built on and are succeeding. Along with a marketing framework and creativity for innovation, these organizations ensure donors that their money is being put to work at every level that support projects such as training rats to sniff for landmines in Tanzania or literacy for women to find employment in India. The common thread that makes all of these organizations similar is that it empowers the donor (an average Jane/Joe Doe) to become a hero by supporting a personal cause with a small donation. In other words, it is the concept of matching the average hero and marketing the right NGOs with a common cause. It’s about including everyone as a network to take part in making that difference in their own niche of the world.
It is this spirit of social entrepreneurship that has brought me to India and the training ground where I am going to learn how I can contribute one day with my own innovating ideas and influence others to also become their own hero by supporting their own causes.
I am very lucky to be out here and I'm looking forward to the incredible experience that are ahead in the next few days. Ok,I no longer have to be pinched. ;)
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