A mango tree of ideas, disparities and burgeoning solutions

India truly is a laboratory for non-governmental initiatives that all seem to be filling a necessary gap in services where government resources fall short.  Today was our first day of classes in the field and we were introduced to three organizations who are all attempting to attack the multifaceted issues of poverty in their own distinct way. Each organization had differing funding structures and missions, but also seem to be competing for the same non-profit dollars.

I was particularly impressed by Under the Mango Tree, UTMT, who trains rural farmers to put bee boxes on their farms to increase pollination and sell the honey produced.  It’s such a simple idea to increase revenue generation and improve product yields all at the same time.  It is a hybrid organization with a social entrepreneurial and non-profit framework.  Vijaya Pastala the founder explained how she named the organization Under the Mango Tree because her initial meetings were under mango trees where ideas were generated. 

UTMT engages local partners who have already established farmers’ cooperatives to disseminate awareness of and utilizing the indigenous Indian bee, Apis cerana indica to produce honey and increase crop pollination—both income generation initiatives.  Indigenous bees are best because they are less susceptible to diseases and adverse weather conditions than non-native species.  This is particularly brilliant in a time where farmers are often pressured to produce crops at a faster rate—the Apis cerana indica takes about one year to start producing sufficient honey.  In fact, because they use indigenous bees, the farmers do not have to use antibiotics to sustain the hives as is the case with non-indigenous bees.  Therefore the honey produced by the farmers working with UTMT is antibiotic free.  The non-profit arm of the organization trains farmers throughout their first year of participation to ensure success.  This small, young organization (since 2009) has experienced 70 percent retention among farmers who are seeing a positive return on investment.   I was encouraged by the multilayered approach to training, dissemination and community support utilized by Under the Mango Tree and look forward to charting their sustainable success. 

The second organization offered a creative means to developing and empowering innovative solutions. Be Fund produces financial support to rural community members who apply with a creative solution to an identified problem.  Unlike Under the Mango Tree, Be Fund is supported by private philanthropic dollars and provides up to $10,000 to qualified community members—who has 3 years to repay the loan. The program offers support services to empower the entrepreneur to succeed.  Their projects included a woman who started a community health center in a shantytown, a gentleman who developed a plastic recycling program in his rural village and a man who bought a truck to transport village produce to local markets.  Be Fund also provides a training program for young people to develop their creative entrepreneurial skills.  

While the last two organizations approached development from the ground, the final organization approached social issue surrounding education by attempting to improve the efficiency of the non-profit education sector.  ATMA offers business management support to partnering organizations. They attempt to increase resource training among the non-profits in Mumbai.

These three organizations offer three distinct approaches to tackling some of the social issues in India.  Throughout the entire presentation, I wondered why the Indian NGO sector is so large and why the government sector falls short of providing such services.  It is the same question I would ask in the US or anywhere with large income and social disparities. 

This became particularly apparent later in the day when we ran into four street children—one an emaciated baby being held by a boy who appeared to be no older than 6 or 7 years old accompanied by two young girls—all clearly suffering from malnutrition and likely on their own.  I still can’t comprehend why in 2012 such disparities continue to persist. And while I am encouraged to see the non-profit sector step-up and fill the gap, there is so much work to do…and miles to go before we sleep.

Mapping Slums

Mumbai is an extremely dense city. Almost 12 million people cram in less than 603 sq km. (Some perspective: Delhi has 11 million living in 1,500 sq km; DC has 618,000 people in 177 sq km). In this extremely dense city, most surveys estimate 50-60 percent of the population live in slums. Slums are makeshift communities, almost always on illegally squatted land, for urban dwellers who cannot afford legal housing. The conditions are squalid and lack most essential public infrastructure. The open sewage system and inescapable trash make the smell unbearable in the heat. Single-room homes that could house up to 10 people are commonly sheltered under blue tarps and corrugated irons. There are slums of different sizes, populations, and degree of squalor scattered throughout Mumbai. Dharavi, which we will visit on Friday, was the largest in Asia (apparently it’s now surpassed by the Karachi slum in Pakistan).

Here’s the catch: since slums are established on trespassed land, the government cannot officially provide services like trash pickup and medical care. That’s where NGOs come in to fill the gap.

Our first NGO visit was in the AmeriCares India office in Andheri. AmeriCares is a US-based nonprofit organization that provides medical relief during emergency disaster situations, global medical assistance, and free care. AmeriCares India in Mumbai currently sets up mobile clinics every 15 days in slum areas. Everyone was impressed with AmeriCares’ advanced use of technology to help it serve patients. The organization has adopted biometric tools to track patient visits and are about to launch a cloud-based electronic medical record system called Easy Clinic. That’s more than I can say about many US practices!

Our task for the day was to map the number of homes in areas of the Chandilivi slum AmeriCares is planning to expand into. Once they have an idea of the landscape, staff will go back to further investigate the makeup of individual households. This allows them to identify at-risk patients such as malnourished kids and pregnant women. Eva, Vidisha, and I were assigned an area near a high school. We were accompanied with AmeriCares Medical Director, Dr. Purvish Parikh, and several other staff. Dr. Parikh is a world-class oncologist who was most recently the chief of oncology at Tata Memorial in Mumbai. You would think someone like him would be satisfied with their accomplishments. Nope. When Dr. Parikh turned 50, he retired from hospital care to pursue a new avenue of influencing community-level change. Dr. Parikh’s humor and easygoing demeanor carried us through our first (nervous) walk through a slum. As it happened, this trek was surprisingly relaxing. It wasn’t the chaos I expected. The neighborhood was quiet and the residents were friendly. We spent the afternoon learning mapping techniques, taking pictures, and trying to imagine what it must be like living here.

Bringing Wealth and Prosperity to India

The start of our second full day in Mumbai was eye-opening even though we never left the hotel. By now you might have read from other posts about our meetings with three trail-blazing India NGOs: Under the Mango Tree, Be! Fund, and ATMA. These meetings were truly inspiring. The women who came to us were so impressive in the way they communicated their organizations' mission, as well as their own passions. Over chai and cookies, our class devoured each hour with questions ranging from specifics about business operations to details about how the women leaders managed to balance work and family. One theme I kept picking up was the power of peer-learning as a way to spread and sustain their efforts. UTMT uses experienced bee farmers to train new farmers, Be! Fund hosts meetings for their young entrepreneurs to share ideas and learn from each other, and ATMA has alumni on staff to help new partners navigate the process. I felt so energized (but hungry) about the meeting marathon!

Afterwards, our team climbed into what could only be described as a Magic-School-Bus-meets-Hippie-Van on our way to Bandra district for shopping. There were plenty of shops but I had the best time people watching during a 10 min downpour. After a couple hours we were picked up (by a different bus) to head to the Mahalaxmi Temple. The Hindi temple is a place where people pray for wealth and prosperity, both spiritual and monetary. It seemed like a good way to bookend our meetings with the Indian NGOs that seek to bring the people of India the same.

Learning Under the Mango Tree (Elizabeth)

So much happened today, I hope I can remember it all. The first half of our day was spent in the hotel meeting with three different organizations. Two stuck out in my mind. Under The Mango Tree is a social enterprise which helps poor, rural farmers increase their agricultural yield and livelihood through bee management. They partner with other organizations in the community to teach famers bee management skills. Through the bee management, farmers are able to increase their agricultural yields (grow more mangos because of increased bee pollination) and gain profit from selling the honey in the open market. This is a wonderful organization which deserves more coverage. You can learn more about them and their honey at http://www.utmt.in/.


The second organization was Be Fund, which uses media campaigns to reach young entrepreneurs with ideas to solve India's problems. They are a young organization, but have already invested in 18 entrepreneurs across the country. The entrepreneurs are then highlighted in the media campaigns, which include film, radio and print, in order to create local heros for other youth in struggling areas.


After a quick lunch we headed to the shopping area in Bandra. This was the first time that I felt I reached my boundary in India. I do not mind crowed streets, but the combination of crowded streets and constantly being looked at and yelled at by street vendors was just too much. I finally found a quiet coffee shop where I could relax.

We left Bandra around 5:30 and headed to South Mumbai to a Hindu temple for the goddess of wealth and prosperity. The roughly 15 mile drive took over an hour as traffic in Mumbai during rush hour is just about the worst experience I have been through. We were not allowed to take pictures inside of the temple, so my thoughts will have to be enough. We took our shoes off about one block away from the entrance. As we walked in the rain on the dirty street I was suddenly thrilled that I got all of my vaccinations. We each carried a pink flower into the temple as an offering, which we handed to the priest before having a red mark of "blessing" placed on our foreheads. The priest then handed us back our flower since it has been blessed by the goddess. The temple sits directly at the edge of the Arabian sea, which is an amazing view.                                   

Our day ended with a trip to a Sari store and a wonderful dinner at an Indian restaurant. Our guide Netra, who is really way more than a guide, told us that on the weekend Bollywood stars can be spotted there. 

I have so many more thoughts running through my head about India, but they will have to wait for another day when I have more time to sit and collect my thoughts. The cultural and economic differences among age groups, neighborhoods and genders are like nothing I have seen before.

Tomorrow the real work begins as we will be heading on our first field day into an urban slum.

Industan First Impressions

Before even stepping foot in India I read and heard countless travelers relate how India changed their lives or was a very “intense” experience and “full of contradictions.”  In the last two days two in Mumbai, I was able to experience some of that intensity.  We arrived after multiple legs of a long 20+ flight from BWI to Heathrow then Heathrow to Mumbai.  The reality that I am going to be in India didn’t really sink in until I saw Mumbai’s glimmering night lights from the airplane window as we descended to the airport. I was elated at the fact that I was the first of my immediate family to return to a land my ancestors left by boat over 130 years ago for British Guyana and even more excited my name was actually being pronounced correctly on the first try.   I got off the plane and couldn’t stop saying and thinking “We’re in India!” 

After getting our bags (I was traveling with Lisa-my fellow DrPH classmate and Colleen a Social Entrepreneur classmate who stumbled upon us waiting for our bags), we made our way through customs and immigration to find, much to our relief, the Novotel driver holding a sign—over 2 hours after our scheduled arrival of 12am. “Ahhh,” I thought, Indian Standard Time, IST at its best.  We made our way out of the airport weaving through the dark Mumbai streets congested with parked cars and dotted with groups of men—just hanging out.  No women were visible in the streets at that late hour.  I was trying to place the familiarity I was experiencing in trying to equate the dark dilapidated buildings next to new construction in the midst of being built when we turned a corner and I gasped.  My eyes caught a line of small bodies sleeping in the elevated medium under the overpass.  The sleeping bodies of children, women and men stretched on and on.  Lisa and Courtney both heard my gasp and after recounting my observation, Lisa said “Yep, we’re in India.”       

Today—day two of our two week journey, a faction of our group met at breakfast and decided to find an ATM—a seemingly simple task.  However, none of us were prepared for the sheer intensity of traversing congested sidewalk-less streets not governed by any traffic rules.  Rickshaws and cars alike sped past or meandered around us without any inclination to stop—and crossing the street was even worse as we had to dart across large intersections  where drivers considered stopping, optional.  Despite these risky hurdles, we persevered, found an ATM and were ready to spend in Rupees.   While on our way back in the midst of walking around parked cars and people just sitting along the sidewalk-cooking, eating and just standing, we encountered a man covered with a white sheet surrounded by flies laying in the middle of the sidewalk.  He was motionless, and we were all perplexed as to whether he was alive.  Although the thought that we may have walked past a dead man was disturbing enough, the city life seemed undaunted by this.  No one seemed to notice this motionless body on the street.   

The oppressive heat, broken by the rain, the poverty juxtaposed by modernity and the putrid street smells quelled by the aroma of spices and delicious food  are unlike anything I have experienced and this is just day 2. 

The Arabian Sea