This summer I will be living and working in the state of Assam, India, as one of 42 UNICEF interns sent to work on a project related to children in the realm of health, emergency, rights or protection. My team's project is public health related, incorporating analysis and process documentation of the Integrated Child Development Services, the Government of India's early childhood health and nutrition programme which has been in operation since 1975. In a team of four interns based in this northeast region of India, we will create of a formal report incorporating assessment of the existing ICDS programme as it is carried out in Assam and make recommendations for improvement based on the findings of our field and desk work research. This report will be presented to UNICEF, government and collaborating NGO officials at the closing workshop in Delhi on 1 August 2012.
Assam is in purple, surrounded by other Northeast Tribal States which border Bhutan and Tibet (mainland China) to the northwest/northeast, Myanmar (Burma) to the southeast, and Bangladesh to the southwest.
Our Assam team at the orientation in Delhi, 23-25 May 2012. UNICEF India interns were selected from a pool of over 400 candidates, all graduate students (Masters/ PhD) from various academic disciplines and various regions of the world, including India, Europe, Africa, North and South America. My team includes myself (MPH candidate), two Indian women and a Bulgarian man, studying nutrition, rural development and global health at universities in Belgium, the US and the UK. Other intern teams of three and four students are working on projects related to social protection, disaster impact, rural planning, urban disease load, police interface, HIV and other topics in the states of New Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
The entries that follow are in reverse chronological order and detail my first week in India, which I spent traveling around North India to Amritsar and Dharamsala with an American friend. The May 18th Golden Temple entry is my first in India.
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