Learning Development - The Professional Way - Sritam Krishna Panigrahi - XSRM

Soon the summer of 2018 arrived and brought along with it the Summer Internship Program. I and one of my friends, we were posted under the Churchu Team of PRADAN in the Hazaribag district of Jharkhand. In the initial days, I was sent to spend a few days with a host family to unlearn myself and blend into the daily life of a villager. The RLLE experience came handy and I got along nicely with the villagers. I also conducted some tools of PRA by taking help of the host family and their neighbours. This gave me some hands-on idea about the life of villagers. After the stay, I was given a project where I had to understand the existing situation of agriculture and existing market linkages of Tatijharia block in Hazaribag district and suggest alternate models for both. I was given some sample villages by the organisation to work on. I had to make a homogenous sample of the farmers in the sample villages, thus I used stratified random sampling method for the same.

The project required me to travel across many villages which were very difficult to reach as there was no proper road connectivity, especially in the tribal villages that were on the top of hills. Yes, it was physically demanding, but all the anguish used to fade off by seeing the warm and welcoming nature of the villagers. I felt that they were very wonderful and warm people. They were always keen to learn and listen to new things, especially from someone like me who was not from their community. This is more or less the story of most of the villages around the country, but what makes them special is that they believe in learning and accepting rather than contradicting.

In the second phase of the project, I had to visit nearby formal and informal markets and collect data. I along with my partner framed a market specific questionnaire and conducted one to one survey of at least 10-15 vendors of each market to understand the existing market linkage and challenges in both the formal and informal structures. The vendors of informal markets were very keen to participate and volunteer when they heard the name of the organization and that we were students who had come all the way from Odisha to understand their work. I believe all this is due to the goodwill that the organisation has created over the years.

The work PRADAN is doing in the remote and rural areas is definitely commendable. Bringing in professionals from various diverse backgrounds creates an environment where the exchange of information and opinion is not one dimensional which helps them in addressing a situation or issue in a better way. The entire team of PRADAN helped me blend in easily, which helped me to progress smoothly and completing the project on time. They have helped me in understanding teamwork, team management and nurturing team building skills. When I had joined the college, there was a lot of hype regarding PRADAN. Today, I realize and understand the reason for the hype. Definitely, PRADAN is setting standards and milestones in this sector. Post this internship, I can say that my goals are pretty clear now. I’m glad that I chose Rural Management, this institution and that I got an opportunity to work with this organization.

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About the Author:

Sritam Krishna Panigrahi

XSRM (formerly XIMB-RM)

2017-2019