Experiencing Gender and Religion in India

My experience in India over this summer changed how I saw the world and the kind of impact I wanted to make in it. I learnt a lot about my self as well as other cultures, and was challenged to new levels mentally. Some of the toughest parts of the program were actually perhaps the best things of the trip, such as the 11 days we spent in rural Rajasthan. Working with local organisations was a perfect way to immerse ourselves in the culture, and participate in it the way locals do, and with the locals. While you cannot escape the fact that you are a tourist, OG encourages you to be a responsible tourist, and if not able to have a positive impact, to at least reduce and be aware of the positive impact you can have. It gives you confidence as a person, and the independent travel time was the perfect way to put everything we learnt into practice, and demonstrated how much we had learnt and changed over the 6 weeks.

This program is certainly not perfect, and there were several occasions where the ethics of what we were doing came into question, despite the fact we had come precisely because we did not want to be "voluntourists". Cross-cultural communication was challenged, and it was sometimes easy to feel as though we weren't being listened to, by OG or the organisations we were working with. Several of the discussion activities felt prescriptive, as if we were doing them for no other reason than them being part of the itinerary.

One thing to note is the programs will have an impact on you more than the communities you work in. The primary aim, as far as us could tell, was to educate you as the participant, rather than attempting to change the state of education or the Tibetan refugee crisis in 6 weeks flat. However, it is immensely worthwhile and rewarding, and I have made some amazing friends out of it.