Wrapping up the last days

So, just a small update on how we're doing here in India. The weather is pretty hot, its 23:11 here now and im still sweating in my t-shirt in the lobby. But I personally am enjoying this heat, it's such a nice change to the temperature in Holland (no offense ;)). When we left for India over a week ago, the temperature was around 10 degrees. I heard from some friends that the temperature is better now though (around 18 degrees?).

The training is going good so far in my opinion, but I do think it's important that we also talk about how the implementation should go from here on. I am confident though about the users, especially the superusers. They're bringing up a lot of questions and are testing the system in every way possible, which is very good I think. We've still got one day left for MIS and 2 more days for general exercises and practicing.

A few days ago, some guy showed up in the bridge camp and I spoke with him for a while. He was a social activitist, trying to give more attention to child labour. He is currently touring through India on his bike by himself, visiting a lot of places where people are fighting child labour, and attending meetings about child labour. He's covered more than half of his trip now, which consists of driving a total of 18.000 (!!!!) kilometers in 90 days. I have a lot of respect for what he is doing, and it's good to see that a lof of the Indian population is also trying to fight child labour so actively.

I'm actually looking forward to my week's holiday as well. Even though its a major experience being over here, working with these people and seeing these children, we haven't seen a lot of India yet. Most of the time we only see the hotel, the road to & from the bridge camp, and the bridge camp itself. Rob is going back to Holland upcoming Saturday. My flight for Mumbai leaves 2 hours before Rob's flight. I've got a connecting flight to Jaipur from Mumbai, and there my holiday-trip will start.

Expert training

So, I think it's about time to give another update from our situation in India right? We're half way through our trip for Bloom (I'll be going on holiday for a week as well after the work is done for Bloom), and I think we have a pretty good impression on how the trainings are going so far. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we started out with the CMS Superuser training as planned. Although we had to improvise on our dayplanning a bit, I think our goals for these days were met. The superusers having experience with the 1.2 version of the system actually helped a lot. So, on Thursday and Friday we got started with the expert training. We try to invite the users to open up and to feel free to ask any questions they have, which is having a good effect I think. Because of the language barrier, it's really great that our collegue from Bangalore has such a drive to train these people (actually he used to be a teacher). Even though he joined the project last-minute, he's been able to explain the application to the trainees in notime. Giving the training at the bridge camp is actually very good I think, because you're constantly surrounded what it's all about : those kids. Every time we come to work in the morning, there's all these kids calling our names and greeting us, it's quite funny and touching at the same time.

Yesterday we went to see the movie "Clash of the titans" in the Imax-theater here in Hyderabad. We took an autorickshaw to get there, but we had to stop halfway because the light of this lawn-mower had some issues.


After continueing our trip, we got out and walked the rest on the Necklace-road, which goes all around this beautifull lake with the Budha-statue in it. It actually looks a lot like the statue of liberty in New York, and it was really nice to see the lights over the water and the couples strolling on the streets. After arriving at the cinema, we naturally had a meal in the most famous fast-food franchise in the world (do I really need to write the M-word here?). The cinema actually looked more like a shopping mall that they just happen to place a cinema in than the other way around.

Bridge camps and first day of training

(05-04-10)Yesterday we first went to the headoffice of MVF and met some people that are going to assist us with the trainings that we will give coming the next 2 weeks.

After meeting several people of the MV Foundation, we drove off to a girls bridge camp close to the border of Shankarpally.

We arrived at lunchtime and ate some tipical indian country food, what was really spicy.

After lunch we sat in a circle with all the teachers, and we had a conversation about what the bridge camp stands for and how MVF is supporting them.

Later that afternoon we visited some classes and spoke with some children about how their experiences in staying at the bridge camp.

Before we left, we handed out some presents to the children of the bridge camp and wrote some personal note in their guestbook.

(06-04-10)Today we got up early to go to the boys bridge camp just outside Hyderabad, which is also the location where we will give the trainings.

We got there by autorickshaw, which was a whole new experience for us. The most impressive experience on that ride was the (lack of) suspension on these vehicles.

When we arrived at the bridge camp we were welcomed by the warden of the bridge camp.

After that we visited some classes and spoke with some children about what the are learning in class, and try to give them an indication of how far away the Netherlands are.

After the trainees of the superuser training arrived, we settled down in one of the classrooms and setup the projector and laptop.

At the beginning of the training we had some short introduction, after which we gave the superusers an overview of the new features in the Child Monitoring System.

Tomorrow, we will discuss some more technical details of the Child Monitoring System at the superusertraining.

At the end of the afternoon we left the bridge camp to go back to the hotel. In the evening we had a walk through the crowded streets of Hyderabad and had some typical Indian pastry.

Written by Rob Smeding

Travelling to Hyderabad

After about 2 months of working on the Bloom project, Rob Smeding and myself got on the plain yesterday to start our visit to India. As everybody knows when you are travelling, you can never know what you can expect. Our flight to Mumbai was all good, and as a surprise our luggage made it as well on the same time! So, with our high hopes up, we got out of the terminal to search for out hotel contact-person. Unfortunatly, we were unable to locate them. The security officer of the airport helped us out by calling the hotel. Turns out the were expecting us at 11:30 AM instead of 11:30 PM, and there were no rooms available left. We arranged for a different hotel, so we did get a couple of hours of sleep before travelling to the domestic airport. Everything went really smooth there, and before we knew it we were standing at Hyderabad airport. The airport is very beautifull, its actually listed in the India top-5 of best airports. Unfortunatly, it's not allowed to take pictures of the airport, so I'll try to take some when we are going to leave from a distance.

From the airport, we got a cab to the hotel. After finally arriving at our final destination (the taxi driver had some trouble finding the hotel first), we also met with our colleague who had arrived this morning as well. Being tired from basically skipping a night's rest, we had a short breakfast and then went to our room to freshen up a bit and get some extra sleep. Tonight we'll be going to get some dinner, and we'll try to start fresh and sharp tomorrow morning.

My first impression up to this point are very mixed and overwhelming, but I'm very happy that our colleague from Bangalore to guide us during our visit.

Dinner at last

Last Monday March 15th we had dinner with the team at the Indian restaurant Sagar Royal in Amstelveen. Also some colleagues that worked on the project last year joined us. The food was very tastefull and the conversations with former participants were interesting.

At this moment the functional designs and the software implementation are almost ready. The testers are busy with their test activities. Also the user manual and the training material are written. On April 3rd a trainer and a software developer will fly to India.

Next Monday March 22th there will be a video conference with India. During this session 3 members of MV Foundation will get a demonstration of the latest CMS version. We hope it meets their expectations!

Written by Fred Schapelhouman

Under construction!

Today, March 9th, we extended the team with two testers in Bangalore, a developer in Bangalore and two testers in the Netherlands. Here in the Netherlands we see each other at least once a week, and I have noticed that we developed a team-spirit within a few weeks. It is very special to notice that the cooperation with our colleagues abroad has the same intention!

It took a little time to get to know the system and to determine what exactly has to be done. For me, as a tester, I have to wait until Functional Design and System Development deliver. We have already tested the bugs that were found in the training session in India last year and a lot of it is solved. In the meantime, I feel like a project secretary doing the test management, a part of the planning, arranging a defect management tool, and arranging a conference call with people of the MVFoundation.

Next week the first new version of the CMS will be delivered. Last week the first Functional Design was delivered! This week there is more to come. In the meantime, our colleagues in India are progressing on a large db to do the load test. In other words; the project is at full speed!

Written by Jolanda Kuiper

CMS: The sequel

Yesterday, monday february 8th, we started the sequel for the Bloom CMS-project in Holland. We started out with a training called "Culture awareness training", which gently introduced us to the Indian culture. The training was, at least in my opinion, very interesting and provided some good insights in both cultural similarities and differences. I am sure that the lessons learned from this training will serve the team well in the weeks to come, and I am looking forward to working with our Indian colleagues. The need for a training to cooperate with colleagues abroad is obvious, but I think we tend to focus less on our cooperation with our Dutch colleagues because of this. Since we are working for such a large company, we meet new colleagues with every project we start on. Luckily, because of the Logica-way we all work, I noticed that the team quickly adjusted to each other, which I am sure will only grow in the upcoming weeks.

The project that we started on yesterday, is actually a follow up for the project of last year. The idea is to implement several important features and optimize the system where necessary. To get a good headstart with the system as-is right now, we got an introduction to the system (both functionally and, in my case, technically) from the colleagues that worked on the project last year. Although it is a lot to grasp, I am confident that we will be able to complement the system as required. Besides this, I am looking forward to the challenge of a new and intercultural project to work on!

Training MVF – A Success ! by Ashok Aritakula

Today, August 3rd 2009, was the last day of the training and yet another training got successfully over.

Thanks to Paul, who kept calm and made sure that training went on in spite of technical difficulties we faced.

I was really impressed to see how interested MVF was in our application. They were questioning each and every feature of the application and were making sure that it is fitting their needs. If not they were making instant request's for modifying the feature.

It was really great to see the real users of this application. I had a chance to meet many MVF Workers and I found that they are all simple and hard working people ,with a zeal to eradicate child labour. For them, seeing us from Logica, was a great motivating factor and when they came to know that we brought them an application (CMS), which can help them do their work faster and better , they were thrilled.

Many of them personally, came to me asking about the usage of the application. The main hurdle during this training was that they were not comfortable with English. But three guys from MVF, Mahindra , Krishna and Amit made sure that they translate instructions in English to their native language. Thats when we also identified that these three people are the ones who can and will take care of the further deployement and usage of CMS in MVF, once we are gone. We awarded them a Certificate as Experts.

Overall, I feel the training was a complete success and MVF is really happy and serious about deploying the application across different sectors.

As I knew their native language, they were very comfortable talking to me and sharing their views with me frankly. And it was really great to understand as what they think about this application , about Logica's contribution and the role they have to play in using this application. What I understood , from their views is that they have now the clear visibility of how they can use this application to make their work better and faster , In their casual talks they already started talking about how to use and where to use. They even planning to change the way they do survey, so that more and more authentic data is fed to the application.

Being part of all this was making me feel really great. Thanks to Veronica and Malti :-).

Even though, this phase of training is now over, I feel this is just the beginning and Logica is becoming really good at it :-).

Thanks,

Ashok

The last blog. On the finalday we had still a busy program: evaluation and discussion about next step, printing certificates, final lunch with everybody, visiting giftshops. No time to publish this blog. Hereby.

Sightseeing and the final training

Sunday we hired a taxi to make a sightseeing tour in Hyderabad: Salar Yung Museum (a.o. fine miniature paintings; I missed the famous musical clock), Charminar and surrounding market streets, Mecca Masjid; and outside the city: Golconda fort. Everywhere you see traditional India: shrines, temples, believers performing rituals. But also modern India: e.g. a motorized station for measuring pollution by traffic gazes. Cars, motorbikes and rickshaws are checked and advised on improvement.

(ceremony for godess Kali)

Monday was the final training day. As in every school class there were very fast trainees, somewhat slower and very slow ones. I myself has learned a lot about giving a training in a different language and culture. For one thing: Dutch seems to be a compact language; when you unzip it into one of the Indian languages (Telugu), then you need somewhat more words. The trainees understood it better and It gave me time to look ahead to the next subject. Looking back I think that as a train-the-trainer project the project was very successful. Some other trainees will need a fresh-up when in the future they start using CMS. Also it was good as a reality test: everyday new points for improvement came up and some questions about ‘should it be as it is now’ were discussed. It was a great pleasure to work together with motivated people

in a very good atmosphere.

(the last group)

A training day: Thursday

9.02 By rickshaw to the office; a ‘kermis’ drive of 10 minutes through the hilarious traffic.

9.20 Installation of the latest version of the application on mine laptop. Start other 5 machines to be used by the 7 trainees. One machine always starts scanning the whole harddisk. Another has always to be rebooted.

09.50 Ready to start; wait for the trainees. Planned start: 10.00.

11.10 Everybody has arrived. They are pardoned: they traveled 150 km and left home at 05.00! So I start with a warm welcome. I am glad that Mr. Mahender (staff of MV Foundation) translates mine introduction. These are mostly fieldworkers, living in poor villages (“a village is poor per definition”).

11.40 Power cut! Suddenly it is quiet: the fan, everything is dead. I cannot let them install the application on their own machine. Go on with 7 trainees on 1 laptop. Some has problem with typing: mine keyboard is different. Others are very quick to pick it all up.

12.25 Lunch around the table. The mild spicy food (very tasty) and the warmth makes me sweat.


13.20 Continue story. Mine laptop runs out of power – I switch to the laptop of Geert Jan. It becomes rather warm in the small room. Sometimes I have problem to understanding a fieldworker: he cannot explain me in for me understandable English what he wants to do – so I cannot help him further. Mahender and Ashok are nearby. I have the feeling I have made myself dispensable.

15.10 Noise again: power returned. Everybody gets started on a machine. When each has done the main thing at least once, I finish the training with the subject: making reports. After that they resume the training on their own initiative!


16.10 Powercut again!! Disappointment - an early halt of the training. The fieldworkers who came from far, stay in Hyderabad and will follow the training tomorrow again.At the end I am not unhappy with the result.

Last saturday we (Paul and I) left Holland and went to Hyderabad in India. We had a bad start since the airplanefrom Amsterdam to London had a two hours delay, but we where just in time at London Heathrow to catch the adjecting flight to India. After 9 and a half hours we arrived at Hyderabad International Airport and arrived at the hotel by 6 AM on Sunday morning. Our colleague from Bangalore office (Ashok Aritakula) arrived just a few hours earlier by train.


We took de rest of the morning off to get some rest after the long flight and after that we went for sight seeingthe city of Hyderabad by auto rickshaw [ really just a upgraded scooter in which three people can sit].

On Monday we went to see two bridge camps [ one boy and one girl ]. In a bridge camp children stay which have (just) been taken out of child labour. The first fifteen days the child is placed in a special counseling group in which it is promoted to stop there 'bad habits' like smoking and lime sniffing. After that period they will learn primary skills in maths, english, social, science and telegu [the local language]. And during breaks the children can play off course, which these children should suppose to do but where not always able to. To promote the children to play we visited the local mall to buy some toys like badminton rackets, some footballs, a 'scottland yard' game and some frisbees. This since we were told the children did not have access to these toys yet. Average time for the children to stay in a camp is 6 months and their age varies from 6 to 15 years old. These camps we visited had a maximum capacity of 120 (boys) and 150 (girls) and were both opened recently [within one and a half year].


Although this all seems very nice, we where touched by one boy who came to us and asked for help. Since his father had died, his uncles where after the land the boy inherited. The uncles threatened even to kill the boy to get the land. Ashok very nobly offered to contact local media and authorities. Who knows how this will end.


On tuesday the first training session started in which the volunteers are trained in the use of the Child Monitoring System [CMS]. These volunteers regularly perform door-to-door survey in which they try to find children who do child labour, and after that they monitor the children. For that purpose they can use the CMS system in the (near) future. We hope just to solve the latest errors in the software and make the final adjustments based on the feedback of the volunteers. All this to be done this week...

Phir Milenge,

Geert Jan de Boer.

Takeoff to MV Foundation, Hyderabad.

The preparations for the training of MV Foundation in Hyderabad are almost finished. The building team is working very hard to get the Child Monitoring System ready. During the video conference last week the application has been demonstrated to MVF. New wishes came up. Also here applies: seeing the application does discussions rise high. But everybody is enthousiast. Making the manual took me more time than expected. I got to know the system by trying myself and asking the building team. I had to amend it after every release. One advantage: as in India facilities are usually basic, the system has been kept simple. Also the training plan is ‘ready’ and aligned with Ashok Aritakula in Bangalore, who will assist with giving the training together with Geert Jan de Boer.

What more can one do to prepare oneself for a new project, a new culture? Going out with the whole Dutch team to an Indian restaurant (always recommendable); following a cultural training given by het Tropen Instituut in Amsterdam (helpful); viewing ‘Slum dog millionaire’: that was the most impressive; a colorful, good told story with suspense and emotions; the overwhelming Indian mass. And where the work of MV Foundation is focused on: for children, against child labor and Dickens-like slavery (in the square). So I know again where all this is for. Saterday we are leaving.

Blooming Logica

It is 29th April, 2009. I first spoke to Veronica , Malti and Jeroen. I was filled with motivation when they shared their views on the ‘Bloom’ project , an initiative of Logica. I always wanted to contribute to something which is noble , but didn’t know what. Thanks !! to Veronica, Malti and Jeroen for giving me that opportunity.

I started off working for the project, along with my Dutch colleagues Gerrit ,Vincent , Ruud, Mark , Geert. And from India, it was Animesh. Mary, Shivakumar and Baskaran joined the team bit later.

Mostly , we consult with each other through Outlook and Microsoft Communicator . And it is really surprising to see how these two tools can be used to share information effectively. My Dutch colleagues are really co-operative and respond to all our queries. Its great working with them.

Gerrit and Vincent arrived in Bangalore on 14th June, 2009 (Sunday). The purpose of the visit was to meet Indian colleagues and also go to MV Foundation in Hydrabad and understand the requirements from the user perspective.

For me, it was the first time I would meet the Dutch team face to face . And it was a great experience. Did I mention, that Lieke Rozendal, a student doing research on corporate collaboration from HIVOS also arrived along with Gerrit and Vincent?

Veronica, arranged a small tour of Bangalore for us (Gerrit , Lieke , Vincent , Shivakumar , Animesh and me) on Sunday afternoon. The Idea was to show our guests a bit of Bangalore . We all had a good time, getting to know each other and visiting places. We really had fun. Shivakumar invited us to his house and served us “Upma” and “Chai” (Tea). Gerrit, Vincent and Lieke liked the Indian dish (hopefully) and also got to see a South Indian family . It was a new experience for them.

The next day (Monday), the trio visited Bangalore Logica office. While Gerrit, Vincent, Mary, Animesh and me were busy discussing the technical aspects of the application we are developing, Lieke was taking notes of the corporate environment inside Logica, taking views of the employees for her research.

We all went for lunch around 1:30 PM to cafeteria. The cafeteria was surprisingly crowded, as our Logica Cultural department organised a musical event at the very place. My Dutch colleagues were thrilled to see so many people having lunch at one place. After great difficulty, we got a place to sit and have lunch.

In the evening that day , my Dutch colleagues had to leave for Hyderabad. They left around 4:00 PM. And a big thanks to Lieke for giving us the Dutch Cookies, they were so tasty and I really liked them. Unfortunately I had to share them with Animesh ,Mary and Shivakumar (frankly I didn’t wanted to share).

This whole experience meant a lot to me. Thanks to Veronica , Malti and Jeroen for taking such an initiative. It can be clearly seen, how boundaries and distance can disappear, for one noble cause. I wish and I know such initiatives will be taken more often in Logica. I am sure , Logica will soon become an example to other IT Players to take such initiatives .

Happy working!

Thansk & Regards,
Ashok K Aritakula

Tourist action, shopping & CMS prototype presentation

At this particual moment it’s Monday June 22nd around 22.45. Gerrit and Vincent are waiting at the Radjiv Gandhi Airport at Hyderabad. Our plane leaves at 01.05 to Frankfurt. Lieke will visit Bangalore again tomorrow before leaving India.

As promised, we would tell you about our non working day at Hyderabad. First we went by Riksja to the Charminar (http://7wondersofhyderabad.com/charminar/charminar.html). It’s a very big building with large opening on every side and with a large tower on every corner. Via every tower you can climb to the first floor. In earlier days it was possible to climb to the second and third floor. The guide told us that there’s a mosque on one of those higher floors. Now it’s forbidden to go there. Around the Charminar are a lot of different people. People who want to enter the Charminar for religious purposes, Riksja drivers, children and women with babies begging for money to buy food and young buys who want to sell things like balloons, sunglasses and other things we didn’t need.

Very close to the Charminar there’s a mosque, the Mecca Masjid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca_Masjid). Before entering the terrain we had to get rid of our shoes. In front of the mosque is a big square. When we were crossing the square a man approached us and started talking about the mosque. The man kept telling and telling and slowly more Muslim children started staring at us. Probably they don’t see very often white men and a girl with blond hair. Then only Gerrit and Vincent entered the mosque; Lieke wasn’t allowed. When it’s time to pray for Muslims the mosque has3000 places to pray. And still the man kept telling and telling. When we finished visiting the mosque the man had one more thing to tell: “You owe me money for telling things about the mosque”. It was a little weird, but we gave him some money because he was already getting a little angry.

When we left the big mosque we went across the Charminar to walk through a big Bazaar. A lot of things were sold there: shoes, Indian clothes, ugly jeans and fruit. But also strange things like second hand tooth brushes, fifth hand watches and radio’s that also play cassette tapes.

After having lunch in a very cold (some Indians use the A/C more than needed) restaurant we took the Riksja to visit the Birla temple (http://www.indnav.com/servlet/Browse?mt=goToName&name=Birla+Temple+Hyderabad). It was a beautiful temple on top of a rock hill. The whole temple is made of marble. Here also we had to take of our shoes and leave our bags, cameras and cell phones behind. The whole temple had beautiful creatures of Indian gods, like Ganesha and Shiva. All Indian visitors waited for every statue to worship their god and to pray for themselves, their family and their friends. A very impressive temple, very impressive habits, but also on top of the temple the view over Hyderabad was astonishing.

We still needed some shopping to do for our families, relatives and friends at home. Visiting a shopping mall in Hyderabad is much more different than visiting for example ‘de Bijenkorf’ in Amsterdam. There’s more personnel than customers. And as a West European customer they treat you as if you are an important Royal or as if you are Mr. Obama himself. They tell you they can make a custom made Saree for women or custom made suits in half a day. We also wanted to buy something for the people of MV Foundation. It was hard to decide what we should buy, until the idea came up to buy things for the kids at the schools. We went to the toys department and bought some flying saucer (Frisbees), tennis balls, a chess games and dices.

When we arrived at the MV Foundation office this morning, we noticed that our Logica colleagues in the Netherlands (Geert Jan & Ruud) and in Bangalore (Ashok & Animesh) had been spending a big part of their weekend on working on activities related to the Child Monitoring System (developing, developing, developing). Great to see they wanted to make sure that Gerrit and Vincent could demonstrate as much as possible regarding the Child Monitoring System.
After lunch we went to another office of MV Foundation in Hyderabad, because the MV Foundation people said they wanted to provide us a big meeting room with big screen for the presentation. Wouldn’t that be great! It’s not a meeting room as we have at our Logica offices. The screen is the back side of a big plastic promotion flag. The meeting room itself contains a lot of plastic chairs, an old dining table and a lot of archive boxes. The really great part was that 15 to 20 people attended our presentation, including the most important man of MV Foundation, Mr. Venkat. In total about 1100 are paid MV Foundation employees.

We showed the MV workers the parts of the system that were developed. All of the attendees were very interested and when the demonstration was finished they were discussing a lot and they were questioning several things. A very good part of the demonstration was that they also tried to think with us in the process of developing. They had some extra ideas on the existing parts in the prototype, but they also made suggestions on parts of the system that weren’t concluded initially in the requirements phase. Those ideas came up, after showing the system to the white screen. Showing screens and processes in the systems is making the system alive for the MV Workers. Suddenly they started to understand things. Demonstrating is a much better method than explaining things during discussions without any visual aids. During such a presentation all the attendees are discussing with each other. Also an older woman gave all attendees chai, great cookies, and a little later drinks like very sweet Sprite and Fanta. Such a meeting is not as organized as we’re used to back home. But somehow, at the end, the desired results are achieved. We clarified issues with MV Foundation and we also have a good insight in the wishes that MV Foundation still have, but that weren’t mentioned during the requirement phase.

After finishing our presentation the people started clapping. All together a trip of hard working, but also a week of a lot of impressions and experiences came to an end. That doesn’t mean that the project for developing the Child Monitoring System has come to an end. Still a lot of work needs to be done in several places in the Netherlands and in Chennai and Bangalore in India. We can board our plain soon.
Bye bye Hyderabad, Amsterdam here we come!

Traffic @ Hyderabad

We’ve mentioned it some times before. The traffic in India is much different that the traffic in the Netherlands. A lot of motorbikes, busses without doors, cars, riksja’s and pedestrians. All of those together are in traffic as it is a case of surviving of the fittest. And those vehicles that have a horn, don’t refuse to use the horn at all. It’s like there’s no law that says who goes first. You have to earn it to go first, by taking risks and chances.

Our American colleague at MV Foundation said: “crossing a junction by foot during rush hour is like dodging death”.

Underneath a small impression when we’ve tried to cross a junction by foot during rush hour.

Working at the office of MV Foundation @ Narayan Appartments, West Maredpally, Hyderabad

Today it’s Saturday June 20th. Yes, it’s Saturday. People at MV Foundation tend to work on Saturday. Because we still got a lot of work to do, we thought that it is even very convenient that MV Foundation’s head office is also open on Saturday. The last days, since our visits to several schools and camps we have been spending our days at the head office of MV Foundation.

Lieke was performing interviews for her own project with several people form MV Foundation like Naren, Mahender and Venkat. And Gerrit and Vincent continued with their issues on CMS project: adapting necessary changes in the use cases, adding code, rebuilding the database and helping colleagues in the Netherlands and India with occurred developing issues.

First we want to tell you about a regular day at the MV Foundation head office. The day starts between 10 am and 10.30 am. It depends on the moment the first person arrives with keys of the office. Once the office doors are open everyone drops in after another. The office isn’t as fancy as we’re used to at Logica. MV Foundation has two apartments at the second floor in an apartment complex. Between those two apartments they created an opening, so the head office is actually a huge apartment with in total eight rooms, excluded the kitchen and bathroom. There are no doors in the office, but instead of doors there are some kind of curtains. The furniture also isn’t what we’re used to. If you are very picky on Arbo-things, then you’d better not work at the head office of MV Foundation. There are a lot of cabinets with a lot of paperwork in it. All that paperwork isn’t archived very neat, but somehow all the people know exactly where they kind find a particular document or book. During a regular day about 20 people are working here, man and women. There’s a maid, who cleans the floor, doing the dishes, etc. And there’s also a ‘lilliputter’ who’s tall enough to put our chai next to us on our table. He serves as chai two times a day: in the morning and in the afternoon. The day ends normally at 6 pm. For us it would be better if the working day lasts a little longer. So the last MVF employee standing stays till around 7 pm and then he makes clear that he wants to leave in 10 minutes.
We’ve got the idea that the people here maybe aren’t working as hard as people in the Netherlands normally do, but somehow they have more fun in doing their job compared to the people in the Netherlands. The MVF workers doing their job ‘op z’n elf-een-dertigst’. The people from MV Foundation are very devoted regarding the goals MV Foundation wants to achieve.

The equipment at MV Foundation also isn’t what we’re used to. It’s most likely that our laptops were on top the best computers at the office. There is a wireless internet connection, but it hasn’t that quality and speed that we do have at our Logica offices or at home. Every now and then the wireless connection is gone. Not a big very big problem, except the moments that we’re checking our code in or out. Indian people aren’t materialists. Somehow everyone does have a fancy cell phone. It is said that a cell phone in India is a sort of status symbol.

Now we shall write down some things on how we’re doing our work at the MV Foundation head office and how we’re in contact with our Indian and Dutch colleagues. It’s hard to use our own cell phones, because the rates to make and receive calls are very high. We’re still Dutch, aren’t we? So that’s why we use our Logica-mail, but mostly we use Office Communicator. Actually it’s almost like communication with our project colleagues when we were in the Netherlands. The big difference here is that the internet connection isn’t very stable. Another problem is that in India power cut offs occur every now and then and they are not announced. It’s quite hard to deal with power cut offs especially when you’re battery starts to reaching the 0%. During a power cut off only necessary equipment will be up and running and they use old car batteries for that.

We discuss a lot with the people at MV Foundation. Whenever there’s a question, we can disturb them. When they’re busy they ask for five minutes of our patience. Mostly that will do. Their knowledge of IT isn’t actually what we expected. We were told that they can handle Word and Excel, but it’s hard to explain the things that Gerrit and Vincent are doing. The MVF-people aren’t also that very smart in explaining things regarding to functionalities or facilities regarding the Child Monitoring System. Especially when you start talking in terms like categories, subcategories and relationships between items. Using pen and paper helps a lot, but that still doesn’t make the things fully clear to the MVF people. So it takes a lot of time and patience to clarify things.

The longer we’re here the more we’re running out of time. Especially last Friday we’ve been talking a lot with Ruud en Geert Jan in the Netherlands and with Animesh and Ashok in Bangalore, because we definitely want to show to the people of MV Foundation a solid prototype of the Child Monitoring System. We’ve asked Arvind to pick a time for this Monday to arrange a meeting. He said fifteen to twenty people will attend the presentation of the CMS prototype. After our presentation we can discuss on some topics regarding the Child Monitoring System.
Tomorrow it’s Sunday. The office will be closed, so that creates possibilities for the three of us to exploit some not work related things. Probably we’ll be outside, since the temperature is still outstanding since we got here.

More about our day off and our CMS prototype presentation in one of our next posts.

Visiting the Logica Bridge Camps, by Lieke Rozendal

In our previous post we mentioned that Lieke wasn't with Gerrit and Vincent because she was visiting schools and camps in another district. She also visited a Residual Bridge Camp, founded by Logica. Underneath her story.


Because Vincent and Gerrit were too busy implementing the CMS at the head office of the MV Foundation, I had the privilege to visit the Logica bridge camps in Kurnool District. Mr Baskhar, the District officer, accompanied me on the ten hour ride from Hyderabad. Driving around in India is overwhelming but fascinating. On the highway (where trucks, motorcycles, bikes and cows are also allowed), I had some near death experiences, but somehow the drivers always seem to manage and just miss the upcoming truck by 2 cm’s….. Respect Indian drivers!! Going into the rural areas the landscape changed into a rocky desert like surrounding, in which farmers still try to do some agricultural activities. Men and women working on the field in 42 degrees…. It seems unbelievable for us, but it is daily reality for half of the Indian society.

In the Kurnool district many cotton plantations are located. Passing the fields we saw a few children working and fertilizing the cotton seeds. The plants are only 1 meter high, so it’s very convenient to use children, according to the farmers. Baskhar explained me that the children only earn 20 rupee a day… which is about 30 eurocent, unbelievable isn’t it! Some of them are even contracted, and committed to do the work for a whole season. The parents send the children to the cotton plantation for a few months to do bound child labour. I have read a lot about child labour, but once you see it, it hits you in the face…. this is still part of reality…

After a long and bumpy ride we entered a tiny village, cattle everywhere, small brick houses, and kids running around by seeing the car. A big yellow sign got my attention. We had finally reached the Bridge Camp supported by Logica and Hivos. The kids were very exited by seeing a white tall blond alien like me…. I asked some children what kind of work they did before coming to the bridge camp. Half of the group had been working in agriculture and on cotton seed plantation. Some girls were working in domestic work. “I was a Rickshaw Driver”, said one of the boys, who was about 4 ft tall.….. How bizarre, no wonder the traffic is chaotic in India, if 10 year olds are driving around!

First they were bit shy, but after singing Hoofd, Schouders, Knie en Teen, Knie en Teen…. (a Dutch song which includes a funny dance), they were having a blast and started to show me their classrooms and their excellent skipping skills (touwtje springen). It was so nice to meet the kids and talk to the teachers who are fully committed to get the children back to the right level, so they are ready for the public schools.

Gerrit and Vincent had asked me to hand out some Logica pens and the key cords to the kids and teachers in the camp. Especially the key cords were very popular, the kids loved them and teachers immediately attached their mobile phones to it, and were walking around if they owned the world! After a DOEIDOEI screamed out by 60 happy kids, we went back on the bumpy road, heading back to Hyderabad.

It was very special to visit the Logica Bridge Camps. Once you see it with your own eyes, the work of the MV Foundation really comes alive. It is great that Logica and Hivos are able to support the struggle of the MV Foundation against Child Labour in India, and try to give these wonderful kids a sustainable future!

School camps

At this particular moment it’s Thursday June 18^th and for our idea the evening starts. But in India it’s still during working hours. Like Mark and Geert wrote earlier: the working hours differ from the ones we’re used to.

Last Monday evening we arrived in Hyderabad by plane. In the evening it was still round 30 degrees Celsius. That was already a lot warmer compared to Bangalore. We already knew that Hyderabad was a big city, but we didn’t know that getting from the airport to our hotel would take two hours, just to cross a city (population is more than 7 million) from south to north. Also here the traffic is unbelievable. Traffic all over, all kinds of vehicles and they all are using their horn instead of their lights. Can you imagine the noise?

After our first breakfast (plain white toast and cereals are the only things we dared to eat at the beginning of the day) we went by car to the MV Foundation head office. There we had a great welcome by Naren, Arvind and Mahender. They told us about their vision, their ideas, their history and also about the goals they want to achieve by using the Child Monitoring Systems. What we didn’t know is that they planned a program for us.

In the afternoon Lieke, Gerrit and Vincent were accompanied by Aron, an American Student who is working at MV Foundation, by a fellowship of an American NGO. So we went into the car and the driver drove us to a Residual Bridge Camp (RBC) for girls. That’s a school that’s not actually funded by Logica, but the visit was meant to give us an idea. The RBC is meant to give kids, that had never attend school before, a quick update on their knowledge and skills, so they can fit in a normal class at a normal school with kids of their own age. It’s hard to describe what we’ve seen there. We’ve seen poverty, but we’ve also seen happiness. We spoke to some of the teachers and also they presented us a cup of chai.

The girls attend class in a room without desks, without chairs and without a lot of other things. The same room is also used to sleep in. They sleep on the ground; no bed, no pillow. They also have a small suitcase. In that small suitcase they keep their personal belongings like clothes and things for personal hygiene.

When we were there they also had dinner: warm peas. When they want to play there’s a place in the middle of the buildings. The floor exists of sand and stones. No things like ‘wipkip’, ‘zandbak’ or ‘schommel’. On the other hand: all these girls are happy with all the things they have. Especially a visit from some white skinned Europeans / Americans made their day a very special one. All of them want to be photographed. First they were very shy, but at the end it was hard to reach the car. We also went into a classroom full of kids. Open eyes, curious looks, and a lot of giggling. They sang a song and they had a chance to ask us things and vice versa.

After this amazing day of ‘work’ we went to Arvind’s house. His sisters made dinner for us and we also drank ‘Chai’ (Indian tea with cream and a lot of sugar). The family showed us a great hospitality. After our stomach stuffing dinner we went back to our hotel and drank a beer with our new American friend.

The next morning Lieke was picked up at the hotel to visit some Logica RBC’s. At the moment of writing we cannot give any details on that, because visiting those camps take almost a day to get there by car. So Gerrit and Vincent will see her tonight again. Gerrit and Vincent met Aron at their hotel the same morning.

We first went in to the country side of Hyderabad to visit a public school for girls in a village named Ervaguda. Again it’s hard to describe what the village looks like. A lot of trash and garbage next to the road. Buildings that aren’t finish. No hard road: only sand. But also here the school is not much better and also not much worse than the school we visited a day earlier. We had a meeting with the teachers in that school. We’ve been talking about how they’re monitoring a child right now and how they make sure that MV Foundation gets the right information. It’s great to see that they’re doing it very good, but it’s tough to see with which materials they have to work with. We also had the chance to visit a class with girls. We were standing in line in front of the classroom. They were told who we are, what we do and they were asked “Are these guys from your country?” and “What do want to be when you’re grown up?”, “What do want to ask these men?”. Some kids also presented to us some songs and rhymes. After that we had to sing a song as well. Also in this place the girls were very shy at first, but after that it was as if they were glued to us. For this place in the middle of nowhere it’s very good to see that these girls are studying for their future in a very poor environment.

Once we were in the care we headed to Shankarpally, where one of the mandal (something like a ‘gemeente’) offices is located. At that place we had a meeting with several people working on a daily basis full time at that office. They are working behind some pretty nice computers, but they also work behind computers that we won’t even find at our second hand shops. These men and women are doing a great job. They do it full time with a good spirit and a lot of devotion. During our meeting Gerrit and I found out that they’re not very into our IT-business. It’s hard for them to understand any of our business. Especially when you start talking with terms as ‘filters’ and ‘checkbox’. So we had to take our time and use examples to clarify things with the mandal officers.

Since it was already late for lunch Arvind thought it would be a good idea to go out for lunch. So we went to another RBC almost in the middle of nowhere in a village named Aloor.

MV Foundation Camp, Aloor weergeven op een grotere kaart

This RBC is also for girls. Here we had a great meal with rice, Indian curry, sambal, chapati and some drink that was similar to Greek Yoghurt. Here the environment for the girls was the worst so far. Very hot, almost no trees, since a few months there’s a shower facility (throwing rain water in a bucket over your head). They cook on a brick made place with wood on fire. For us it’s something we only remember from our grandparents stories. Between all those lovely girls there was a young woman with a special story. Her name is Karen, 19 years old and during holiday breaks she’s a volunteer in this camp. When she was a lot younger she was also one of the girls in Aloor’s RBC. Before that she was bonded to domestic work. After a lot of years she started studying and she graduated. She also speaks fluent English.

After this exhausting but great day we went back to Hyderabad. We had some Naan and Paneer Mutter Masala. With that meal we went to bed, because the next day our first whole day at the MV Foundation office would start.

More about that next time.