In the news....

I had a weird and interesting day today. I went to my field placement and we visited a work site, as we normally do, but this time something was different. This time migrant workers were extremely hesitant and would not co-operate with us. They were very suspicious, argumentative, and resisted any explanation that we were just there to inform them about AIDS and gather information for data purposes. This has never happened quite like this before. They are usually hesitant of us yes, but outwardly argumentative, never. Something was in the air.
Later on I found out that I can only send 5 text messages per day for the next, oh I don't know, 10 days or so as per the India Government. What the heck is going on today?
Well I found out. Political unrest in the northeast. Apparently the migrants at my work site were scared we were going to take their information and give it to people, people who would attack them. Violent threats have been rumoring around the media about attacks on the people of Assam, a northeastern state in India. Because of this, the people of Assam have been fleeing and have been on edge, including the ones all the way down south, in Kerala, where I am. Right now, I'm probably in one of the safest places to be. Most of the political protests and riots happen in the northern cities. I really have little insight as to what is going on politically, but there seems to be some tension with Pakistani ans (nothing new here) and a bunch of fighting between political parties. So here is a news story I came across that explains a little bit about what's going on and the history of tension in India.

Cultural Unrest

While looking up news about this cultural unrest, I also found this great article about the situation for women in India. This article does an amazing job of capturing the heart of how the culture contributes to women's  inequality. It gives a better view for those of you not in India about what I'm facing here.

No Country for Young Women

My Field Placement

So, for those of you who may think I'm just on vacation, I'm going to provide some proof that I'm actually working. I mentioned earlier that my field placement was at a Migrant Outreach program to help provide awareness, education and resources regarding HIV/AIDs. Basically, the focus of the project is reduce the the spread of HIV/AIDS by narrowing the focus to a high-risk population, migrant workers.

So, to do this, my program is divided into specific regions and each location goes out into their community and asks companies with migrant workers to agree to hold a medical camp at their work-site. If the company agrees then our program will set up a medical camp every 90 days at the work-site.

The medical camps allow migrant workers to see a doctor on-site and obtain any needed medications immediately. Although the medications are limited of course. Our staff will set up a table, usually in the middle of the work-site and workers may come up to the table and sign up to see the doctor. We register each worker and gather some basic demographic information so that information can be included in data analysis. Me and the other interns have been doing the registering of the migrants and have had to learn some Hindi to do it. None of the migrants speak English and because they are from different states, they know mostly Hindi. So I've been practicing my Hindi and although I still need a lot of practice, I can now communicate with some of the migrants on my own, limitedly of course.

Me attempting to speak Hindi to the workers

Outreach workers registering Migrant workers  to see the doctor.

Also, while we are visiting each work-site, we may also conduct an HIV/AIDs awareness class as well as an educational video. This is all dependent upon what each company will allow to have at their work-site. Some companies may not allow an HIV/AIDs class to be taught. Condoms may also be given out at each work-site depending on whether the company permits it or not. Even if a company does not allow a class to be taught, there is still counseling provided to each individual before they see the doctor. This counseling involves asking specific questions to determine the HIV/AIDS risk level of each migrant. If the counselor determines that the migrant is a high-risk, they will refer them to an ICTC center, where free HIV testing is provided.

Our Counselor teaching a HIV/AIDs awareness class

So far I think my internship is going well. It is great that my colleagues allow and encourage us interns to do hands-on work. It is sort of expected that we won't be doing much actual work here because of the language barrier, but so far I'm pretty happy with the amount of actual work I seem to be doing. I'm also working on gathering data from a questionairre that me and the other UMB students made. The questionairre is a survey we give to some of  the migrants about their knowledge of HIV/AIDs, their behaviors, etc. I will basically be conducting a whole research study from scratch, which will be great experience.



 Anyway, I apologize for the delay in posts. Hopefully my next post will come sooner and feel free to throw out suggestions! Now that classes are in full swing I feel my creative juices are waning...