Work, holiday, rat.

During the first week we were working very hard to understand every little detail of the wadi’s operation. It’s clear now, the wadi is not a simple plant and vegetable orchard, but a complex system to increase the livelihood of local farmers. (It can also include goat breeding.) Though we cannot give professional advice, we still need to understand the basics to decide whether the model is sustainable. In the past two weeks I learned a lot about crops, pruning, drip irrigation systems, tube wells, goat units, inbreeding, sowing and grafting – all new words in my vocabulary of course.

After spending a lot of time with BAIF team, we realized that they have a lot of professionals – they have experts in agriculture, animal husbandry, and soil – but they seem to lack the essential project management knowledge to make their wadi-program successful. So by the end of the assignment our team is going to provide a project governance framework to them, with all related documentations that could help the BAIF team to track their progress. Tessa and me are responsible for coming up with templates and follow-up tools. Also we are working on a revised roadmap for them, which is more realistic then the existing one, and Luiz is creating a Return on Investment model, to make it easier for farmers to get fundings from financial institutions in the future. Personally I’m learning a lot, especially from Tessa, who is a fantastic project manager.

– Anna, Luiz, Sebastian, Tessa – Team BAIF; and our dear Kabi from NGO Pyxera Global (Tessa’s picture)

On Monday we visited the local Agriculture Science Institute (KVK), and the Department of Agriculture to see if there is any overlap in responsibilities between these organizations and BAIF. Unfortunately I cannot recall the last twenty minutes of the KVK conversation, because this is when I realized that there is a rat in the room. I kind of saw a moving shadow earlier too, but this was the moment: there it was with its long tail, the subject of all my nighmares, jumping from the window to the desk, and back to the window, seemingly having fun. I stopped breathing, like it was a solution, and jumped to the closest spot to the door. Instead of BAIF’s exit strategy I was only thinking of mine. (The huge lizard that I saw in the toilet afterwards seemed to be a pet after this.)

In our free time we try to see and do as much as possible. Last weekend we went to Jaisalmer, to do what a tourist needs to do: fort-visit, camel-ride, jeep safari:

Enjoying the desert 🙂 (Luiz’s picture)

Anna & Ruben & Lucky (Ruben’s pic)

on the way to Jaisalmer.. (Tessa’s picture)

In Jaisalmer’s fort, bazaar everywhere.

Diwali, one of the biggest feasts in India was last week. This meant, that all our clients disappeared from Barmer, so we had time to consolidate all the information that we collected on the first week. Also, we had a chance to spend a long-weekend in the city of lakes: Udaipur.

ps.: (Viki,) I know I’m terrible in blog writing, I try to be more active in the last weeks..

Oh, and yesterday a mouse came in to the office. I’ve never jumped up to a chair this quickly

The Economic Times of India on Corporate Social Responsibility and IBM team

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/corporate-dossier/want-to-be-a-leader-learn-to-become-one-through-csr-activities/articleshow/44836875.cms?intenttarget=no

The week in pictures

Arriving to the BAIF office. On the left is our customer, Dr Dubey, the Project manager of the wadi-program.

The gate of the office.

Wadi-owners’ meeting. The forum to exchange ideas, and receive the latest updates of the program.

Cairn India’s (sponsor) Project manager speaks to the farmers.

In the middle of a wadi. Interview with the farmer.

My favourite..

In the center of attention – always.

Kick-off meeting with the Client

A few days already went by without me writing anything. My excuse is the lack of internet connection, but the real cause is that I’m afraid I cannot put into words what I see and experience. So far: I just love it here.
Hotel Kailash is an amazing oasis in the middle of the desert. Literally, with its beautiful pool.
We spent most of the weekend settling down, packing out and getting to know each other in the team.

But today the actual work started, we had the kickoff meeting with our customers. From IBM’s side there are 9 people here (the India 24 Team), all of us with different cultural and professional backgrounds. We are working on three projects, but I sum up only ours at this point. At least I try, as we are still at an early phase.

The BAIF team:
The BAIF team consists of the four of us: Tessa from New York has been with IBM for 15 years, and is a certified senior project manager. Luiz from Rio is going to be our financial expert, while Sebastian from Australia has consulting background. And there is me. Until this point, I used mostly my listening skills, what I picked up during my life and mastered in the journalist school.

The project:
BAIF is a non-profit organization which is famous for creating the so-called wadi-program in developing areas of India (wadi=orchard). By introducing the wadis with its new plants and crops, the local farmers can get access to additional livelihood. The funding which covers the program comes from Cairn India and – obviously – has to stop at one point. By that day the farmers of Barmer should be able to sustain their wadis themselves. Though the program started over a year ago, and there are several families that already have wadis, they seem to be very far from the mentioned self-sustainability.
Tomorrow we continue the discussion that we started today: with the help of a local farmer and two project managers from BAIF, we try to make clear what are the root of the issues farmers face here, aside from the most obvious one: there is just not enough rainfall in Barmer.

So tomorrow is going to be the first day at BAIF office, then for the rest of the week, we plan to visit some of the farmers of Barmer to gather as much information as possible right in the beginning..

ps.: food is great, but I shall not try that beer again..