Journal entry date: November
24, 2003
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On Monday I had the opportunity
to be with the Capacity Building section and attend a meeting
with them. Thanks to Mary Jo Larson (Director- Capacity Building)
for giving me this opportunity. The meeting was to discuss the
methods of documentation of training program. Each person was
then allotted the sessions to be documented. I was also given
a project to work on the sessions of the WIM training program,
which I attended. I was very excited to do this job. I was given
a week's time to finish this.
At CEDPA we had a speaker Marilou Mcphedran from Canada who
co founded women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). As
a lawyer she has worked on National and International Women's
human rights issues. The youngest lawyer ever appointed to the
Order of Canada, Ms McPhedran co led the struggle to retain
independence of women's college hospital, chaired Canada's first
task force on sexual abuse of patients. She was speaking on
women's rights and advocacy.
This week there was a fair where many of the NGO's had participated.
CEDPA also had participated in this. I could meet many NGO's
working on women's issues and know about their work. This fair
was basically conducted to give information about their organization
and also recruit people for vacant positions. It is very popular
here to recruit people at such fairs where you can choose the
organizations and give your resumes. For me this fair was useful
because I could collect information about these organizations
at one place and also inform them about our Bridging World's
program.
I also attended a Naturalization ceremony this week at the court.
This was for Mary's friend who was getting her US citizenship.
All the immigrants who have their green card after waiting for
a period of 5 years can apply for naturalization. This process
involves a lot of paper work before getting a date for this
ceremony. Here you can officially change your name during this
ceremony at no extra cost! After completing the formality of
filing the papers the applicants are given a demonstration about
the proceedings before the Judge arrived. There were 66 participants
who took oath in front of the judge who declared them US citizens.
There was a huge crowd of visitors to witness this event. To
enter this court we had to pass through heavy security and present
our ID cards.
On Saturday my colleague invited me and Mary for lunch at her
house. Some of her friends and her cousin were also there. Then
in the evening we went to Shiva Vishnu temple, which is built
in south Indian style, and I was overjoyed to visit that place.
I felt that I was in the temple at Bangalore because after a
long time I had seen the pooja's being performed and those prayers
chanted. On Sunday I spent time at home.
My internship at CEDPA is coming to an end and I am thankful
to all those who have helped me in learning a lot about Proposal
writing and other skills, which I can use at my work back in
my organization. During this internship I had the opportunity
of meeting many people from different countries during the WIM
program and made new friends. It was a wonderful experience
working at CEDPA with so many people.
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Journal entry date: November
17, 2003
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This week has flown by so fast
and was a very busy week too! I had been working on documenting
certain records at CEDPA. It is very interesting to see that
records are maintained for every meeting. Even though the work
is tedious it is a very useful source of information. It is
very common here to see people changing their jobs. Every other
day there is a new person joining or quitting and hence documenting
records becomes very important for the organization so that
new person always knows what events happened previously.
This week I had a chance to brush up my knowledge about the
Foundation center training which I attended in the first few
days of my internship as some of the WIM participants wanted
to know about this and Lisa wanted me to teach them about the
Foundation center search. So it was good that I could share
my knowledge with them.
We had a speaker from Pakistan this week, Dr Shershah Syed who
spoke about health implications of violence against women in
Pakistan .Dr Shershah Syed is an activist , Obstetrician, and
journalist working as Professor at DOW medical college and as
chief of Qatar Hospital in Karachi. He is leading an effort
to end violence against women in Pakistan.
CEDPA had hosted a farewell party for Peggy Curlin (former President
and CEO).There was a big crowd and I had a chance to speak to
many people there about our Bridging World program and about
GOWA. I noticed that in DC the dress colour for a party is Black
and almost everybody was wearing black outfits where as in India
it is just the opposite, for a party everybody wears colourful
outfits other than black.At the party I also met Barbara Pillsburry
(Advisor Jagriti International), Ann Louis (my host Mary's sister)
and Karen Mulhauser (Sadiqa's host).
This week the WIM participants graduation ceremony was held
and the staff also participated in that function. We saw a slide
show about the whole WIM program . Mary's sister Ann Louis stayed
with us for a day and all of us went out for dinner to a Lebanese
restaurant.
On the weekend myself and Mary went out for a movie and later
went shopping. Then we went to Borders (Where Mary works) to
pick up books which she had selected as Christmas gifts for
her nieces and nephews .
On Sunday I visited one of GOWA members Maureen O Shaughnessy
and her husband Sudhir and had dinner with them. They have 2
children and their daughter Tara who is just 2 1/2 years old
is very talkative and was busy showing her artwork and her toys.
And back to work today!
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Journal entry date: November
3, 2003
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I continued working on Bilateral
agreements, on the project given to me by Rose Amolo. I had
the deadline to complete in 2 weeks. This project has given
me an opportunity to read through each proposal in detail and
know more about the different training activities conducted
during the project. I have been summarizing the activities and
putting them in points so that its easy for reading the activities
of proposal at a glance.
The training programs for the project in the proposal shows
in detail about how many persons will be trained and in how
many days and what topics will be covered. Its really very interesting
to know the depth in which the proposals are written.
This week we had an International Night in CEDPA training room
where all the WIM participants and staff had gathered for a
cultural program. Here the new CEO of CEDPA Yolanda Richardson
gave a speech and it was very interesting to see a young person
to hold such a high prestigious post. She is very dynamic and
motivating person.
On the Halloween day the kids of employees of CEDPA had come
to office For the trick or treat . They were all dressed up
in different cute costumes. All of us had brought some candies
and snacks for these kids. CEDPA has a day care center where
all these children of staff of CEDPA stay during working hours.
This week the weather had been too cold and chill. I was not
keeping good health and was having high fever which slowed down
my pace of work. The weekend I spent at home relaxing and hoping
for the weather to be better next week.
The plans for next week is to attend sessions on Financial management
and resource mapping and various revenue generating options.
These sessions are conducted during the WIM program and it will
be very useful for me and my organization.
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Journal entry date: October
26, 2003
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On Monday I was introduced
to Rose Amolo who is Advisor for Africa who wanted me to help
her in a project for Africa. I was given stacks of proposals
for different titles like the Reproductive health, HIV/AIDS
etc and I have been asked to read through each proposal and
summarize their activities into points along with proposal dates
,title, and awarded amount. Each proposal is about 30 pages.
Later I have to prepare a feedback questionnaire for these proposals.
I have been given a deadline for 2 weeks but I should be finishing
it much earlier. The proposals I am working on are Bilateral
Cooperative agreements.
The proposals written here are so very elaborate with each and
every detail of the project being mentioned. The strategies
and the activities and what trainings are conducted are mentioned
in detail. This particular assignment has helped me a lot to
go in depth of the proposal.
Lisa wanted certain companies in Lagos which were working on
similar lines as CEDPA and she wanted the research work to be
done by that evening so I helped her out in research work and
gave her those reports by evening.
In the evening Sadiqa wanted to go to buy certain things for
Ramazan and Mary had told her that she can take her to the shops
which are closer to our place. So I picked up Sadiqa at the
Metro station and we went to our house. I showed her my room.
Mary was waiting for us so we left for the shop. Sadiqa got
almost everything she wanted and then we drove to an Afghan
restaurant where we had dinner. The food was very delicious.
We are grateful to Mary again for taking us out and treating
us.
On Thursday we were making all documents ready for the training
class on Friday in West Virginia for the WIM participants. Jodie
Riesenberger who is Advisor Grants Development was driving to
West Virginia for conducting the program and it was very kind
of her to take me along with Jenni Pompi to West Virginia. So
Friday morning all three of us left at about 6.30 am from CEDPA
office. It was about two hour drive from here. The place where
the session was held is known as CoopTop in Berkley springs.
The session was very useful to me as it was about proposal development.
This was the first time I had the opportunity to work in a group
and write down goals, and objectives of a proposal. I was very
happy that I could attend the session and have practical experience
about proposal development. The same evening we left that place
and drove back to DC. It was a lovely drive along the hills
and the changing colors of the leaves were very fascinating.
I thank Jodie for giving me such a wonderful opportunity to
be able to attend the session in West Virginia without her help
I would have missed this opportunity.
It was Diwali Festival. The festival of lights and crackers.
Guess what!! I found out that one of my second cousin Anuradha
stays here in Virginia and she invited me for Diwali party .Thanks
to Asha my cousin back in Bangalore who linked us together at
the right time! A lot of people from Bangalore had come there
and I was feeling that I am celebrating Diwali in Bangalore.
We burst firecrackers and lit a lot of lamps decorating the
whole house.Of course there were a lot of Indian food and sweets.
Mary and Muna had also joined me for the party.They enjoyed
the party and were fascinated by colorful sarees of Indian women.I
tried to call Sadiqa but she was not available and also was
not sure whether Ramazan will start on Saturday or Sunday as
she has to fast.
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Journal entry date: October
20, 2003
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This week Mary von's cousin
Ted stayed with us for 2 days. Mary took us out for dinner to
an Indian restaurant and during our conversation I got an interesting
information about an association called DAR (Daughters of American
Revolution) which is for women. The women here submit certain
details about their ancestors (like who their grandmother or
great grand parents were) and some research is done on it and
when women come to know that their ancestors were a part of
the revolutionary war they are proud to be part of the association.
The participants for Women in Management (WIM) had arrived and
it was the official welcome by Peggy Curlin and later the introduction
of the CEDPA staff to the WIM participants. We had a 2 minute
elevator speech before the WIM participants!! There are 16 participants
from 12 countries. There are 2 from Afghanistan, 1- Bangaladesh,1-China,2-Egypt,
1-Ethiopia, 1- Ghana, 1- Guatemala , 2- India, 2- Nigeria, 1-
South Africa, 1-Tanzania and 1 from Uganda.
It is such a wonderful experience to meet so many people from
different countries and I am very grateful to Jagriti International
for giving me an opportunity to be at CEDPA at this time when
there are so many people coming from different countries to
attend Women in Management program. It is such a great opportunity
for me to meet people of different countries and know about
their culture. Many of the participants were curious about the
significance of wearing a bindi and they love the Indian dresses
and their colors.
The Chinese woman is Jin Wei who is a professor of sociology
and program coordinator at the Institute of Social Development
research in Beijing.
The Afghanistan women are Marina Hamidzada who is a gender officer
with the UNHCR and Dr Wamta Shams who is a physician and training
coordinator for Population Services International (PSI) Afghanistan.
The Indian women are Savitri Sharma who is from north India
from Find Your Feet. They are working in Uttaranchal and also
in Nilgiris of Tamilnadu. Vijayalakshmi Nadendla is the District
Collector and Magistrate of Government of India (Nawada). Nigeria
is represented by Ozue Mabel Aleke who is the president of Federated
Ebonyi Women Association and Ms Olachi Chuks -Ronnie is the
Deputy Country Director and the PACE project director for CEDPA.
I have attended a few sessions of WIM program , which included
Leaders as Change Agents, Mobilizing communities for change
and Safe motherhood. Most of the slides for the Safe Motherhood
were programs conducted in Delhi and Agra in India.
I am also working on a project for researching for fundraisers
in Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand and Uttaranchal for CEDPA and this
will help me to do research in depth for companies in India.
There was a Happy hour evening for WIM participants and I had
asked Sadiqa also to join so that she could meet the Afghanistan
women and she was overjoyed as she could finally speak to someone
in her local language.
Mary von is usually very busy and she comes back home pretty
late due to her work at the stores and also because of her tours
as she is a professional tour guide. This week it was nice to
see her back home early and have dinner together. She loves
Indian food and the Rava dosa with onions, which I prepare.
This weekend she was free and she offered me, Sadiqa and Muna
to drive us out in DC. We visited the Textile Museum were we
saw the quilts from different countries. Then we visited the
Greek festival where there were exhibits from different parts
of the country and food stalls. We also visited the National
Cathedral, which is really such a unique place with all its
carvings on the pillars and the coloured painted glasses on
the top. We were very lucky to have Mary with us as she explained
to us the details about the Cathedral as she is a professional
guide otherwise we would have missed the history behind the
Cathedral.
Next day Mary was so kind to pick up Muna and Sadiqa in the
early morning of Sunday and we all got a lift to White house
Gallery. It was so special because only twice a year public
is allowed inside the premises of White House and we had to
get tickets in the morning to see the tour by noon. We saw the
oval office and the garden with lots of trees planted by previous
Presidents and their families. We also saw the handprints of
the children of the Presidents of USA in the children's garden.
Then we saw the Army band playing their melodious instruments
.We also had the opportunity to see the chefs of white house
showing their skills and the florists with their flower arrangements
in the White House for different occasions.
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Journal entry date: October
13, 2003
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I spent some time with Communications
department and spoke to ER manager Annmarie Leadman who explained
to me about her work like coordinating with web designers, the
press release, with directors, with other organizations and
the staff. Then Marilou explained to me about how their web
designer had designed a page for the photo gallery with a particular
event, name , number and from which country. Right now she is
working with some of the Indian pictures and I help her with
some Hindi translations and what the women are doing.
Met Bulbul Sood who is working with CEDPA India and is from
Delhi. She is here for a week. Attended a meeting on strategy
planning for India for a new project of CEDPA in Haryana. Bulbul
Sood , Lisa Daughtry Weiss (Advisor Special Gifts),Kathy Evans
(Advisor Grants Development) Jodie Riesenberger (Advisor Grants
Development) and Marie Clark (Senior Advisor Grants Development)
were present at the meeting. I have been researching on Indian
funders and this meeting helped me in which funders I should
look for in a particular field.
It was a special "Namaste" party for Marta Levitt Dayal who
was working as Country Director for CEDPA India team for 5 years
and now will be moving to Zambia to work for USAID as Multi
Sectoral HIV/AIDS team leader for USAID mission. She will continue
to be CEDPA employee. She was mentioning to me that we can start
a project in Bangalore to fight AIDS .
Then it was surprise birthday party for Sadiqa at Karens house.
Karen and I had planned that I will take Sadiqa out for shopping
and then bring her home for the surprise party.
Ana Rohana and Andrea from Women's Edge and Saika were there
to give her a surprise.Karen had made a Raspberry cake.Then
we went to Mali sale where there was huge rush for Mali crafts.
There were drums baskets, antique pieces, wall hangings etc.
On sunday I visited the Art museum with Muna (Nepali intern).
I called Sadiqa but she was busy. We saw the modern art of Picasso
and also other arts .The collection of paintings are wonderfull.We
also visited the old town near the Potomic river.
Columbus Day was a holiday and I spent the whole day at home
.
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Journal entry date: October
8, 2003
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I saw the website of Jagriti and it looks
so wonderful with all the pictures. All the pictures have come
out well.
I am doing fine here. This week i was helping the CEDPA staff
in writing some addresses for invitations to donors for the
farewell party of the president Peggy Curlin which is going
to be in 1st week of November. The new person Yolonda will be
arriving in the last week of October.
All preparations are going on for the Women in Management program
starting next week. I am eagerly looking forward to take part
in it and meet all the participants from different countries.
I met Ms Bulbul from CEDPA India yesterday and it was nice talking
to her. She is from Delhi. She is going to South Africa for
another project shortly.
I met Barbara last weekend and she is a wonderful person. She
might come back in November.
Sadiqa is feeling much better from her allergies and we met
each other on sunday.
I hope all the other emerging leaders are fine and i havent
heard about them at all. I hope to receive their reports too.
Take care
Pushpa
| Journal entry date: October
5, 2003 |
Report from 22nd Sept to 5th October
Mary von Breises (my host) dropped me to the CEDPA office
in DC on my first day . Later Lisa Daughtry Weiss who
is my mentor and is Advisor Special Gifts at CEDPA greeted
me and I was introduced to other staff members.It was
the orientation program and I was told about the various
systems I will be using like ID card for entering the
office, code numbers for phone, computers etc. Lisa is
a young talented and a wonderful person who is ready to
help out always. I had the opportunity to look into the
various brochures of CEDPA and the website to have a glimpse
of what work CEDPA is doing. Evening I had to get back
by metro train all by myself in a city where I had just
arrived . But my colleagues Lisa and Mary Lu helped me
out with a map and how I could get back home!
As Lisa knew my interest in Fund raising she adviced me
to attend a few lectures on Basics of Fund raising which
was conducted at the Foundation center in DC.The sessions
were very interesting and it was mainly about the US organizations
but I could get the basic idea about Fund raising.I also
came to know about the Foundation search center where
we could find about the list of funders.It will be of
great help to me and my organisation in Bangalore to know
about the Funders.
There is another person Muna from Nepal who is doing her
internship at CEDPA in Fund raising. She has been here
for a month . Lisa introduced me to her husband Dann who
is a Guitarist and we went out for dinner to a Thai restaurant.
On the weekend Mary von took me out on a driving tour
from Virginia to DC. There are many museums ,theatres,
Chinese street Universities and she also showed me the
place where Lincoln died. So there are a lot of places
to see in DC.
I met Nitika who is Lisa 's friend and who is from Bangalore.
She was studying together with Lisa at Syracuse University.
Nitika then introduced to her Landlady who is working
with the Army.
Had a chance to see some of the details about the donors
of CEDPA.There are individual donors, foundations and
some are Bilateral donors. Then I started searching through
the foundation center the various funders where CEDPA
is working. Researching takes a lot of time where I get
a chance to read through the websites of various organizations.
I met Peggy Curlin who is retiring from the post of President
after 25 years. She is such a great person , she comes
and talks to every staff member daily and it is such a
wonderful experience when senior person comes and talks
to you at your desk. She is leaving office in the first
week of November.
I had a chance to meet Barbara Pillsburry who is on the
Board of Jagriti and also a good friend of Mary von. We
had dinner together and we were talking about her recent
China visit and about how Michele had dreamt about influencing
people's life by bridging the gap and today her dream
has come true with all the emerging leaders from different
countries have come together and I am proud to be a part
of this team.
I met Sadiqa who had come along with her friend Eleanor
and Jack (Eleanor's Husband) to pick me up. We went to
their place and spent some time with their daughter Veronica.
Later she took us to a shop called Sangha where all the
arts and crafts were displayed from different countries.
The owner of the shop was Jennifer.Later we went to watch
a soccer game in which veronica was participating .Then
we went to Karen's house with whom Sadiqa is staying and
met her. She is a very nice person.Then I got back home
by metro. |
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