a special summer

i am working for Grameen Koota this summer. Grameen Koota is a microfinance institution (the world's 4th best in fact) based in Bangalore, India, and which offers micro credit to nearly 500,000 women and therefore, households, in the southern state of Karnataka. i had taken a class in developmental economics last fall and it got me fascinated about the concept of microfinance and how it unleashes new opportunities for the world's poorest entrepreneurs and revitalises the village economies they serve. i wanted to go to India and see for myself if this new wave of social capitalism was actually working and to see if it was lifting the rural poor out of poverty and enabling them to change their lives through profitable investments. i also thought it would be a great last use of my economics degree before i dived into my medical studies.

although i did expect to have a wonderful time, i did not for once think that i would be able to change the lives of half a million families (~2 million people!) because i was a mere intern. boy was i wrong! grameen koota started the department of New Initiatives so as to offer non-financial products to their clients thereby improving their social status as well as their economic status. within this department, i have been identified as the 'health care expert' because of the few public health classes that i have taken and the fact that i am planning to be a doctor, even though i am not even close to being one yet and can hardly find my own pulse. i have been tasked with coming up with a sustainable healthcare model for GK's clients. in other words, i am responsible for making sure that 2 million impoverished citizens receive some form of basic health care. when first notified of my role, i was flabbergasted. to be honest, i seem to be a little under-qualified; i only hold a high-school diploma! was GK really going to entrust me with this job? were they sure they knew what they were doing?

i am ecstatic that they have so much faith in my ability (either that or they want to be cheap and get an intern to do a pro's job). the past few weeks have been challenging, intellectually stimulating, and extremely insightful. the role i play involves a synergy of all my educational pursuits: economics, public health, and medicine. it is quite literally what i have always wanted to do with my life. i want to apply myself with pure dedication to the principle that healthcare has always been and should always be a basic constitutional right. healthcare is not a consumer good that should be subject to traditional market forces, leaving it beyond the reach of millions who do not have a high enough willingness- no scratch that, ability- to pay. with this passion fueling me, i set about this seemingly herculean task. in line with stephen covey's 5th habit, i have spent the first few weeks understanding the situation, and now i would like to spend the next few weeks seeking to be understood as i come up with a healthcare model that should have been put in place more than some time ago.

the past 3 weeks have been quite a journey. you can claim to know about poverty sitting on a plush couch in the great cities of America but you will only know poverty when you travel to the rural reaches of India. i have learnt so much and seen so much that sometimes it leads me to wonder- can i do so much? but the very sight of these people who are no less human than you and i but on whom fate has played a very cruel trick ignites in me a burning desire to change their lives. i have told myself that i will do the very best i can for them, no less than they deserve, and that in my 6 weeks here i will have hopefully changed their lives and touched their hearts as they have touched mine,