Field Placement

Kerala’s social work is focused in community work. As a student, you can have all the experience you need working at a macro level. You could potentially work in the clinical setting but you would need to speak the language or use an interpreter.  I am not very interested in clinical work, so I was paced at an organization called “Outreach”. This organization manages a number of programs with all segments of the population. We traveled to the south of Kerala to visit a few of the projects they are in charged of. Kerala is a communist state and as such it operates in a different way from other states. I first noticed it was communist when I saw the ever present communist flags and a myriad pictures of Ernesto "el Ché" Guevara all over Kerala.  They have three different levels of government and the basic level of government is called "panchayat". We visited the president of one of the poorest panchayats to discussed a project that involved  building a road that will provide access to an isolated segment of the population. Then, we visited another project that will help women of lower socioeconomic status work as seamstresses. It was interesting to learn that in order to carry out any project they have to make the project as environmentally friendly as possible. This is the main feature of Kerala, their constant attempt to maintain the environment. No wonder why is so green compared to all other states of India, they try hard not to impact the environment in any bad way.

The last visit of that week was to the mobile clinic for migrant workers. Kerala is to India as the United States is for the Americas (or maybe the world?), people from other parts of the country migrate to Kerala searching for work and higher wages. Just as it happens in the United States the immigrant population is very vulnerable, does not speak the local language and they often leave their family behind. The project seeks to prevent communicable diseases like HIV. Migrant workers, are mostly uneducated and don’t speak Malayalam, and although Hindi is the Government's official language, they might not speak it either. They work mainly in construction and high risk type of jobs. It really resembles the US undocumented immigrant population. The only difference perhaps is that in India, you are entitled to the equivalent of social security services. It is your right as an Indian citizen to have  health benefits at a very low cost. Heck, even as a foreigner you can have healthcare services for a minimal fraction of what you need to pay in the US! I had to have some tests done and I paid nearly $100 for a battery of tests that would have cost me approximately $3000 in the US.

After visiting these projects my heart was set on the migrant workers project. I saw so many parallels to our immigrants in the US that I was looking forward to learn from what they are doing here. However, my supervisor asked us to develop a career awareness program for school children. Two other students and I set out to do research and create the program. It was a fantastic experience for me, it forced me to think of all the phases of program development and it allowed me to practice my program and project management skills. I was very thankful for my certification in project management as I realized that, along with the skills earned in a master in business administration, those are very relevant skills for a social worker, and basically any professional, to have.

We delved into all sorts of child development theories and unearthed all sorts of activities for children aimed to unveil children’s innate abilities and hone the skills they are more attuned with. We contemplated the inclusion of parents in our model too. We wrote a paper and then submitted to the directives of the Outreach organization. Thankfully they were pleased with our proposed program, they want us to train undergrad students so that they can implement the project with our guidance. Without the language we have to rely on these students.

Speaking of language, it has been very hard for me to be an illiterate interpreter. Being bilingual and bi-cultural I feel out of sorts in India. I can’t speak enough Malayalam and it has been hard for me to be disciplined about learning it. To begin, I have no TV which is indispensable in the process of learning another language; second, everyone around me speaks English. You can only learn a language if you hear it all the time and try to speak it all the time. This , unfortunately is not the case. One of the undergrad students was kind enough to come to my house for a class. She taught me all the vowels and consonants, which are about 56, I realize it was a big challenge for anybody to learn Malayalam. My ear is not refined enough to distinguish all the sounds. There are many variations of the sounds you make with your tongue for instance. We could say there are like three different letters that sound like R. My heart sank when I was trying to imitate the sounds that they made and was told over and over that I didn’t have the sound. Sometime, by pure chance I made the right sound but, a few seconds later, it was gone again.  By now I can recognize short phrases here and there but nothing that would allow me to be at a bar chatting with a stranger.  Well nothing could really allow me to be at a bar chatting with a stranger anyways because there are really no bars in Kerala. Yup, no free distribution or consumption of alcohol. There are "beer and wine" parlors where the selection of beers is 2 or 3 varieties and there is just one selection of red or white wine. For any wine lover this is not The State to be in, and perhaps not even the country to enjoy wine.  The parlors open only until 9:30 PM. In other words, as beautiful as Kerala is, it can be pretty boring if you are into partying.  

Lack of alcohol made me feel a little bad for all the people that might find some relief in this vice. In Kerala, you can’t really drawn your sorrows like any other human being in the western world. You can’t numb your pain mindlessly with alcohol. You simply have to endure your traumas and sorrows while dry as a bone. 

Field placement occurs in three phases. The first phase happens during the month of July, the second phase happens during the months of august and September when you take classes with everyone else and finally, during the month of October you go back to field placement.  This does not mean that you are not in field all the time. Being new to the culture you really are at field placement since you land in India until you leave.  You are learning all the time.