Ten of the 25 Periclean Scholars from the Class of 2012 traveled to India this Winter Term to execute projects planned throughout fall semester. The first of these projects was the creation of a training video that will instruct volunteer groups on how to quickly build housing in slum areas.
“The video allows cost saving in terms of labor,” said Martin Kamela, the adviser for the Class of 2012. “It is an income generation scheme for families in the area who will be experts at building houses. Groups like ours can plug in and raise funds for materials, and foreign groups could look at the video that we created and they could then fund and build a house.”
Some of the other scholars worked on the Corporate Social Responsibility Summit. The class invited 20 companies, 80 non- profit organizations and influential individuals, all from India, to come to the summit. Individual meetings were set up between a company and a non- profit organization, and workshops were also held where larger numbers were represented.
The students also went to a farm in the Indian countryside to help with chores and mingle with the women who worked there.
“Although it was not a specific project with a tangible outcome, I got the most out of the farm project because of the connections with the women,” said senior Aisha Mitchell. “The farm rehabilitates women who have AIDS. I learned so much being there, more than you can ever learn from books. The women were amazing.”
Another ongoing project the group is working on is a documentary about conditions in India. Senior Jack Dodson said they got lucky in several situations, as they were allowed to get footage at times they did not think it would be possible.
“Partly because we are students and partly because we are a small group, we got to go into the government hospital and talk to them,” Dodson said. “We got information on everything from general hospital work to seeing how crowded it was. There were people camped out.”
Thomas Arcaro, program director for Periclean Scholars, said although the students may feel like they got lucky, the success of the trip was due to their planning.
“To someone who doesn’t know a lot about the project, their question is ‘how did you do that?’ The answer is three years, a lot of work and a lot of emails,” he said. “I am a firm believer that things happen when you are prepared. Luck does happen, but you made the luck for yourself. You did a lot of ground work and you made things happen.”