I joined CSR as an intern in January 2004 and have been working in the research department for a little over one month. My educational background is Social Sciences, specifically Politics but with a little bit of Development Studies and Economics, in addition to French. I spent some time studying in France and really enjoyed the opportunity to meet people from many different countries and to experience life in France for a while. This spurred my decision to search for work experience abroad after my degree had finished. Through AIESEC I was able to find this internship at CSR, which I felt was an appropriate continuation from my studies and a great opportunity to see how development works first-hand.

The current research project at CSR is a mid-term evaluation of a development programme, which has been implemented in 10 villages in Jammu to help the women and children in the communities there. The programme aims to improve health and education, and to help income generation and empowerment of women. The data has recently been collected and I will be helping to collate this and draw up the report. There are two similar projects to be carried out further into the year and I hope to be able to become more actively involved in the preliminary proposal and fieldwork stages.

In addition to helping the research team on their current projects, I am doing some independent research on the topic of Gender and Democracy with the guidance of Dr. Ranjana Kumari, CSR’s director. Even just one month at CSR (and in India itself) has been enough to show me how important this issue is and how many countries are affected by gender inequalities at the governance level. I have already learnt quite a lot about the subject, but the more I learn, the more I realise how much there is left to understand. I recently attended a conference partly organised by CSR, where I listened to many speakers on the subject of democracy and specifically a session on Gender and Democracy. This was the first time I had attended such a conference and I hope that my internship at CSR will provide me with more opportunities such as this, as it was encouraging to be in the presence of so many people who were so passionate and so knowledgeable about the topic.

My internship is not just about research, I have the opportunity to see how different departments at CSR work too. All of the interns here have been invited to attend the street plays organised by the Gender Training Institute and visit the counselling centres in the local communities in Delhi. It was an amazing experience to see such a different side of the city and to interact with the kids and the workers in the counselling centres. One of the main reasons for me coming to do an internship in India was to be able to experience a different culture to that of my own, through living and working within the community. Just living in Delhi, it can be easy to be blind to some of the things that are parallel to your life here. CSR is helping me to explore other aspects of the city and I hope that during my year here, I will be able to visit some of CSR’s centres outside of Delhi and see how the organisation works to better people’s lives in other areas of India too.

CSR has a good office environment and the staff are great fun. I enjoy my work, but I love getting to know everybody here and I definitely look forward to lunch everyday, as we all share our food and I get to try many more dishes than I perhaps would otherwise! The great thing about having other interns here at CSR is that there are people to share your new impressions with and to support you with the challenges that you confront. So far, India has been something of an adventure, but a pretty amazing one. Everyday brings a new experience, some good and some bad, but it’s far more interesting than life at home, I can’t wait to see what the next 11 months will bring!