When I enter the children home in Mangalore, there are ony a few children. Most of them stay in a room on the 1st floor, where Gita, a volunteer, explains how the Internet works. The girls are very interested. What they experience here, is a small part of the “big world” outside, a world they…
Month: May 2015
Making an impact means having a purpose – we all will win, wherever we stay
CSR, corporate social responsibility in business is no longer a “nice to have”, but it is becoming a part and even an important one of the core business. The social request from inside/from the employees and the external push to behave differently, to take responsibility for others, to engage “beyond the borders” is obvious. Time…
Two tailoring machines for tribal women – a small contribution, but a huge impact
We have made it. We have collected some money among friends and colleagues. Via betterplace, an online platform that helps to collect some money. Nothing special, nothing big. It takes just some time to describe the project and to ask friends to help. Even a few EUR make a big difference. In this case the…
Digital potential to combat poverty – there is still a big gap
Wherever I have been during my Indian stay, even in small tribal villages, while talking to people, it happened after a while: People came closer, interested to find out more on what I was doing with the smartphone. Nearly everyone of the younger generation (not just the youngest, but also men and women up to…
NGOs of the future: innovation, business skills and thinking across traditional borders needed
The fact that the business world is changing is well known. Continuous business innovation is requested – everywhere. No doubt. There are all kind of efforts going on such as continuous training offers for business people, be it for employees, be it for employers: trainings around administration, marketing and computer skills, the call for innovation,…
An accident, money lenders, misery. Poverty has many faces.
Sanyo is 29 years old. He lives in a small rural village close to Karamadai, a village with a very poor infrastructure. Drinking water is delivered every second week only via a pipeline system. Recently, a housing project has helped to give a better home to families – without leaking roofs and with…
Talking to Tea Field Workers about health in Valparai, India
Staying in the South Indian plains of Tamil Nadu you cannot imagine what’s up there in the hills at a height of ca. 1500 feet. For reaching the most known places such as Ooty, Munnar or Valparai you have to climb up a huge number of hair pin bends. And then, at a certain point…
A nun, petrol station friends, Clint Eastwood and a fisher boat
“Can we stop for a short visit to a friend, here at the petrol station?” the nun who sits besides me in the car is asking. We are on the way from Pollachi to Valparai in the Nilgiris mountains in South India. After a few minutes the car stops. A friendly, maybe 40 years old…
Lakshmi, a woman who wants to discover the world and beautiful Valparai
Lakshmi is eighteen. She’ s still at school. Another year, then she wants to go to university – if possible at Coimbatore, a four hours trip from here. When I meet her the first time in Villoni, a very small and remote village in the surroundings of Valparai in the West Ghat mountains, a very…
Go around the corner – discover life for pottery
It is a rather quiet area in one of the outer city parts of Coimbatore. The streets are small and the colourful, one and two room houses at the right and left reflect the lifestyle of its habitants. It is – compared with many other Indian streets in the surroundings – a very clean and…
Go India, go future! 