Profugo Blogs

Visit to Wayanad
Find out about our first field visit to Wayanad, the proposed location of Profugo’s first Center of Development.
Read more about the Wayanad visit…
________________________________________
The Puruit of Happiness
How do we evaluate human well being? Read this article to find out about traditional and new paradigms of human development.
Read more about the pursuit of happiness…
________________________________________
Love in the Time of Cholera: Zimbabwe Today
Learn of the current crisis that Zimbabwe is facing. How can we be involved in building a progressively improving future for people in places like Harare, Zimbabwe?
Read more about Zimbabwe…
________________________________________
Profugo’s got GALL!
Find out about the goals for Profugo’s Groups for Advancement, Leadership and Learning (GALL). Would you like to join the leadership team in executing the GALL strategy? Would you like to build your leadership and communication abilities? GALL has been created for the Profugo community. So if you would like to lead or participate, we invite you to read more about it and contact us!
Read more about GALL…
________________________________________
Core Values Revised
Profugo’s Core Values statement has been revised. What do YOU think about the revised version?

Rincy and Baiju

As I mentioned in my last post, Rincy and Baiju were instrumental in helping us perform our field study of the Wayanad area. Rincy is doing her PhD on “the reproductive health of tribal women” and Baiju is doing his PhD on “gender equality issues”. Rincy is working with a tribal group in a remote forest location of Idukki district in Kerala. She has to walk about 24 Kms to get to the tribal group! She lives among them to gain their trust. She talked to us about how hard it was to gain acceptance among this population. This tribal group is the most backward group in Kerala right now. They still do not have access to electricity or any modern amenity. Many of them haven’t even seen a car!

Baiju is a lecturer in Social Work at Sanskrit university in Kerala and also a National Trainer at JCI (Junior Chamber International), India. He is extremely knowledgeable about the Wayanad district and is also very well connected with the NGO community. He organized our visits to many of the leading NGOs in the area. We are very grateful to this couple for the sacrificial use of their time and resources for Profugo. Most importanly, we were very encouraged by their willingness to partner with us as we establish Profugo’s first COD!

Thank you Rincy and Baiju!!

We were introduced to Naveen on our last visit to Bangalore in Dec 2006. At that time Naveen was working as a consultant for CHC (Community Health Cell). We were impressed by Naveen’s heart for the underserved. CHC is an organization created to study and publicize health needs among the marginalized. Through their efforts they help the governement shape health policy decisions. If you would like to know more about CHC, check out their website at: http://www.sochara.org.

After completing his work at CHC, Naveen moved on to working on his PhD at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai (http://www.tiss.edu/). We have been in touch with Naveen ever since our first meeting in 2006. In the last couple of years, Naveen has worked on putting together a group of like-minded people to form an organization called Headstreams. To learn more about the organization, please visit their website: http://www.headstreams.org.

To be able to study the Wayanad area, we were in need of connecting with people who were familiar with the area. Our hope was that we would be able to find someone whose vision would be similar to Profugo’s and would be willing to guide our study. We turned to Naveen for help and he put the word out among his friends. Shortly after, he got back to us. A collegue of his was willing to speak to us! This person was Rincy Sebastin, a PhD scholar as well at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Rincy was also willing to connect us with her husband Baiju (also a PhD scholar), who was doing his research in the Wayanad area!

Connecting with Rincy and Baiju was probably the most crucial part of us being able to study as much as we did, in as short a time frame as we did it in.

If you know me, you know that I am by no means a “hacker.” I have however managed to pick up some rudimentary skills over the years in a few assorted programming languages. I view writing code in much the same way as some people view playing golf: because I do not practice it nearly as often as I should in order to become proficient, it yields a lot of frustration and very little reward. The latest programming language to catch my attention is called Perl. As I do not wish to spend money buying books on the subject (computer books are often expensive!), I found myself reading about Perl on Wikipedia last night. As many of you know, the whole point of Wikipedia is that one thing often leads to another and I soon found myself reading about “open sourcing.”  In particular one quote, evidently famous in certain circles, caught my attention: “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”

First, a word about “open sourcing.” A general definition might say that open source is a way to create things or solve problems so that all information is freely available. In the terms of a computer program, this takes the form of making the source code that makes a program work freely available on the Internet so that anybody may read and improve upon it. Mozilla Firefox, the Internet browser I am currently using, is a classic example of this. In politics, you could argue (but I will not) that democracy is the closest thing we have to open source: candidates present themselves and make themselves transparent so that the people of a nation can select which one will best serve their interests. Obviously, this may not work exactly like it should in all (any?) cases.

The man attributed to the quote “given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow” is named Eric S. Raymond and he is, unlike me, a very skilled computer scientist. He has written a collection of essays, entitled “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” (link) in which he argues that there are two ways to do open source. The first is the “Cathedral” model. The Cathedral model involves a small group of people tackling a problem together and then releasing their work to anybody who wishes to view it. Slightly different is the “Bazaar” model, in which the problem or work is displayed publicly (usually on the Internet) and anybody interested on working on the project may do so.

I am a believer in the power of community. I believe that humanity is, in fact, intrinsically communal. So obviously I am drawn to open sourcing: not simply in software but also in economic development. I agree that the more people tackle a problem, the better chance we have at solving said problem (or if you wish, “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”). However I do concede that too many people working towards the same goal in an unorganized fashion is not helpful. After all, there is a reason the expression “too many cooks spoil the broth” came to be.

This is why I prefer the Cathedral model, albeit in a slightly different format. To expand the metaphor: why settle for a Cathedral when we can have a whole religion? More helpful than 100 people in some situations may be 10 groups of 10 people, or 5 groups of 20, etc. Communication and cooperation between these groups makes bugs shallow indeed. This can take the form of the groups working on different parts of the same problem (think: the International Space Station) or tackling the same problem and comparing results. I think this is very much in the same spirit as Profugo’s GALL structure, which you will hear more about in the future.

Of course, I would be a hypocrite of the worst type if I did not ask: “What do you think?” Are there benefits of the Bazaar model that I am missing? Is community as powerful as I give it credit for, or am I perhaps too optimistic about the ease of seperate groups working together? Join in the discussion, on Profugo’s Facebook group or here on the blog, and let your voice be heard! You are, after all, part of the global community.

Jane and Tammy visited us here in Bangalore from Dec 14 to the 16th. Jane was already in India prior to our arrival, on a 3 month project with orphans in north India. Tammy has documented part of their trip on her blog. Check it out!

It was great having Jane and Tammy visit us! The children were thrilled to be with them. They joined us on our first Wayanad trip (Dec 15th) and helped us with child care and with capturing video footage. Thanks guys!!

Penn State University Honors scholars participated in the 2008 Sweat For Hope 5K. An article is posted on the program’s blog.

While we were still in the states, we had asked Jose to help us find us someone who could advice us on the incorporation needs for Profugo. He introduced us to Terrance D’Souza. Jose has previously worked with Terrance on a number of issues, trusts him and is of the opinion that that he is very meticulous. On the 12^th, we met Terrance at the Mount Carmel Management Institute where he teaches. Terrance worked for Pricewaterhouse Coopers prior to starting his own accounting practice. While at PWC he worked mostly on auditing contracts.

My impressions of Terrance were that he is a very simple and yet very knowledgeable person. He patiently listened to my description of Profugo’s core purpose and asked questions where there were gaps. He informed us that he was moving out of the audit business and was looking to pursue teaching full time. However, he also said that he would be available as a consultant. With regards to Profugo, we expressed interest in having him on the Indian board of directors. He said he would be interested, but would like to explore the organization further before making a final decision.

In terms of Profugo’s legal status in India, his advice is that a for-profit corporation would be best. This would allow for the greatest amount of flexibility. Incidentally in our discussions within the Profugo leadership team, this has been come up often. We suspected that the for-profit route would be best for us. It was good confirmation from Terrance regarding our thoughts.

I will be meeting Terrance again to work on the incorporation process.

This morning, MIT posted a new course on their OpenCourseWare site, “15.992 S-Lab: Laboratory for Sustainable Business.”  This course was offered “live” at MIT’s Sloan School of Management in Spring 2008.

For those of you not familiar with OpenCourseWare, MIT has made many of their courses available free on the web — some have video content, others are simply slides from class presentations (but you still can’t beat the price!)

This course looks largely project based — alas, you’ll miss out on that, but it might provide some interesting foundations or case studies for those of you interested.

The course introduction, quoted from their website:

How can we translate real-world challenges into future business opportunities? How can individuals, organizations, and society learn and undergo change at the pace needed to stave off worsening problems? Today, organizations of all kinds—traditional manufacturing firms, those that extract resources, a huge variety of new start-ups, services, non-profits, and governmental organizations of all types, among many others—are tackling these very questions. For some, the massive challenges of moving towards sustainability offer real opportunities—opportunities for new products and services, for reinventing old ones, or for solving problems in new ways. Other organizations tackling sustainability are engaged in very real struggles in which the solutions are far from obvious. Alongside our questions about the problems of sustainability and how to reconcile free-market capitalism with the need for more sustainable business practices are real questions about how to move along the path towards sustainability.

This course seeks to address these questions by providing students with:

1. in-depth knowledge of the various sustainability issues we face today;
2. a set of analytical tools and frameworks that will help you understand/analyze as well as impact these issues; and
3. experience working with a firm or organization currently developing new business models (or reforming existing ones) in line with sustainable development.

The course aims to provide participants with access and in-depth exposure to firms that are actively grappling with the sustainability-related issues through cases, readings and guest speakers.

Given the enormous challenges we face as a society and as a species, this course is focused around the question “what can companies do?” Our hope is to explore the wide variety of ways in which commercial firms are already responding to problems like global climate change, environmental degradation and social dislocation in order to support you in crafting a response that is committed both to the reality of “the bottom line” and to the need to sustain the natural and human systems on which we all rely. The course will be taught through a mixture of case studies, readings, class discussion and class visitors. A particularly important feature is the term project — a “live” project during which participants will work in groups of three to four people with an organization that has requested the Sloan School’s help in thinking through an issue related to sustainability. Prior projects have included work with large companies like Disney, Intel and Nike, smaller companies like Good Energies, GoLoCo and Green Fuel Technologies and NGOs like MiBanco.

I finally took the plunge and opened a Kiva account a few days before Christmas.  I wanted to give my sister a Kiva gift certificate as part of her gift, and I figured that I should also open an account while I was there.  I had heard and read a fair amount about Kiva, but hadn’t really explored their website (http://www.kiva.org).  so I put $100 in to get the experience.

My initial impression was one of disappointment.  I thought about the things that I would want to support, and my mind immediately went to artisans.  But there weren’t any soliciting funds in that category (note: there are 4 at present).  Then I decided that I wanted to support someone in India based on the time that I had spent there… but again, struck out!

My third strategy to sort through the loans was to look for loans that were about to expire (Kiva puts a 30-day limit for someone to receive their funding) — being able to make a difference in making a difference by getting something there by topping it off.  But then I discovered that many of the loans are actually pre-disbursed — the money has already been given to the entrepreneur, so completing the loan isn’t as critical as I expected.  It was also tough to find loans that were expiring without being funded, which is great to see!

But after this initial disappointment of not finding the things that immediately came to mind, I tried a different approach and began browsing the loans that were available, rather than thinking about ones that weren’t.  All of the sudden, I found myself racing with others to complete a loan because they were getting funded so quickly!  It was such an exciting process to look through the different loans, see what entrepreneurs were doing in the developing world, and how people in the developed world could — and were — supporting them!

So what did I end up sponsoring with my initial foray into Kiva?

Rufina, a fish seller in Peru — I was drawn by the mention of ceviche, having just had some yummy ceviche a few days before at a restaurant in Philadelphia.  Perhaps someday I will go to Peru and taste the fruits of my investment!  Rufina needed just $325 to grow her business, a reminder of the astonishingly small amounts of money that can make a difference in the developing world!

The Madina Nakandi Group, who needed $925 to expand their restaurant in Uganda by another room.  What attracted me to this loan was the fact that it was a group loan, with 4 people individually signing on to support each other in repayment.  And again… it was food related (I am already sensing a theme, based on my love for food from different cultures!)

Pheung Sreyaun, who took out a $500 loan to support her husband in his boat building business in Cambodia.  I was drawn to this loan because of the way that Pheung was helping her husband in his business, and the fact that the lending agency is connected to World Relief, an organization that I have supported over the years.  I also liked seeing young people get started with Kiva — Pheung is just 19 and yet supporting her husband’s business in critical ways!

Kiva even set up a “lender page” so I can share all of this with people and motivate them to get involved in their own ways.

And to those of you who might consider a Kiva gift certificate as a gift, I definitely endorse that.  My friend printed it out for me and made it all pretty, putting it in a nice envelope she handmade with a bow, so the gift certificate itself looked quite fancy.

I also gave my sister a book, Philanthrocapitalism, by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green.  I haven’t read this, but will get to it at some point.  I completed the gift with an Onyx vase from Pakistan that I picked up at Ten Thousand Villages as an example of the types of businesses she could theoretically support.  It was a nice combination and well received by my sister — I am curious to see what she will invest in!

Happy New Year!  It should be an exciting one for Profugo and all of us!

Slumdog Millionaire Trailer (from YouTube)

I went to see “Slumdog Millionaire” last night at Ritz East in Philadelphia.  This movie has been getting hype as a potential Oscar candidate, so I decided it was worth checking out, especially as one of my brother’s friends mentioned that it would be especially interesting to me given my numerous work-related trips to India over the last few years.

“Slumdog Millionaire” is an entertaining movie, for sure, but I also found it to be a very powerful storyline.  As I was watching it, it affected me in many ways — it brought back many memories of India.  Memories of the slums in Mumbai that were right next to my 5-star hotel in the Airport as an interesting contrast.  Memories of the Taj Mahal (and I was also proud of myself for remembering some facts that helped me get a joke faster than most in the theater).  Sad memories of the children, often mutilated, constantly knocking on my car/rickshaw asking for money… and also memories of why we should not give to them directly (sad, and takes incredible discipline).  Memories of the Bollywood movies… of “Crorepati” (the Indian ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” — Rs. 1 crore = ~$200,000)… of the traffic (though it was pretty tame in the movie)… and yes, memories of the Mumbai red light district that my tour guide included as part of the tour.

The footage of Mumbai was also a sad reminder of last month’s attacks.  The Chhatrapati Shivaji Station (a.k.a Victoria Station) features prominently in the movie, and was the site of over 50 deaths in the attacks last month.  Watching the footage of people jumping on and off trains in the crowded station, it’s remarkable the toll wasn’t higher.

The storyline revolves around a street kid who suddenly has the chance to become wealthy through a trivia game show — and the doubt of the police, producers, etc that he could possibly know the answers to the questions, when so many of higher “status” have failed to do the same. There’s also a great love story underpinning the whole movie, as well as complicated family relationships, action, scenes that make you cringe, and scenes that make you laugh — a recipe for success.

The story shows the wide gap between the haves and the have-nots in India, certainly financially, but also in respect.  I think sometimes we look at other countries, especially in the developing world, as “us” and “them” — the reality is that there are haves and have-nots in every country, which is how the “cycles of oppression” that we talk about really develop.  In most cases, these oppressive cycles are not inter-national, but intra-national.

Check it out — you’ll certainly enjot it, and yet perhaps also be moved to action.  Well worth the ticket price!  Lest you question my judgment, “Slumdog Millionaire” has also been lauded by critics (93% on RottenTomatoes) and moviegoers (8.5 on IMDB).  The dance scene at the end was awesome as well — if you like this and want to step up from ‘Bollywood-lite’ to the real thing, get in touch for some recommendations!