My Move to Mumbai: A Year In Review
Imagine having a job where every day, you do something you've never done before.
I can say without exaggeration that this is what working at Aangan has been. I knew that working for an organization that engages deeply with community in an international context would be an important learning experience, but I truly couldn't have pictured how challenging, exhilarating, and transformative it would be.
Literally my first month on the job I met with the Director General of Police for the state of Rajasthan to present our child safety work to him and work to create buy-in with his department (as part of a project we run to increase trust between communities and police in child harm hotspots in India). Engaging with Indian bureaucracy has been so fascinating and for all we hear about corruption in government systems, I have met so many passionate civil servants and government officials grateful for good work being done and keen to support us.
I'm lucky enough to have transitioned from focusing on just Rajasthan to leading our team working on government advocacy for all 7 states we work in across the country. (Oops...I'm staying here a year longer than the original plan!) The new role means I've been able to travel to Varanasi, Patna, and Bharatpur so far this year to engage with government stakeholders -- and my goal is to spend time in all of our cities before the year is through.
And since I choose opportunities based on the people I'll get to work with, I should add: I've had an absolute blast working alongside our founder Suparna Gupta every day. I had a strong hunch that this would be the case based on the conversation that convinced me to move to India, and it's been eye-opening to observe the way she constantly models efficiency, candidness, and treating her employees as peers in a way I sometimes find hard to fathom. Whoever said "never meet your heroes" hasn't met my boss.
I've also been able to push my boundaries as a writer and communications nerd this year. I've published lessons learned from our work in Jharkhand in Outlook, and shared insights from Aangan's work with the UN Foundation for a 3D Program report called "Working Together for Girls' and Women's Safety in Public Spaces: Lessons from India." (The biggest rush was seeing my name in the list of contributors!) In between writing, of course, I've been geeking out over Aangan's viral #WomenWorking4Women and #EndTraffickingTogether campaigns.
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On a personal level, the move to Mumbai was...rough. Like solidly rough. I've had months of on and off minor sickness, a couple tiny little surgeries, only one mini concussion, and an overall hard time adjusting to the climate, distance from my college community, identity questions about myself as an Indian-American, etc. etc. I miss New York fiercely pretty much all the time. My fitness is the textbook definition of abysmal, as I've developed something I call "NGO bod" -- living in a country where consuming raw produce isn't the best idea and I spend ~3 hours a day in a car has quite dilapidated the healthy streak I'd had going these past few years...but I'm definitely working on it!
All of this was expected, and despite these baby hiccups I stand by the fact that moving to India was probably the best decision of my life. Almost everything I do started off as a challenge, from figuring out how to give rickshaw directions to remembering how to make friends again. It's been genuinely frustrating and isolating, and also the learning opportunity of a lifetime. I hope to work on international development and making life better for the world's most vulnerable people throughout my life, and I can think of no better way to have dived in than this past year.
I can say without exaggeration that this is what working at Aangan has been. I knew that working for an organization that engages deeply with community in an international context would be an important learning experience, but I truly couldn't have pictured how challenging, exhilarating, and transformative it would be.
Literally my first month on the job I met with the Director General of Police for the state of Rajasthan to present our child safety work to him and work to create buy-in with his department (as part of a project we run to increase trust between communities and police in child harm hotspots in India). Engaging with Indian bureaucracy has been so fascinating and for all we hear about corruption in government systems, I have met so many passionate civil servants and government officials grateful for good work being done and keen to support us.
I'm lucky enough to have transitioned from focusing on just Rajasthan to leading our team working on government advocacy for all 7 states we work in across the country. (Oops...I'm staying here a year longer than the original plan!) The new role means I've been able to travel to Varanasi, Patna, and Bharatpur so far this year to engage with government stakeholders -- and my goal is to spend time in all of our cities before the year is through.
And since I choose opportunities based on the people I'll get to work with, I should add: I've had an absolute blast working alongside our founder Suparna Gupta every day. I had a strong hunch that this would be the case based on the conversation that convinced me to move to India, and it's been eye-opening to observe the way she constantly models efficiency, candidness, and treating her employees as peers in a way I sometimes find hard to fathom. Whoever said "never meet your heroes" hasn't met my boss.
I've also been able to push my boundaries as a writer and communications nerd this year. I've published lessons learned from our work in Jharkhand in Outlook, and shared insights from Aangan's work with the UN Foundation for a 3D Program report called "Working Together for Girls' and Women's Safety in Public Spaces: Lessons from India." (The biggest rush was seeing my name in the list of contributors!) In between writing, of course, I've been geeking out over Aangan's viral #WomenWorking4Women and #EndTraffickingTogether campaigns.
--
On a personal level, the move to Mumbai was...rough. Like solidly rough. I've had months of on and off minor sickness, a couple tiny little surgeries, only one mini concussion, and an overall hard time adjusting to the climate, distance from my college community, identity questions about myself as an Indian-American, etc. etc. I miss New York fiercely pretty much all the time. My fitness is the textbook definition of abysmal, as I've developed something I call "NGO bod" -- living in a country where consuming raw produce isn't the best idea and I spend ~3 hours a day in a car has quite dilapidated the healthy streak I'd had going these past few years...but I'm definitely working on it!
All of this was expected, and despite these baby hiccups I stand by the fact that moving to India was probably the best decision of my life. Almost everything I do started off as a challenge, from figuring out how to give rickshaw directions to remembering how to make friends again. It's been genuinely frustrating and isolating, and also the learning opportunity of a lifetime. I hope to work on international development and making life better for the world's most vulnerable people throughout my life, and I can think of no better way to have dived in than this past year.
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