Apr 14, 2023 / NGO
March 2023
I want to do a job in which I can discover new things every day while helping others
My name is Eloise Rouer, and I am a 16-year-old student from France, precisely from Nantes. I am in high school, and I study sciences. In my school, and I think it’s the same everywhere, my teachers urge us to think about our future jobs. In my opinion, there is no need to think about it now, as we are young, and we have time. There is only one thing I know about myself: I want to do a job in which I can discover new things everyday while helping others. Indeed, my parents have been giving their best to help our planet through their careers, and they are my role models in life. One day I told them “I want to travel! I want to discover the world!”, and together we found an opportunity for me in India.
My father told me that he worked with a woman named Pauline Laravoire who could welcome me in Kolkata, where she had created a company called Y-East which works to build projects around sustainable development. I met her in Paris, and we decided that I will come to help with their projects in February. At first, I felt like it was not real, like this trip was something which will never happen, but then the weeks passed by and I took off for India.
I had never been to India before, so I discovered a new culture, a different way of life. The first thing I discovered was how hospitable Indians are: everyone was kind and was always smiling at me. It was new for me because in France we don’t really try to help each other; for example, when someone is lost, French people typically won’t come to help. I also noticed that points of view and perceptions are really different. In fact, French people are usually more pessimistic than Indian people and will not try to see the beauty in everything; they more often than not find a way to complain. I think the Indian optimistic way of life is a wonderful power that everyone should take as an example for their life.
During my visit in Kolkata and as a minor, I was always accompanied by three Y-East workers, namely Adhiraj, Enakshi and Aparupa. Thanks to them, I was able to learn a little Bengali, the Hindu religion and local cultural stories, and to ask all the questions I had in my mind. I also had the opportunity to visit insightful places such as the Alipore Jail Museum, Victoria Memorial and Tagore’s House which allowed me to learn many more facts and stories about India’s history and that of neighbouring countries, as well as about the Bengali culture. I also had the chance to try typical Bengali meals like biryani, puri sabji and the street snack puchka. I also observed that Kolkata embraced several religions, as I was able to visit catholic churches such as St-Paul Cathedral, mosques such as Nakhoda and Tipu Sultan, the Magen Davis synagogue, and Hindu temples like Birla Mandir. Being Catholic by birth, it was an amazing experience for me to open my mind to all these religions.
I also went to the Sundarbans for two days and I was struck by the beauty of the landscape. I had the chance to observe things I had never seen before: papaya trees, mangroves, monkeys, coconut trees, crocodiles, tea trees… The only thing which disturbed me was that in India people take way too many photos with their smartphones, mostly selfies, and I couldn’t handle this. It was new and strange for me to observe that so many people wanted to take selfies with me, most probably because of my white skin and fair eyes. It made me uncomfortable to try and understand why they would: because I’m a Westerner? Because they look up to foreigners – and why? Because they want to boast about it with their friends? I struggled to understand and I also do not particularly appreciate a culture that takes so many photos for the sake of it, sometimes without being able to enjoy the real moment or landscape in front of them.
As already mentioned, I was welcomed by Pauline Laravoire. She is married to Meghdut Roy Chowdhury, Executive Director and Chief Innovation Officer of the Techno India Group. This organisation is involved in the education, healthcare and hospitality sectors. I stayed at one of Techno India’s original campuses called Offbeat CCU, which was a privileged and comfortable environment for the whole duration of my stay in Kolkata. And I had many other opportunities to observe wealth, prosperity and comfort in Kolkata. For example, I went with Pauline to a congress about education where we met a lot of people working in the education sector. The event took place in a luxurious Taj Hotel near Eco Park in New Town. We were sitting in comfortable chairs, served food and beverages as much as we wanted while listening to experts sharing insights about education; and right after this, we went to a famous Bengali restaurant called 6 Ballygunge Place. I was able to see luxury, delicious food, beautiful places…
Everywhere I went, I could see slums. Just in front of the luxury buildings I was just mentioning about, in the middle of the city, below the bridges, on the side of the road… and I actually had the opportunity to visit two of them. The first one was home to 800 people in need. They were in a relatively privileged situation because just a few weeks earlier, the organisation St Don Bosco came to help build better places to stay for them – and they were happy to show us their new homes. There were a lot of mosquitoes because they live on the edge of one of the Hooghly river’s arms, and I made the conclusion that they are more likely to catch malaria, and potential other diseases for the overall lack of cleanliness and hygiene of their surroundings. I discovered that this population works really hard to survive. And I think most of them indulge in buying smartphones, TVs or turning to alcohol and drugs to compensate for such hard work. In fact, I saw that they all have a TV in their home and everyone, even the children, had a phone. But I also observed that a lot of them were sick and didn’t have enough money to get healthcare. The second slum was not as developed as the first one. Indeed the people there live in houses made from wood and cardboard. They don’t have direct access to drinking water, so they have to walk for an hour to fetch it, but it’s sometimes too far so they also drink unsafe water from the slum well. In these two places, I saw a lot of girls my age who were already married. It broke my heart. For example, I met with a 19-year-old girl with 2 sons. She was only three years older than me, already married and in charge of two children. On a similar note, I heard that a lot of orphanages in India were horrible for the children, mismanaged by the government and orphanage managers for their own monetary gains, while neglecting the children that they are supposed to take care of. Sometimes, I have been told, the children die, disappear, are raped in their own rooms, and it does not seem to be a “big deal” for the management of the orphanage. In these slums, I also saw a lot of waste pollution: in the river, in the houses, on the houses… everywhere. Kolkata overall is a visibly dirty city in that respect. Pauline explained to me that one of the reasons for so much waste was the lack of governmental action to put up bins and ensure responsible disposal of waste across the city. It also seems that environmental awareness and education isn’t strong there. Most people indeed think that it isn’t a problem to throw away trash in the streets. A more specific example is that local communities living along the river aren’t aware of river and ocean pollution from human activities; on the contrary, some of them see the river as the perfect bin, able to carry the waste away. The lack of government and citizen action can also explain how poorly maintained the buildings can be across the city, from tarpaulin slum shelters to heritage buildings. India is also a country where the air is polluted: each morning when I woke up, the sky was always foggy and it was sometimes difficult for me to breathe.
Y-East is a network organisation which gathers companies and nonprofits to collaboratively achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Pauline gave me the opportunity to visit some of them and discover how they contribute to the SDGs. We first visited Shishur Sevay. Founded by an American doctor, Michelle Harrison, Shishur Sevay is a lifetime home for lost and abandoned girls, some profoundly disabled. The organisation also helps families in need to educate their children in a school. This children’s smart centre is free and welcomes children from 2 to 5 years old. If you want to learn more about it: https://www.shishursevay.org/
I had the opportunity to visit the two slums I mentioned above with Calcutta Rescue. This organisation initiated by British Jack Preger helps people in these slums: they give them food, healthcare, better infrastructure and help them learn how to take care of themselves. It also allows children to have access to education in Calcutta Rescue schools. If you want to help them: https://calcuttarescue.org/
I also went to Mother Teresa’s house. I had the chance to learn about her life and how she helped the people in need in Kolkata. On the spot, I decided to volunteer in one of the centres she created for one afternoon. More on this experience further below!
I also visited the Future Hope School Foundation, which welcomes underprivileged children and orphans and provides them with education. If you want to discover more about it: https://www.futurehope.net/
I also went to Zero Waste Bazaar, a shop where you can only find products made of waste or recyclable materials, initiated by Lata Bhatia. She told me that there are two places like this in Kolkata – only two in a city of 5 million people. Then we ate at a vegan restaurant hosted at Lata’s called Ubuntu Eat, and I was really surprised that one of us had never eaten a meal without meat before. I learned that a lot of Indian people are vegetarian, but West Bengal is one of the states which mostly remains non-veg.
With Pauline, I also attended a forum organised by the SwitchON Foundation where social entrepreneurs explained to young citizens how they act for our planet and how necessary it is, after which the young citizens asked questions and provided feedback. It was great to see that the youth was given a voice on such topics. Among the social entrepreneurs, there was a woman who produced and sold organic colour powders for the Holi Festival, from old and withered flowers from temples. We also discovered Hulladek, an organisation which collects and recycles electronic waste.
At the end of my trip, I discovered Earthday.org, an organisation which is present all over the world and organises advocacy campaigns and events to sensitise about climate emergency.
During this trip, I discovered so many new things: a new way of life, food, climate and even the air I breathed was different. It was an internship where I learned more than in all my history lessons at school. I faced the feeling of loneliness because I was far away from home, and I was always angry and sad to see poverty and government inaction all around. I was excited every day to discover more and more things which will make me grow, evolve and become a better person. I was so happy and so curious that I ran and sprained my ankle just the second day of my trip! During my volunteering experience at Mother Teresa’s House, I saw a dead body, a disfigured woman, a drug addict who seemed to be as young as me, overall, 35 women in terrible conditions who were rescued and taken care of in the centre. I washed an old woman with a big foot injury, I fed them and gave them medication. A lot of them were here to die in peace. I think it’s a wonderful initiative from this place to let people just come and restore themselves, even if they’re close to death. The nuns help them live the end of their lives in dignity.
I also had the chance to participate in a clean-up drive on the banks of the Hooghly River, organised by the River Rangers and their partners, with around 25 volunteering students from Techno Main Salt Lake College, an institution under the Techno India Group. Here again, I saw how important pictures, selfies, social media perception and representation are for locals. In fact, the 19-20-year-old students were there for the pictures more than for the action itself. I was quite shocked: they were older than me and barely anyone talked to me to discover who I was; it was always to take pictures together, to show to the world that they “know” a white girl. I want to learn and take action from this experience: I would like to contribute to spreading the word on how important it is to genuinely act for our planet Earth. I want to teach youth in India how necessary it is to act for our planet Earth – as much as I want to tell the West that there are things we should learn from India too. I want to make people understand that there are, not far away from them, people alone who need help, who need to be healed or who just need love. Now that I am more aware of different realities in this world, I want to make pessimistic French people understand that there are things you can’t complain about. From this whole experience in Kolkata, a lot of ideas for projects and initiatives have come to my mind . For example, Earthday.org gave me a big climate clock to take back home which hardly passed at the airport, but which will help raise further climate awareness in schools back in France and maybe, one day, in all the world. I connected with interesting people who opened my mind on a lot of subjects and in a lot of ways. I came back with an experience that not a lot of students my age have. As they say, it’s time to SwitchON a movement. My name is Eloise Rouer, and I now know something about myself: I will do a job in which I can discover new things everyday while helping others.
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