Thursday, August 16, 2018

I was selected to be one of participants of the Asia Plateau Internship Program which is annually organized by IofC India. The participants came from Indonesia, Japan, India, Australia and Afghanistan. This program is part of learning and growing together through voluntary service, leadership and initiative. I learnt through attendance at seminars, workshops, conferences and other programmes in Asia Plateau, the centre of IofC India, which provides unique opportunities to hear experts on various subjects and to have interactions with facilitators and participants coming from varied backgrounds. Some of the programs are Effective Living and Leadership (ELL) for industries program, Caux Scholar Program (CSP-AP), and Education Today, Society Tomorrow (ETST). The participants listened to each session and shared their stories of change and shared IofC values through playing skits and singing a song. The most important thing was to make changes starting within ourselves and to spread IofC values through our actions.
We had an Interactive Session during which we made presentations about our respective countries and had a cultural presentation. I learnt about the multi-cultural community, relationship-building and teamwork. This internship program also provides opportunities to all participants to work with and learn from village leaders and others from rural India. We visited a village conducted by Grampari.  They welcomed us nicely and then we happily did farming activities together.  The people served us very nice traditional food.  I shall never forget the warm welcome we had and our time together.
During our internship program we had time to do outreach; one group went to Mumbai and another group went to Pune. I went to Mumbai together with my team. We visited some companies, and public schools where I had great experiences through traveling. We stayed with a host family and, like other families, we spent our leisure time having chit- chats, cooking, and doing housework.  It felt like home because the atmosphere was comfortable. The host families were very kind and helpful and it was really enjoyable being with them.
It was also a great time to inspire and engage each other based on IofC values through teamwork, supported learning and growing close to each other and also story sharing. Last but not least, it was a part of trust-building training in real life about how we can work and walk together with different people but still provide care and support to create peace and a better future.