30th november Today we reached BPA at around 8:40. Mr. D. Jena is the manager of the hospital. Mr.

Jena had sent for an ambulance to pick four of us. The village between Kheda and Ahmedabad. It took about 1 hour. We arrived at Bareja at around 9:30. There was a long line of patients outside the hospital. He introduced us to the workings and the workers of the hospital, and meanwhile ordered tea for us. Despita being in a rural area, Mr. Jena explained that the hospital had some really advanced tech from some of the best companies around the world. Mr. Jena has studied social science during college. I was amazed there was so much research going on in this field of work. He talked about a method called inclusion of the disabled in working for the betterment of life of the disabled people. They also told us about the Aus-Aid project which was funded by the Australian Government and CBM and its objectives. That was it for the day. We talked to the patients of the hospital for a few hours. Then Mr.Jena took us out for dinner to a nearby dhaba serving local gujarati food. Then we went to Lali village. We stayed in the village, Lali, Which is located near the hospital We had the privilege to stay at ex-Sarpanch's House. Mr. Ratilal Patel has been a Sarpanch for 28 years. His house was large enough. Im going to sleep at 9:30 now, since the entire village sleeps early. Even though electricity supply is quite good.

1st December Today morning we met Mr.Bhipul/Vipul Solanki he is the project supervisor for the Aus Aid project. He has great experience in working for the disabled.He literally lectured us for around 3 hours about various types of disabilities under the Persons with disability act (1995) and what are the benefits that the

government gives them and why are most of them unable to get the benefit of government schemes. Some of the disabilities considered under the disability act are: OH : Orthopedic Handicap (Ex. Person suffering from Polio, Disphronia etc ) MR : Mental Retardation. Person having an IQ of less than 70. HI : Hearing Impairment. VI : Visual Impairment. Person who is totally blind or has a vision of 6/60 comes under this category. LV : Low Vision. Person with a vision of 6/80 or less comes under this category. MI : Mental Illness LC : Leprosy case Some other types of disabilities which are taken into consideration in the Person with Disability Act are CP : Cerebral Palsy Autism (Ex. Dyslexia, Dyscalculexia) LD : Learning Disability MD : Multiple Disability ADD : Attention Deficiency Syndrome Under the St. Surdas Yojna, a person with 75% or more disability is given pension for lifetime. Now this sheme is under the Indira Gandhi National Pension Scheme in which person with 80% or more disability and having a BPL (Below Poverty Line) ration card can take the benefit from the scheme. Government also gives

cycles and stitching machines etc to these people so that they can be selfemployed. But to take the benefit of this sheme people require a Civil Disability Certificate, but most of the people cannot do not have the Civil Certificate because whenever the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital arranges a camp to give people Civil Certificate, they generally do not inform the NGOs and as a result many few people are aware about these camps. So, lack of communication was the problem. Moreover when the disabled people go to the Civil Hospital, they face difficulty in going through the long procedure of obtaining the certificate and also many times they do not carry the required documents along with them (no prior notice) and moreover the people at the hospital are also not very co-operative. Also many of them fail the disability test and are not given the certificate. That was all we learnt about the disabilities. We spent the rest of the day helping with the case papers in the hospital. Day after tomorrow we will go for a visit to the eye camp in Bagodra. Now we are at Ratilals place in Lali. 2nd December Today we reached the hospital late. But Mr. Jena did not. We resumed our work in hospital of helping with case papers. We asked the patients short questions about their. Most of them were old and were dependent on their sons for money so they could not pay for their healthcare. I found that they were not talking with us as freely as they used to talk to Maheshbhai. Probably they did not understand our accent or they were just unprepared for our weird ( to them ) ways. Today work was tiring as we kept running around for the whole day attending to the needs of the patients. Tomorrow we will go to the bagodra eye camp Mr.Jena has promised. Today we played gilli danda with Ratidadas grand sons Druv and

Nishit. Poojan did not enjoy the game. He wanted to play cricket but I and vedang are bad at cricket. He went to a nearby temple and slept there. 3rd December Today we left for bagodara early. We went in the ambulance along with two optometrists and optometrist technician who travel to different villages for the eye camps. At the camp they check the patients eye, give the glasses if needed at minimal rates Rs 30. And take the patients who require cataract surgery to the hospital and operate them for free. We reached the camp at 10:00 am. We went there in the same ambulance that came to pick us. As we reached there we turned the alarm on to alert the people that we have arrived. The people came running behind our ambulance. As soon as we got out the villagers started complaining about their eye problems (they actually would have thought that we were doctors!!). In Bagodra the camp was at the PHC (Primary Health Center). Bagodara is the only village in that cluster of villages that has a PHC. There was a big poster of blind peoples association outside the health center. As went inside the building there was a table and two chairs and a big window. We could see from the window many people waiting outside waiting to get checked and the workers at the hospital trying to manage them. Poojan and Parth were given the job of sitting at the window and registering the patients. Meanwhile Vedang and I were arranging the people in a queue and not allowing them to enter the building without getting a card. Later, we went to help Poojan and Parth.After the registration, vedang and Poojan were distributing the spectacles while parth and I distributed eye drops to the patients. Most people did not know their ages. Some even lied for unknown reasons. Anyways we had a very good experience at

the camp. And Mr.Jena told us that we will be going to all the camps that the hospital organized from now on since he liked our help. We went straight to our new home after that.

4th December Today we had to welcome our donors who were IIM alumnus. We had a small function talked to the patients. My friends set-upped the mikes and speakers. They were very happy to see the lives they were changing. They asked us about our internship and were very happy to hear the initiative of institution. Then again we made case papers. In the Evening we sat with Ratidada and he told us about the village system. The Sarpanch is the head of the village. He is responsible for all the major decisions in the village. The other major post is the Talati or the treasurer. The talati works for more than one village. There is a panchayat office in each village and there are some panchayat workers in each panchayat. The talati may be shared between two or three villages. Many times our camps are conducted in the panchayat buildings.

5th December We woke up late today (at about 9:00am). This was the first weekend at Lali. Mr. Ratilal Patel arranged for us to go to his farm. We went there in the morning. He also had his own cow shed. We had a lot of fun at the farm. We bathed in the water coming from the bore well that evening. The water was very cold. It left me shivering after the bath. We came home at about 7:00pm.Then we had our dinner

with the Mr. Ratilal Patel and his family.Just now it is 11:00pm. We viewed the website of the hospital today. It sucks. The hospital runs on donations. Since we have laptops with us, we decided that we would do a makeover in our free time. We will design the website from tomorrow. Now I am going to sleep and waiting for the first Sunday to come. 6th December. We woke up late as it is a Sunday. We went for the movie Ajab prem ki Ghajab Kahani today.We played cricket with the village kids. Today we started creating the website .we had access to internet at the hospital so we downloaded the software web Page Maker for website making. The Software is easy to use. Today we decided the outline of the website. Now, It is 10:00 pm. I am going to sleep. Tomorrow we have to wake up early.

7th December This is our second week here. now we primary work in propagation of eye camps and help in organizing the camps. Today we went to mahijda for propagation of the camps. We met the sarpanch somabhai Dalpatbhai a friend of Mahesh bhai to decide a suitable place for the camp he offered to use the panchayat office. We went from door to door telling people about the eye camp on Wednesday. We returned to Lali in the evening. 8th December

Today we went to vasai for organizing the camp. It was nothing new to us now we were used to the whole exercise. Today there was a great turnout of patients and we had a lot of case papers to make. Dr. Soumen checked the patients and we made the case papers. 9th December Mahijda eye camp was great today we had gone for the propagation of the camp so we took great pride on the camp being a success. At the same time we came to know that the condition of some people was soo bad that they could not come to the camp as they there was no one else to feed their children. We felt pity for such people. That day I really understood what social service was all about.

10th December Today Mr. Jena told us to make the hospitals brochure. We started collecting data about the hospital the facilities and the equipment. We also gathered information about the donors of the hospital. The whole day went in designing the brochure.

11th December

Today also we are still making the brochure we are having a lot of difference of opinion on the design but we are nearly completing the design. We are going through various data of the hospital and deciding what to put in the poster. 12th December After a weeklong work we had a relaxing day today. We woke at 9:30 am. We were ready by 10:30 am. Today we plan to roam about the village. Today we will take a trip of the village with Ratilal Patels grandson Dhruv. He took us to different alleys of the village. each had a weird name like Khadki and the Nehriyu. We again played cricket with the village kids in the evening. I am tired now. It is 11:00pm. Now am going to sleep. Tomorrow we are planning to go for a movie. 13th December We woke up at 8:45am. We went to go for the movie Rocket Singh : Salesman of the year in the 3:00pm show. It was a nice movie. We all enjoyed a lot in the movie. We then had dinner at the hotel Ghar ka Dhaba Which is behind the Movie Theater. We continued the design of our website for the hospital. The website is in its crude state. We plan to make it before the end of the internship. The website will be a small gift to the hospital. Now, it is 10:30 pm. I am going to sleep now. Tomorrow is a new day for work.

14th December

Today we went to Matar for the feedback of the patients that had already undergone surgery at the hospital. We had to search for such people in the village who had had surgery so we went about asking in the village and took the feedback of patients and made a note of their condition after the surgery. The people gave good review about the hospital. They considered it to be a blessing in their life. Some people also told us about another hospital which did not provide service as good as that of Bareja Hospital.

15th December Today we went to jetalpur for the eye camp at the local PHC there. We had with us today Dr. Sachin with us. He is a young doctor working for the hospital. we enjoyed a lot with him and learnt a thing or two about the medical profession. Now I feel the village people are much more free in talking to us as we learned their accent which is quite different from the one in the city. 16th December Today, The owner of Cama Hotel came to donate to the Hospital. There was a function to thank them. Then there was a parents training camp. In The afternoon MaheshBhai took us to his brothers field to show us the methods of farming and we ate barbeque sweet potatoes and khichdi. He taught us to drive a tractor in the field. He told us he irrigated his farm from the small canal and had to pay a seasonal rent to the govt.

17th December Today we had a parents training session conducted by vipulbhai. He trained the parents of disabled children to help them live a better life. We also helped in the training session by a small powerpoint presentation. 18th December Today we did not go to the hospital. Instead, Maheshbhai took us to a Kathiawadi restaurant since there were not many patients today. It was mostly consisting of oil-rich shaak and and bajra no rotlo. We were given a pot of chaash each. I Liked the food. Later, we went to his house. He had bought a small computer for his son and daughter and we were supposed to teach his children how to use it. Although it seemed to be a futile exercise the kids were very interested in the computer but their interest lay in playing games more than learning we did hope some good would come out of it. 19th December We woke up at 9:45am in the morning. Ratidada had planned a trip to his factory today. He had a cardboard making factory. We went there in the noon. We saw how the factory worked. We came on a tractor while coming home. We continued making the website. Our website has finally started taking some form. I hope it will be ready by next week end. So we can hand it over to the hospital authorities to upload it. It is 11:00 pm and now I and going to sleep now.

20th December Today we woke up at 9:45 am. We had not planned to do anything today. So, we decided that we complete making the website today. we divided the work among ourselves and completed the whole website today. We are going to take our laptops tomorrow and show the website to Mr. dharmendra Jena. I hope that he likes the website. Taking these hopes I am going to sleep. 21st December Today we went to Gundi village where we did the usual work of distributing pamphlets and informing people. The camp was supposed to start at 11:00 AM but we reached there at about 12:30 because our van had had a puncture. It took the driver quite some time to get a spare tire. The sarpanch was told via mobile that we would be late then. We actually managed to convince a passing driver to give his spare tire to us for a huge cost. After returning, we showed our finished website to Mr. Jena. He was quite impressed, it seemed, and promised that the new website would be uploaded soon, replacing the old one. He thanked us for doing this work in our spare time even when we were under no obligation to do it. 22nd December Today we helped in random hospital work as there was no camp. We chatted with Mr. Jena about which how hospital funds could be better used. We showed him how to use the twitter online service on his computer so that new happenings in the hospital such as camps, awards, etc. could be communicated to the public.

Whatever he updates on twitter is now visible on the website as a list. The idea was that people who would visit the site would see that things were happening and would not have to think twice for donating. At 2 AM (late), we went to sleep, hoping we wouldnt have much work the next day. 23rd December We were sleepy even though we woke up at 9:00 AM in the morning. Now our internship is nearing a close and we decided that we would take some photographs so we could show them to family and friends and also place them in our report. So we took snapshots from Parths high-res phone the whole day. There was again no camp. But since we wanted some photographs, we asked Mr. Jena to let us go and see some nearby villages. He agreed and sent Mr. Maheshbhai (again!) to guide us. We went to some (developed) village and took of each other. Just for fun, we requested a man to let us try riding his tractor. Only I could really get the hang of driving the tractor. We took turns taking photographs of each other on the tractor. 24th December We started making the report of the internship today. We collected the data and framed the outline of the report. We decided the content of the report. We asked Mr. Jena to provide us with the photographs contents so we could make the report. We returned to ratidadas house at about 7:00pm and had our dinner. Now I am going to sleep.

25th December The hospital was closed today. So we stayed at home and completed our report. Today is Christmas. Tomorrow is the last of our internship. We are looking forward to the last day of the internship. 26th December Today was officially the last day of our internship. We took photographs with the hotel staff, and Mr. Jena came with us to BPA at vastrapur. We met Mrs. Nandini and she said how deeply she appreciated our work. She said she would have even offered to employ us as full-time workers with a salary, if we werent college students. Then we uploaded our website. After the necessary formalities, she granted us leave. We decided to celebrate, and therefore we went to Upper Crust and had some nice food. After that we went to watch the movie 3 idiots. It was a fun internship. The experience was interesting.