Retreat

Attending the two day retreat was a first in many ways for me. It was the first time that the DE team was included as part of the retreat. It was the first time that the DE team was made to feel that it was part of a larger AIF family and not the "oh the DE people." Many a times I have felt that we are not part of the AIF staff and this was reinforced time and again during the visits to the office as part of the core group meeting. This was the first time that I felt like belonging to a larger whole - the AIF team, working with others to bring about serious socio-economic changes at the ground level. That some of the interventions are working and some of them needs to be streamlined, some of them are at the pilot stage are a different issue, but this is true that all of us are trying hard and really hard to bring about some changes, in the lives of the people we touch, including ourselves.

I really got an opportunity to sit back, relax and take a close look at the various programs as the respective teams went about making their presentations and answering all sorts of questions, raised by the participants - some of which happened to be of a very fundamental nature. In fact in the very process of answering one could sense the clarity of the concepts and the underpinning issues that became clear both to the audience as well as the presenter - the informal setting and the beautiful backdrop did the trick.

I for one got a lot of clarity as far as funding is concerned. How are funds raised, pledge drives conducted, restricted and unrestricted funding, necessity of working out a synergy between the program requirements, translated into budgetary demands and how are fund drives conducted, on the basis of understanding these demands, the necessity of a dedicated fund raising officer, who works in close coordination with the program directors/teams etc.

I really got to understand our various intentions much much better. For instance I never knew the difficulties that the LAMP team was facing as far as meaningful implementation at the ground level is concerned. Asutosh was forthright in mentioning the lack of partners with expertise in education at the local level and add to this the inability of the established players to function in those areas. Similarly I got to understand our public health interventions a lot better, thanks to my room mate - Anupam and Charu's passionate presentation and her evident frustration at not being able to extend her portfolio. The discussion on the fellowship program was interesting, especially the ethical angle brought about by the fellowship team as to whether we should internally absorb them in our program as that means an "opportunity loss" as far as a needy NGO is concerned.

All in all from the intricacies of partner selection to the ethics of being a donor agency as well as the technical support provider, as in case of the LAMP program to the modes operandi of funding et al, seemed to be very interesting. Last but not the least a number of close friendships and personal acquaintances were established as part of the two day retreat.