"Reports of Social Interns with Palle Srujana" - June 2016

P. Sumaja VNIT, Nagpur

 

List of all the works done during the internship with PALLE SRUJANA:

1. Study of the ideas given by school children from various parts of the telugu states and selection of wonderful ideas to send them to IGNITE national level competition.


2. Translation of the pages in NIF website into telugu to provide a provision for our village people to read them comfortably in our local usable language.


3. Visit to great innovators Mr.Mallesham, Mr.Mallesh and also Mr.Godsasu Narsimha at their places and study of their innovations and understanding the difficulties they faced and also the greatness in their innovation that brought them national awards.
4. Understanding the procedure of documentation and the difference between traditional knowledge and innovation.
5. Finally the greatest experience that I had is in SHODH
   YATRA.

Why did I choose PALLE SRUJANA for internship??

Firstly I like to thank my senior who invited Brigadier Sir to interact with us as a part of social entrepreneurship event- RENAISSANCE, which helped us to have a brief idea about what is PALLE SRUJANA and what is it working for.

During the session I found the work done by the volunteers in this to be quite interesting and felt that the growth of our country more or less lies in the
development of such grass root innovators and promotion of the grass root innovations to the rest of the world.

As PALLE SRUJANA is working for the same cause, I along with my friend Naveen decided to spend some of our summer vacation time in a precious way by
working for PALLE SRUJANA as an internship.

Descriptions and experiences :

IGNITE:
Till now I heard many times about science express but got to know that PALLE SRUJANA is organizing it only when I started working on IGNITE ideas. Good
to know this kind of information. I also got to know that the volunteers are conducting this in schools of many parts of the states and igniting the thought that the children are having in their minds.

As told by Brigadier sir on the very first day, seriously this is the opportunity that we don’t get even in google(reading around 1000 future generation minds).

TRANSLATION OF NIF PAGES:
Being a student of telugu as a first language initially I thought this to be an easy task when asked to do it. But later on I found it to be not so easy as I thought, but got accustomed to it after completing 2-3 pages.

I got some grip on my language skills by this task and helped me improve my telugu as well as English at the same time.

Not only this, but I also got a chance of knowing the profiles of various innovators, the problems which made them innovate and the difficulties that they have faced before reaching their destination.

In the process of translation, I began analyzing the different technical specifications that the innovators have used for the product, its salient features, etc.

INTERACTION WITH INNOVATORS:

 

Mr.Mallesham:
Mallesham is not only a great innovator but also a good hearted man. After interacting with him, I was unable to express his greatness in words. We got to know his good heart by the way he treated us when we went to his home to meet him. He patiently answered all our queries and took us all round the village
explaining the sequential procedure for preparing a Pochampalli sari.

A person needs lots and lots of determination to work on one single work which is not creating any economical productivity for seven years!! That is the most inspiring and motivational character that I found in him. One more striking incident that I observed from his life is the way he innovated and developed the AASU machine by simply following a dictionary even though he doesn’t know the language.

Mr.Mallesh:
He is a young man who innovated around 15 innovations and is highly confident that he can innovate 1 innovation for every 6 months. His first innovation came out of the pain that his mother experienced to switch on and off the lights by standing up each time as she was affected with leprosy. By then he made innovating new things as his profession and started a workshop for taking orders and selling his projects. His confidence is unimaginable. The awards he got and the way he asked to give him the ideas impressed me. He asked to give the ideas and he was so confident that he would succeed in making them real.

Mr. Godasu Narsimha:
He is another fantastic innovator who does not compromise even for the safety of the person who uses his innovation. By seeing his workshop I got to know that he is a multitalented person. Just within the span of 15-20 days he invented a machine (cutter that is required for the people in the village that was visited in shodha yatra) and I don’t even have words to describe his innovation.

DOCUMENTATION:

It is the most legally followed method by NIF as well as PALLE SRUJANA. Documentation as I understood is the most important thing that is required to provide
the innovators the credit that they have to get for whatever they have done. I even got to know the basic difference between traditional knowledge and the scientific knowledge. I think the session arranged by PALLE SRUJANA on traditional Knowledge is also a must required and most useful part on which we have to concentrate in today’s world.

The scout who does the work of documentation needs to be sincere and honest enough to make the innovator benefitable. He also needs to be creative enough in
order to represent the work of the innovator in most understandable way along with pictures and other things.

SHODHA YATRA:

I feel that I’m lucky for being a part of chinna shodha yatra-19. ShodhaYatra is the platform that is required for scouting process which is the first and foremost
thing that is to be done to find the innovators in the villages as well as to know the traditional methods of the village.

The most important thing that I liked is transferring the knowledge from village to village and making them aware of the technologies that have been developed by grassroot innovators which provide benefit for both the villagers as well as the grassroot innovators.

IMPRESSIONS ON SHODHA YATRA:

Firstly we as engineers don’t get chance of spending our time with a group of people excelling in various fields. Shodha yatra gave us this opportunity. Interaction with experienced people and observing their way of thinking would help me a lot in my future.

The way volunteers have organized it was extraordinary. We have spent our time without undergoing any kind of problems.

Going to what I have learnt from the nature in villages is that its pleasantness is the gift of god and the villagers are lucky to live in such kind of environment. We feel that the cities are modern following latest technologies and highly developed life. But after seeing the village people in shodha yatra I can surely tell that greater percentage or may be all the villagers are leading a happy, peaceful and healthy life being far away from the mechanical lifestyle of the city. Moreover the kind of affection that they have shown is indefinable.

 

Coming to the valuable information given by Brigadier sir, I got to know lots and lots of new things that I have never heard before. All the stories of innovators , the challenges they have faced in innovating their respective innovations and the problems that are put front made me actually realize how today’s society and system are. I think these things had a great impact on me. I would say that I have been thinking on these since I have heard them and would surely get back to you as soon as I get some idea.

From all the practical experiments that you made us involve in, I got to know how differently different people think for the same question. I also understood that same things will appear in various forms and there will also be the opposite side of the same coin which we are seeing. These things I have understood at the time of silent walk as well as the session that was taken by great organic farmer Ravi Kumar sir. When the society abandons someone in such a bad way, one
requires a great part of the heart to work for the betterment of the same society. That kind of great person he is.

Finally I can say that I have spent my time in a valuable way to develop myself as a person by being a part of chinna shodha yatra.

How does the time I spent here influence my personal life as well as my career? Everyone tries to spend their vacation time as well as college time in learning things related to technology and improving their technical knowledge. But after doing this kind of social intern, I felt that exposure to the society in these early stages will help a lot when we actually enter into the professional career. It surely makes a difference between the one who didn’t do it and me. I may be in a better position to understand the things that are going on in the surroundings better than others. This intern gave me such confidence. Pursuing only the technical knowledge doesn’t help much.

 

Finally, I thank Brigadier sir for giving us such a great opportunity and guiding us in all the possible ways for our betterment. Your concern for the society has moved me a lot sir. Forgetting that I have approached you as a part of internship, I would like to work as a part of the family of PALLE SRUJANA.