9/21/2010 - First Day at the NGO's Site

Today was our first official 'work day' at PSI's central office.  They sent a car for us at 8:45am and we arrived at their location around 9:15am.  We were then introduced to many people and I don't think even after four weeks that I'll keep everyone's name straight.  The team (Pinki and Neeraj) then spent over 2 hours explaining the entire PSI India organization structure and the workings of the Connect project we'll be helping out with.  PSI is a huge non-profit organization staffed by over 1000 people who range from social workers to physicians and the connect project is really six very different activities and each has it's own way of collecting data.  The mission:  Try to create / design a single, efficient data management system.  It will be extremely challenging.

Apart from understanding the basics of the organization and gaining a deeper understanding of the data models for a couple of the six activities, they took us on a field visit.  We went to a very, very poor area where construction workers live and watched how a PSI field officer educated them on Tuberculosis (TB).  Because most are illiterate, the officer used story cards to tell them what signs to look for and what to do if they think they have TB.  When we arrived everyone seem to come up to us to find out what was going on.  In a matter of minutes we were surrounded.  I never felt unsafe, just way out of place.  Plus, since the rate of TB is high in that setting .. I'm sure I'm going to need to get tested when I return to the U.S. <sigh>.  Anyway, here's a quick pick of the people being taught about TB.  Until tomorrow. ~ Dan.

Teaching Construction workers about TB