Why...?
Maybe a question I should have asked myself is, would I have been happier not being exposed to HIV awareness in India in this way, at the grassroots?
Would it be too much of a contrast to the way of life we live in the west, despite our best notions of helping? Would it cause me to question things about the world too much? Some questioning is good, but would it cause a wholesale re-structuring of the life I had grown comfortable with?
After all, "For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief." (Eccleasiastes 1:18) .
Would this new wisdom of the battle at the grassroots create a new reality that was more dismal than my old reality, or would I find a way to help and make a difference, or would I find a group of people and a movement that was even more inspirational than my old reality?
Certainly many of my friends openly wondered what I was doing with my year in India, and why I doing it. I gave up my job, if one can call it that in the traditional sense, as a professional athlete to come to India. I knew I wanted to help and that I was in a position to help, at least in some capacity.
But, wasn't it enough for me to hope to help out in the future with an international organization like the UN, directing policy from an office in Manhattan or Geneva or somewhere, using my law degree to do...something...*something good* for *someone* else? Would that make me feel ok about myself and my efforts to help those who had not, simply because of the locations where we were born, the same opportunities that I had.
Some of this falls under the title WWLG (white western liberal guilt). A lot of it is caused by some of the western media coverage of the developing world that shows the dichotomy between *them* and *us*. It doesn't particularly emphasize the fact that we are all much more similar than that, everyone experiences joy and sadness, love and loss. The experience of life is certainly different between Beverly Hills and a slum in India though.
Would I have been happier just living a life in America with the vague knowledge in the back of my mind about the lives of those affected by HIV in India, or I am happier now that I know first hand that the images and press-releases about India can't convey the full impact of the situation?
Should my own personal happiness have anything to do with anything? Would I feel guilty being happy if I found out that maybe people suffered more greatly than I could have imagined?
While the quote from Ecclesiastes had stuck in my mind, I knew I had heard a counter to this somewhere, a quick search turned up a couple that I found especially relevant. "If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them" (Asimov) and "It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge" (Fermi).
Before I came I knew that people often died in India and elsewhere due to AIDS, TB, malaria, dysentery or another disease that commonly kills due to low levels of sanitation and poverty but (other than AIDS-which can kill anywhere independently of those things) doesn't kill in the west. What I didn't know before I came to work at this level was what it would feel like to meet children who were orphaned by these things, and consequently what it would feel like to make them smile. That is something that happens at the grassroots that doesn't happen when you donate money at Christmas from the US (although don't stop doing that).
Would I have been happier not knowing of this pain and the agony of meeting people who have been disowned by their families for contracting HIV? Sometimes you wonder how the notion of happiness in your own mind has changed afterwards. Then you see them dancing at the Sarhara Christmas Party, smiling as the unbelievably caring staff and volunteers reach out to touch them and shake their hands-actions which their families have shunned---they seem happy.
Would I have been happier not spending seven hours online staring at a computer screen researching worldwide HIV and AIDS organizations and wondering how I can possibly get myself more involved and why the fuck am I sitting down when there is so much work to do? Once you know, once you've seen the work and the passion at the grassroots, you can't tear yourself away. It isn't just with HIV awareness, all actions at the grassroots are similar. Hans said that he had similar aspirations to mine, but once you get involved at the grassroots you realize that this is the way to help, and it isn't just *someone* you are helping by directing policy or directing donations, the *someones* have names and faces and smiles. It is like a Chinese fingertrap, entrance into the realm of action at the grassroots prohibits an exit back to a previous way of thinking. Once one has seen the work that is done here it becomes impossible to go back to a state of blissful ignorance. And mind you, I didn't think I was ignorant before, I thought I was very enlightened about the world, and I was certainly very happy and felt good about directing recycling initiatives and blood drives at home, and it certainly helped many people and at the time made me feel like I was doing my part to help. But now that I've been here and seen the work that is done at the grassroots by Indians and people from around the world, my perception of helping has changed.
Helping from a distance is good but, especially in India, the grassroots is arguably more important in many ways than giving money or helping from a distance. The grassroots is not an area where tradition dictates people involve themselves. Stigma and discrimination against those from lower social levels and those infected with viruses such as HIV exist and permeate society. Deep Griha has for 31 years extended itself to work and raise awareness and increase participation at this level where many do not act despite the clear need for action.
While India makes global headlines for its advances at the highest level of IT, perhaps the advances that will actually change India the most will occur at much lower levels of the economic and social strata. After all, 80 percent (over 900, 000, 000 people--3 Times the size of the USA) of India still exists on USD 2.00 or less per day, and lives in slums and villages, and not in the glitzy concrete and steel buildings sprouting up in Bangalore and Hyderabad and Pune and the covers of magazines and books touting the new India. HIV has infected 5.7 million Indians and affected millions more. It has split families and AIDS has orphaned children. It has the potential to cut the legs out from under a population as it blitzes through the 15-49 age group with 90% of the infections falling in this demographic and more than half hitting those between 15 and 24. Tradition and fear of stigmatization keeps some silent and nourishes the epidemic to grow through a society of people who find it within themselves to invite virtual strangers to dinner, but often can't bear the sight of a loved one who through no fault of their own is HIV positive.
It is not all gloom and doom here, there is much happiness with or without this work, perhaps just as much as in the United States or Britain or Switzerland, where, despite much more favorable circumstances financially and in areas of public health, not everyone is happy. The streetlife on Tadiwala Rd is as vibrant and lively as anywhere else. The issue for the grassroots HIV awareness campaigns becomes of trying to directly help people maximize their happiness through awareness of this virus, through compassion towards those that have it, and proactive efforts to quell its spread, and in doing so, hopefully changing long held stigmas and reversing the advance of HIV into the heart of India.
Would it be too much of a contrast to the way of life we live in the west, despite our best notions of helping? Would it cause me to question things about the world too much? Some questioning is good, but would it cause a wholesale re-structuring of the life I had grown comfortable with?
After all, "For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief." (Eccleasiastes 1:18) .
Would this new wisdom of the battle at the grassroots create a new reality that was more dismal than my old reality, or would I find a way to help and make a difference, or would I find a group of people and a movement that was even more inspirational than my old reality?
Certainly many of my friends openly wondered what I was doing with my year in India, and why I doing it. I gave up my job, if one can call it that in the traditional sense, as a professional athlete to come to India. I knew I wanted to help and that I was in a position to help, at least in some capacity.
But, wasn't it enough for me to hope to help out in the future with an international organization like the UN, directing policy from an office in Manhattan or Geneva or somewhere, using my law degree to do...something...*something good* for *someone* else? Would that make me feel ok about myself and my efforts to help those who had not, simply because of the locations where we were born, the same opportunities that I had.
Some of this falls under the title WWLG (white western liberal guilt). A lot of it is caused by some of the western media coverage of the developing world that shows the dichotomy between *them* and *us*. It doesn't particularly emphasize the fact that we are all much more similar than that, everyone experiences joy and sadness, love and loss. The experience of life is certainly different between Beverly Hills and a slum in India though.
Would I have been happier just living a life in America with the vague knowledge in the back of my mind about the lives of those affected by HIV in India, or I am happier now that I know first hand that the images and press-releases about India can't convey the full impact of the situation?
Should my own personal happiness have anything to do with anything? Would I feel guilty being happy if I found out that maybe people suffered more greatly than I could have imagined?
While the quote from Ecclesiastes had stuck in my mind, I knew I had heard a counter to this somewhere, a quick search turned up a couple that I found especially relevant. "If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them" (Asimov) and "It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge" (Fermi).
Before I came I knew that people often died in India and elsewhere due to AIDS, TB, malaria, dysentery or another disease that commonly kills due to low levels of sanitation and poverty but (other than AIDS-which can kill anywhere independently of those things) doesn't kill in the west. What I didn't know before I came to work at this level was what it would feel like to meet children who were orphaned by these things, and consequently what it would feel like to make them smile. That is something that happens at the grassroots that doesn't happen when you donate money at Christmas from the US (although don't stop doing that).
Would I have been happier not knowing of this pain and the agony of meeting people who have been disowned by their families for contracting HIV? Sometimes you wonder how the notion of happiness in your own mind has changed afterwards. Then you see them dancing at the Sarhara Christmas Party, smiling as the unbelievably caring staff and volunteers reach out to touch them and shake their hands-actions which their families have shunned---they seem happy.
Would I have been happier not spending seven hours online staring at a computer screen researching worldwide HIV and AIDS organizations and wondering how I can possibly get myself more involved and why the fuck am I sitting down when there is so much work to do? Once you know, once you've seen the work and the passion at the grassroots, you can't tear yourself away. It isn't just with HIV awareness, all actions at the grassroots are similar. Hans said that he had similar aspirations to mine, but once you get involved at the grassroots you realize that this is the way to help, and it isn't just *someone* you are helping by directing policy or directing donations, the *someones* have names and faces and smiles. It is like a Chinese fingertrap, entrance into the realm of action at the grassroots prohibits an exit back to a previous way of thinking. Once one has seen the work that is done here it becomes impossible to go back to a state of blissful ignorance. And mind you, I didn't think I was ignorant before, I thought I was very enlightened about the world, and I was certainly very happy and felt good about directing recycling initiatives and blood drives at home, and it certainly helped many people and at the time made me feel like I was doing my part to help. But now that I've been here and seen the work that is done at the grassroots by Indians and people from around the world, my perception of helping has changed.
Helping from a distance is good but, especially in India, the grassroots is arguably more important in many ways than giving money or helping from a distance. The grassroots is not an area where tradition dictates people involve themselves. Stigma and discrimination against those from lower social levels and those infected with viruses such as HIV exist and permeate society. Deep Griha has for 31 years extended itself to work and raise awareness and increase participation at this level where many do not act despite the clear need for action.
While India makes global headlines for its advances at the highest level of IT, perhaps the advances that will actually change India the most will occur at much lower levels of the economic and social strata. After all, 80 percent (over 900, 000, 000 people--3 Times the size of the USA) of India still exists on USD 2.00 or less per day, and lives in slums and villages, and not in the glitzy concrete and steel buildings sprouting up in Bangalore and Hyderabad and Pune and the covers of magazines and books touting the new India. HIV has infected 5.7 million Indians and affected millions more. It has split families and AIDS has orphaned children. It has the potential to cut the legs out from under a population as it blitzes through the 15-49 age group with 90% of the infections falling in this demographic and more than half hitting those between 15 and 24. Tradition and fear of stigmatization keeps some silent and nourishes the epidemic to grow through a society of people who find it within themselves to invite virtual strangers to dinner, but often can't bear the sight of a loved one who through no fault of their own is HIV positive.
It is not all gloom and doom here, there is much happiness with or without this work, perhaps just as much as in the United States or Britain or Switzerland, where, despite much more favorable circumstances financially and in areas of public health, not everyone is happy. The streetlife on Tadiwala Rd is as vibrant and lively as anywhere else. The issue for the grassroots HIV awareness campaigns becomes of trying to directly help people maximize their happiness through awareness of this virus, through compassion towards those that have it, and proactive efforts to quell its spread, and in doing so, hopefully changing long held stigmas and reversing the advance of HIV into the heart of India.
posted by Volunteer at 11:49 pm
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