Still working away on the intervention plan...hence, most brain cells capable of producing words have been assigned to that endeavor. Hopefully my teammates appreciate said strategy and Mom and Dad forgive me for not reminding them of my continued mortality on a daily basis.
Yesterday we took over the Ideal River View Resort to pitch our intervention proposals and receive feedback before the final paper and presentation this Thursday. We presented to the ICTPH staff, including one of ICTPH's board members, Dr. Nachiket Mor. Dr. Mor has an extensive background in finance and is closely involved in the non-profit sector as the Chairman of the Boards of Sughavazhvu Health Care, CARE India and IFMR Trust, among other board memberships. Pretty cool.
It was exciting to express what we have been working on for the past four weeks. Also good to share our work with a smart and thoughtful crowd. Although, even though millions of presentations have come and gone throughout academic and Coro settings, I've never really been in a position where my objective was to "sell" an idea to a "client." So experimenting with that approach was a great learning experience for me. Still not sure how I feel about using the corporate language of the man, blah, blah and all of that...but really, I am thinking a lot about the intersections between non-profit and business and how and where the models should adopt pieces from each other. And how and where they should not. But I won't bore with all of that here.
Either way, the Q&A sessions following each presentation were also an interesting illustration of how a presentation like this is different from the traditional academic "let me tell you everything I know about this topic" presentations I've done before. Many of the issues raised to me and the other presenters had been discussed at length with our teams, and, for one reason or another, were not included. Point being, even when you want to be concise and focus on the "selling points," the other stuff will inevitably be pointed out and addressed along the way. Which seems to be productive in that it gives a more comprehensive picture...so should all "pitches" include more info? Do we have attention spans long enough for that? I might venture to say no...
Besides all that, hearing what all the other groups are planning for their interventions raised some important questions for the organization. Like how are we going to expect our community health workers to do ALL this stuff--talk to people about clean water, anemia, salt intake and blood pressure, smoking, etc. That's a huge burden on them. So, it seems that, we, as a large group, need to have a conversation about points for coordination and collaboration to tighten all these ends up. Child and maternal health team look out...the GI folks might be looking to work with you on addressing diarrhea in kids under five...
After the morning presentations we enjoyed and awesome lunch on a beautiful patio overlooking the river. So much food!! Soup, paneer (cheese), eggplant, mushroom, breads, rices, ice cream and fruit. Oh man. I also had the opportunity to chat with Dr. Mor for a bit about some of his different work in micro-lending. Very interesting to hear how some of that implementation was designed and executed around India, where most people are not connected to any bank. Like many counties, the Indian mobile banking sector is growing. However, mobile banking takes away the human advice and guidance of a loan officer (who is more like a counselor in micro-lending settings)...so is something better than nothing? Or do we need the whole package? And if we need the whole package, is it ethical to decide to do nothing if only doing something wont really work so well?
Meep!
So we waiting the mom-recommended 30 minutes and proceeded to dive (ok, only I dove, but my shallow diving skills aren't too rusty) into the coconut tree surrounded pool. Water. Mmmm.
The night wound down with another awesome dinner, complete with...samosa!!! YES.
Ok, back to writing our final draft of the intervention paper. Thursday...so close...
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