A month with Selco

It’s been a whole month with SELCO, and the adage of ‘time flies’ really fits.

I’d like to dedicate this one-month-in post to a friend at SELCO. This girl called Palak. She works with the Rural labs in Selco Foundation, which is a department set up to study and research innovation towards improving livelihood in a rural set up.

She has taken her job to a whole new level by actually shifting base to a small village in Kalahandi in Orissa. She has been there for over six months, actually staying with the villagers in their huts. For a girl who is hard core city bred ( from Delhi), she now lives, eats, breathes kalahandi. Not just metaphorically; she has been living on the local diet of ganji ( rice and water) for breakfast, lunch and dinner, stating that even a vegetable is a luxury in those poverty stricken villages; has withstood their summer of 49 degree c;  has adapted to a no toilets,  no electricity, no mobile, way of life. She says there was a day the craving for food got so bad that she travelled all the way to Chattisgarh for a pizza. From a girl who was scared of cockroaches, she says now even snakes and wolves don’t worry her.

Kudos to you palak ;  your courage, grit, and commitment are truly admirable !!