On December 31st, Founder and Executive Director of Pathways, Grace Strangis left for Kolkata, India. Accompanying her were her daughter and Pathways board member Sara-Grace Newhall, her nephew Brandon Reiner who will be using his professional skills working with autistic children during the trip, 11 seminarians and 2 priests from St. John Vianney and 2 University of Minnesota School of Public Health graduate students. Pathways funds the trips for the seminarians who will do two weeks of service at Pathways Jan Seva School and the Missionaries of Charity. You can read the seminarian blogs here: Seminarian Blog The U of M graduate students will be continuing their work with the Jan Seva School’s Community Health Program. Many more pictures are on Pathways Facebook page here.
The picture above is a picture at the dedication of the board room at Jan Seva to Ralph Strangis, Grace’s husband, who passed away last year who has been very instrumental in the success of Pathways.
The lovely ladies in the picture above, who make the programs at Jan Seva possible, are Dr. Zarin Dadina, Jyoti Bhatia, Pathways Board member Sara-Grace Newhall, Shirin Dastur and Pathways Executive Director, Grace Strangis.
Observations from UMN students
January 14th On Thursday and Friday, Kelsey and Kara held two of the three day evaluation work group with Community Health Program team at Jan Seva in an effort to build the team’s evaluation skills and capacity. On the first day the team, with the guidance of Kara and Kelsey, developed a CHP logic model working through their inputs, activities conducted, outputs, and some short-, intermediate, and long-term outcomes. Using family planning, one of the community awareness campaigns, together the team identified objectives they want to see in the women after attending a session and indicators that will be used to measure take-away messages (i.e. percentage of women who correctly identified the minimum number of birth spacing years). These indicators will inform the team on how they will word their survey questions. On the second day, the CHP team reviewed other objectives and indicators for two other community awareness campaigns, high blood sugar and hypertension. The final day will comprise of working through interactive and feasible methods to survey women in the field in order to collect quantitative data. Because many of the women are illiterate, the team will need to be creative using pictures, stickers, markers, and other ways for participants to indicate responses to survey questions.
Kelsey and Kara were also able to attend the Society for Indian Children’s Welfare (SICW) celebration event, which recognizes and honors parents who have adopted a child from the organization and hear stories from those who were adopted. One special story came from a woman who was adopted when she was five years old. She is now a lawyer in India and recently provided her first salary as a donation to the orphanage. The night was filled with laughter, dancing, and love. The students are truly honored to have been able to partake in the celebration.
January 8thKelsey Bibbee and Kara Ulmen are masters of public health students at the University of Minnesota. They are working on a two-week project with the Community Health Program (CHP) team at Jan Seva. On their first day they met with the team to get to know each other, better understand the programs that are offered, and identify areas that the CHP team would like to improve upon. After this first meeting the team identified that they would like help creating an evaluation program for their community awareness campaigns for 2018 and 2019. Kelsey and Kara have been working on a mini evaluation workshop to develop the CHP team’s skills in evaluation. The students are very impressed with the amount of outreach and effort the team has completed and their plans for 2019.
Over the weekend when the school was closed, UMN students immersed themselves in the sounds, sights, and tastes of Kolkata. They were able to see the Victoria Memorial, Indian Museum, and New Market-where they purchased fabric to make traditional Indian dresses. They scoured the new and used book stalls on College Street, which is a sight to see for any book-lover.
Getting to know the different services provided by Jan Seva. The school has an immaculate garden, which is used for the meals provided by the school.
Busy working on creating a mini evaluation workshop
One of the many book stalls on College Street in Kolkata
On Saturday, January 6th the St. John Vianney seminarians volunteered at Mother Teresa’s house for disabled children. Following are some observations from Brandon.
“Despite the many challenges these children face they were all smiles when we walked through the door. We sang and enjoyed mass together and then helped serve the children a bountiful lunch…seriously I can’t believe the portion sizes. The children spoke English very well, we bonded and joked over “Cars 3.” The overall experience was priceless, I will never forget them!”
On Sunday, January 7th, Brandon writes, “I had the most wonderful experience working with Arisa, this five-year old girl with mild autistic features, who was all smiles during our time together. One highlight was when a teacher was prompting her to find the letter “H,” and didn’t realize she still needed to find the letter “G.” Arisa’s assertive personality shined through as she kept repeating “G,” till the teacher acknowledged that Arisa was correct.
I was so pleased with the teachers’ comprehension of applied behavioral analysis (teaching methodology commonly used with children with Autism) that has shown through empirical data to have a positive impact. The teachers and I were bonding over the common concerns we all face as teachers; specifically, getting the same results seen at the school in the home setting! My mind is racing with creative ways that we can collaborate in the days to come.”
January 8th I worked with Adarsh today, a 6 year old male with Autism, at first he was reluctant to open up to me, but Snapchat quickly eased any concerns he had about me and was glued to my hip the rest of the day. The teacher identified several areas of limitation that Adarsh faces in his daily life; specifically, his latency (time it takes to respond to questions) which improved as we spent more time together. The other focus was on his flexibility going up and down the stairs at the school which we successfully accomplished despite the anxiety it clearly induced. Overall, a wonderful experience with Adarsh and the educators of Jan Seva!
January 10th Today I spent my time with an amazing 6 year old boy named Akash. We worked on a variety of his short-term goals; specifically, task persistence while sitting, that greatly improved during our time together. We also focused on matching body parts, recognizing familiar adults, and coloring. One funny/adorable take away if you read the previous blog post, Adash who was glued to my hip the other day was unable to concentrate while I was working with Akash so we turned our one-on-one time into a group play because he was too distracted with my presence.
Being my last day at Jan Seva, I would like to express my gratitude to Grace Strangis for making this opportunity possible and to the teachers and staff that were so welcoming to me. My experience at Jan Seva and in India has changed my perspective of what is truly important in life – I would urge everyone to get out of their comfort zone and do the same – you will not regret it!!! I hope that I get another opportunity to enjoy the company of the staff and children of Jan Seva for they will always be in my mind!!!
