I know the reasons I chose to spend my summer in Madurai at the Aravind Eye Hospital. When I look back at it, the actual ways in which Aravind is so unique and influential are clearer. Here is my pitch for why you should spend your summer at AEH. Aravind is, at its core, a […]
CASI Student Programs Blog
Since 2007, the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania has supported nearly 200 students! Welcome to the home base for CASI students and alumni to share their thoughts, reflections, and ongoing learnings about their internships, research projects, and travels in India and beyond.
Even to this day, there are still times when I wake up and long to be back in our bustling, historically rich summer abode that was Madurai. Memories of late night talks with Manya, Celeste, and Suhaas in our Inspiration “living room”, eating home-cooked lunches in the canteen amidst busy days of work, and making […]
I am presently working on a project that aims to study the impact of loneliness on migration and reverse migration among textile factory workers in Bangalore, India. The objective is to design and implement an Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) inspired intervention that will target the loneliness and depression experienced by migrant women factory workers. Typically […]
Earlier this year when the team of curriculum designers at The Community Library Project and I first started speaking about the possibility of studying the role of informal spaces in young people’s lives, our research interests, though essentially looking at similar aspects, differed. While I was interested in looking at youth engagement in informal spaces, […]
Public libraries are not only centers for literary activity but also important sites for social activity and inclusion, and learning. Increasingly, the role of public libraries is being taken up by individual library practitioners and nonprofit organizations who often expand the role of libraries from being just a space that provides access to books to […]
Exposure to multiple risk factors has negative effects on children, and adversely influences all avenues of a child’s life. Risk factors can range from exposure to political violence and forced migration from climate change, to unsafe cultural practices such as genital cutting (Belsky, 2012). The most prevalent risk in children’s lives, however, with a global […]
During the COVID-19 lockdown in India, along with schools and other educational institutions, public libraries too remained shut. While the impact of school closure due to COVID-19 on literacy and learning outcomes of school going children in India has already been taken up across multiple studies by researchers, educators and various government and non-government organizations, […]
Time to clock out. Oh wait, we stopped signing into work since the end of June. No card to punch in. Wow, that feels like a long time ago. As my moment at Aravind ends, a new one is beginning. But it’s hard to accept that and leave what was a deeply impactful experience. This […]
I spent a lot of my freshman year at Penn struggling with the whiplash of being in a brand new country. As this year comes to an end, I continue to struggle to navigate my changing relationships to India and the US. I was afraid that acclimatizing more to my new surroundings — learning to […]
We were handed several articles about Aravind Eye Care System at our orientation in early June. One article, titled “The Perfect Vision of Dr. V,” made us cringe throughout. After outlining the disappointments of modern life in Western countries, the author gave her solution: “There is a place you can go to find the answer: […]
CASI Student Programs Blog 