Last year, around this time, Rohini Jog was basking in the success of turning around Roses of Mbuya, a small tailoring workshop in Uganda. Roses had 15 HIV positive women, stitching clothes as and when they were sought by the nearby shops. They earned a small stipend. Nothing much to look forward to.
But Jog changed all this. She had wafted into the world of the Roses as a volunteer with iVolunteer, the Indian counterpart of Voluntary Serivces Organisation (VSO), an international agency which has been placing volunteers in distant parts of the world matching skills with needs.
Jog is part of the first team of 16 Indians who were sent abroad by iVolunteer. The volunteers are coming back after their stay that lasted a year and a half.
The reasons that drove these volunteers to third world countries, to situations of power shortages and bad roads, are varied. For Jog, it was a ticket to freedom from corporate boredom and monotony and a peep into the development sector.
“I was tired of the work I had been doing since I was 16. I thought volunteering in Uganda was my opportunity,” says Jog, now back from her 15-month stay in Uganda.
She recalls fondly how she changed the payment system in Roses to piece-rate and then went on to get advance contracts for work. One of the first was from Aga Khan Foundation, which had a training centre there and needed uniforms for their nurses. We got the order.
We had enough orders lined up till the end of the year and what was running on a $10,000 annual loss began to run on $5,000 annual profit, she says.
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