In the nitty gritty

This week has really blown by so fast! Angela and I can hardly believe it's already Friday. We've been hard at work teaching the Chidiya women the Nest Business Curriculum that is part of their loan process, and it has been an interesting task. We realized after the first lesson that the women are illiterate, so any ideas we had regarding translating worksheets and writing on the chalkboard in Tamil (with the help of the translator of course) went completely out the window. We've had to work at adapting the curriculum for this group of women and so far it seems to be working. We asked the women yesterday how they felt about it, and to be honest, and they stated that they were able to understand our explanations and were interested to learn more. One of the best things, I think, about this community, is that they do not hold back. When we ask them to be honest about something, they are. It's a great feeling knowing that we can evaluate everything we are doing here without worrying about whether or not we are being told the right information.

Because we are on a bit of a time crunch, it seems the next month is going to go by so fast. Yesterday we received an order for the women to complete for a company called Yala. I'm not sure if I mentioned this previously when the women were making samples, but something Nest does is called Ethical Sourcing. This program is where Nest reaches out to companies to offer ethical sources of products for them to sell. In this case, Nest has created a partnership with Yala and Chidiya, where Chidiya is going to be their ethical source for jewelry. This is really exciting, as the women have dictated to us the need for more frequent, larger orders. If this first order goes smoothly, Yala will continue to order more from the women. Angela and I are going to do our best to ensure that this goes perfectly because we want the women to really benefit from every order they get. The upside to this order is that there are more pieces being ordered than their usual orders include, and it is considered a "small order." Angela and I will be overseeing the entire process of this order, as it must be shipped out before we leave Trichy. It is all very exciting! I will be sure to post some photos of the process once we get down to business.

Here are some photos!

Some of the beads used for the Yala samples

2 of the boys from the hostel being naughty!

Me with Nivesh, the baby boy of one of the Chidiya women. He may just be one of the cutest babies I have ever seen

This is our new friend! She has been following us everywhere this week. Angela decided to name her Dobby since the new Harry Potter film was released in the States this week.