Now what exactly is this CINI?

(Written Jan 30 2009)

My first month working as an intern at CINI Asha, the urban unit of the Child in Need Institute, has flown by. In the first week, myself and nine other new interns from around the world (India, the Phillipines, Italy, England, Holland, Scotland and the United States) were given a thorough orientation on the projects that the CINI is involved in throughout the greater Kolkata area. Complete strangers that first day, we quickly go to know each other. In a few days time, we had visited many of the rural and urban field areas with community mobilizers that work directly in with our populations. Throughout the week, I came to appreciate that both the “Life Cycle Approach” and the concept of creating child and woman friendly communities, CWFCs, are integral to the work that CINI does. I am still learning how these concepts can be applied effectively, but my initial gut feeling was relief that the ideology on public health seemed to match my own in many ways.

I have now been working in the Health Unit of CINI Asha for three weeks. As each day passes, I am introduced to new facets of the work that the Health Unit performs. With six extremely populous fields under their charge, it is no wonder that the office is often buzzing with conversation about the next project. In my time as an intern, I will be involved in many aspects of the HU work, including running a study of the health and nutrition status of the mothers and under five children in the population of one of our most afflicted target areas. In this first month, I have been working out the details of that study. It has been a much more involved than I expected, including developing and editing time and again, the questions that the research will cover, the list of eligible participants, enlisting the help of a Hindi-speaking community mobilizer to conduct the survey, and familiarizing myself with the work that health workers in the field perform on a regular basis.

The health unit has been providing services to the community for many years. Still, it is rare that it has the extra manpower to assess the quality of the work it is performing in the community. Our hope is that the results of this study will give us a better understanding of one of the communities where we work and will thereby allow us to improve the services the CINI Asha provides. While there are always challenges when joining a new working environment, I feel that CINI Asha will be a wonderful place to intern for the coming months. Slowly I am learning the many languages being thrown around in the office and the best part is discovering new smiling faces every day when I wind the stairs of Amader Bari. It has been a whirlwind of a beginning, but I am looking forward to the ride ahead.