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Showing posts from December, 2020

New Girl in the Village: My First Week on the Field

Aditi Revankar. I moved to Chhindwara, amidst the pandemic, to begin my Fellowship. For the first two weeks, I quarantined. After that, I ventured into the field. Chourai. Sausar. Bicchua. Tamia. At the end of my first week, I had been to four different blocks on four different days with four different field officers. Most days, we had rain. Some days shine. Always Corona. Of course, we went armed with sanitizers and masks. The Antara Foundation (TAF) intervenes on the demand and supply side, I was told. They work with the frontline workers - who are the providers, as well as with the beneficiaries - who are expectant mothers and young children. A student of economics myself, I was only too pleased to be looking at work through the familiar demand-supply lens. It felt comfortable like a pair of cooling glasses that make it easier to see without squinting, in the harsh sunlight. I was thrilled at this simple enough, theoretically sound approach. However, I soon saw that the practice of