2nd weekend in India. It's fun time!

It's a weekend! On Friday night, we took an hour trip to see a festival at Isha Yoga Center(temple). Isha Foundation is a non-religious, not-for-profit, public service organization which addresses all aspects of human wellbeing. It was very spiritual and I felt like I was time tripped or found myself in a movie! 

South Indian music with Violin

On Saturday, we went for a shopping and explored around Coimbatore city. I finished the day with having my first non-vegetarian meal in India.

colorful Sary store

Wine made in India

Saturday dinner with wonderful team mates

Sunday, we went for a Safari trip to a state forest called Parambikulam tiger reserve and Topslip. It was about 2.5 hours of bumpy road ride from Coimbatore city. Unfortunately, we didn't see any tigers or wild elephants, but we saw monkeys and wild pigs! I really enjoyed scenery of the forest and driving through rural area of India. It was a good adventurer get away with the team.

500 years old teak tree

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First week in Sankara hospital

It’s been a week since I started working in Sankara hospital. I am slowly getting used to the hospital environment and more comfortable seeing the patients.


Overall, our project has been going pretty well so far that we are on track of the project plan.

This week, we visited each department to understand and identify SOP(Standard Operation Process) used in the hospital. We found most of the department already has existing SOP which is written in either PDF or Word document. Problem is that there is no common SOP format used across the hospital. We believe it is important to use standard format of SOP for the new knowledge management system. We are in process of analyzing existing SOPs collected from each department and researching standard SOP format used in medical institutions.

On Thursday, we delivered a presentation for high executives and department managers. They all seem very excited to hear about the new system and IBM CSC program. It remained me the time when I started working in IT industry where I was directly dealing with internal users. Feeling their excitement and seeing smile on their face gives me energy and brings such a joy for work.

On Friday, we had some system requirements problems we didn’t expect. We ended up solving the problem by using free Linux environment of Ubuntu OS which comes

with MySQL, Apatche, PHP. Good work team! 

CSC India 15 Sankara Project Team

Vegetarian meal is served in the hospital for all employees.  Spicy but feeling healthy!

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I've been working in Sankara Hospital for 3 days now, and it has been a life changing experience. I was very shocked to see a patient after a patient lying in beds.

This is my new office in Coimbatore.

CSC Sankara Team consists of 3 IBMers, JeongRan from Korea, Joao from Brazil and myself are working together to create a SOP knowledge management system for this hospital.  

Sankara was first formed in 1977 by Dr. Ramani to provide health care for poor.

In 1990, Dr. Ramani established a 3H program, HELP, HUNGER, HUMANITY and specialized the hospital for eye care with the vision of "Work towards freedom from preventable and curable blindness".

Today, Sankara hospital operates more than 200 patient "daily" for FREE  OF CHARGE to help poorest of the poor to cure their blindness. 

Did you know, it only takes US$30 to give a vision back to a blind person?

If you could spend your time of 30 seconds to watch this video, Sankara will be very appreciate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MfIrtajivg&feature=relmfu



Please spread the word around, even just to watch the video. Because, these people really need your help. I am seeing it in front of my eyes...

Dr. Ramani said to me, "After securing your life and your family, start think about others.".

I think, living in a city life sometimes makes us greedy and put blind eyes for poverty.

Sankara's door is open for anyone who would like to visit the hospital.

Sankara is working on 20/20 vision, which is to build 20 Sankara Eye Hospitals across rural area in India by 2020.

Today, 11 Sankara eye hospitals has been built in India and operating with the help of donations.








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Sunday 12 Feb 2012.  Professor Alagarsamy took us to a Dhanvantari temple. This temple is located inside a hospital where Ayuarvedic natural therapy is provided to the patients.  

We are getting used to take Rickshaaw!

Professor A, Andrew, Timea, Bernd, Varely, Grace

Team Feet! : )
(We needed to take off our shoes to enter the temple.)





Healing Master praying for our team.

Getting blessed and becoming Hindu. 

 Without Professor A's help, we wouldn't find this temple. There were no tourist at all in this temple except us which made it very special.

Indian vegetarian pizza

Having a meeting with Ms.Mamthsha from IBM India, she is a leader of CSC India and helping our success. 

During our first orientation, each of us spoke about a turning point of our life and it's relation to volunteer work. It was wonderful to share a lief story with the team and I can not wait to start working on the project!

Saturday 11 February 2012 was totally different with my normal Saturday, full of new experiences and surprises. But most importantly, I finally met my wonderful team mates from all round the world! 

Home sweet home for my big family "Team India 15". We are consist of 11different nationalities; American, Australian, Brazilian, Colombian, French, German, Hungarian, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Philippine. 














Madness of beeping hones, crazy busy roads. If you are crossing, do NOT stop!

Center of the town

After wondering the town for an hour, it's tea time~

Jo and Andrew are having a tea from a small street stand...!?

We accidentally walked in "the famous" sweet store called Sri Krishna Sweets. No wonder, it was so tasty! It is not an apple, they are all made by condensed milk and very sweet.  : )

Well, it is provably not the safest option, but, hei, we are all tiered and jet lagged... Let's just hop on a Rickshaw and go home!

My dinner tonight was Chicken Sagwala and Rice. Spicy but yummy.

 

Thanks to CDS local representative Kabi for making our first day so special and comfortable.
Nandri (Thank you in Tamil)

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I am in Coimbatore!

After 22 hours of traveling, I finally arrived in Coimbatore. Big thank you for Professor Alagarsamy for welcoming and picking us up from the airport in the mid of the night. Warm air and unusual smell, sounds of beeping hones, YES, I am in India! 

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