Parivartan

Village Exposure Visit Brief

Purpose:
69% of Indias population lives in its 640,000 villages. Rural India also provides a
paradoxical picture with widespread poverty, inadequate infrastructure, poor
connectivity, etc. on one hand, and fast growing usage/consumption of FMCG items,
durable, cell-phones, two-wheelers, etc. The purpose of village exposure visits is to gain
first-hand experience about the life conditions of people from the less-privileged
background (or an understanding of the under-served markets).
What you have to do:
1. During this visit, as a group you are required to talk to at least 15 households/ people
from the community you are visiting. Do this in pairs or as a group (and dont divide
the meetings to it together). Plan each interaction for about 45-60min.
An illustrative list of questions you can explore is as below (a suggestion: dont try to
interview them, which would make them defensive but just converse in normal
manner to find out about them):

Which community do they belong to?

How many members are there in the family?

What assets do they have? What type of houses they live in?

How many family members and who earn a living for the family? What
occupations?

How do they earn a living? Do they have only one source of livelihood, or more than
one?

Do the children go to school? Which ones? If not, why not? What do they do?

Where does the major of part of the family income go? Food? Healthcare? Clothes?
Education? Energy (e.g., kerosene, electricity, etc.)? House? Repayment of debts?
Income-generating resources? Consumption activities (e.g., entertainment,
gambling, drinking, festivals, etc.)? etc.

What are their major worries? Low employment? Rising prices? Health? Childrens
education? Debts? etc.

Do they save money? How? What proportion of their earnings is saved? Where?

What kind of injustices/ hardships/ discriminations/ unfair practices etc., do they face
in their daily lives?

Do they get any assistance/ support for solving their problems? From what sources?

What makes them happy about their lives? What are their hopes and aspirations?
Etc.

2. Try to understand how the village economy functions. What are the major livelihood
activities? How is the income distributed in the community? What social institutions
exist, and how they operate?
3. What is the nature of work/ interventions made by your host NGO (and/or other
agencies which may be working in this village)? What government schemes are
working in the village? What impact have these made on the community?
Deliverable:
Based on the above, the group is requested to prepare and submit a report
(around 2500 words) by the next Friday after your visit, to the Deans office
(dean@xlri.ac.in) with a copy marked to faces@xlri.ac.in .

Your reports will also be shared with the host NGO, and will be of great value
for them.
Please also plan for a short presentation of about 15 minutes, which we will take try to
schedule at a later date.
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