This year all 80 Suas volunteers and coordinators based in India gathered together in New Delhi at the end of July for what was the largest Global Perspectives Week to date.

A number of speakers returned to address the volunteers for the 3rd, 4th or even 5th time! Volunteers met with Pat Bourne, First Secretary in the Irish Embassy in India, Colin Gonsalves, prominent Human Rights lawyer and founder of the Human Rights Law Network and Shantum Seth, a Buddhist monk and philosopher.

There were also a number of speakers who addressed Suas volunteers for the first time. Gabriel McCarrick from the new Delhi office of Enterprise Ireland spoke to the volunteers on the economic and trade issues challenges facing India and the economic links between Ireland and India. Amit Kaushik, a former senior government official in the Indian Ministry of Education and Lisa Heydlauff, founder of multimedia NGO Going to School answered the volunteers’ questions on Education in India.

The highlight of the week though was “UN Day”, the day the volunteers were hosted in the UNDP Headquarters in New Delhi. In the morning the volunteers got to meet with Deirdre Boyd, Country Director of the UNDP as well as some of the young professionals who work with the organisation. In the afternoon the World Bank presented the work they are involved with in India and globally.

2008 Volunteer Group outside UN headquarters, Delhi

Global Perspectives Week forms one part of the Global Perspective element of the Volunteer Programme. The Global Perspectives element of the programme aims to engage all volunteers with development issues, in particular linking up their experiences working with Suas’ partners and living in India or Kenya to the wider picture in their host country and globally. In the run up to GPW, Development Coordinators Andrea Wickham and Stephen Murphy organised weekly discussion evenings where volunteers presented and debated issues related to India’s development including the Caste System, Gender Issues and the Indian Political System.

In addition, volunteers in Calcutta and New Delhi regularly visited NGOs and other organisations working In Delhi volunteers visited, among other organisations, the Naz Foundation, a group which works with children and adults who have HIV/AIDS, still very much a taboo issue in modern India. In Calcutta, a group of volunteers were hosted by UNICEF who took them to visit a number of community development projects that they run in the rural communities to the South of Calcutta.   

Volunteers from previous programmes have often returned to Ireland and shared some of their experiences through giving presentations, organising talks or writing articles for their local or college newspapers. Volunteers have also the option of signing up for one of the Suas Global Issues Series which run for between 6 and 8 weeks in Third Level institutions across Ireland to further their explore global development issues.