IVHQ India- Experience of a Lifetime

I participated in the week long orientation and then one week of health placement volunteering in Delhi, India.

For orientation, the local program director provided a morning information session about India's culture, customs, religion, food, dress, etc. It was a nice introduction to the country. For the rest of the week, we received Hindi lessons from a local staff member, spent one day sightseeing in New Delhi (transportation and lunch provided), spent another day seeing Old Delhi (transportation and lunch provided), and then I also attended the option Taj Mahal tour (transportation, breakfast, lunch, and local guide provided.) This was a great way to get to know the other volunteers and local staff members.

As for suggestions during this time, definitely try to take the opportunity to explore Delhi as much as you can during free time because it becomes more difficult to do so once you're in your placement. Also, swap contact information with the other volunteers before orientation ends. That way, you can still communicate and coordination times to meet up on afternoons or nights after your placement.

For the project, I was in the medical volunteer program for one week. During that time, we hosted health camp in the slums. On those days, we had breakfast (roti/chappatti and chai) before being driving to our placement by the family's driver. We set up tables and provided health screenings to any community members between the hours of 10am and 1:30pm. The services we provided included checks of blood pressure, glucose level, pulse, oxygen saturation, upper body examination, and lower body examination. Then, we made a probably diagnosis based on the aforementioned findings and the patient's reports. After compiling this information, we passed the patient on to the doctor. The doctor then confirmed or changed our diagnosis, discussed the patient case with us, and provided treatment (including some medications such as antibiotics, nutrition supplements, cough suppressants, etc.).

Professionally I gained a lot of hands on experience. Personally, I was very humbled and inspired by the work we did.

After volunteering, we returned to the home stay for lunch which was cooked by our host mom and was always delicious. Then, we had the afternoons free. We had some difficulty going into the city to explore during this open slot because it took roughly an hour to get into the city and required us to take a tuk tuk prior to taking the metro. Therefore, we usually enjoyed down time during our afternoons and travelled to local markets. One volunteer even joined a local gym for a small month membership fee.

Curfew was at 8:30pm, and dinner was served shortly after.