FSL India Blog

A delegation comprised of three business management students from National School of Business, Bangalore and Business School ESC PAU, France paid a visit to learn about youth volunteerism and inter-cultural learning promoted by FSL India. Both these academic institutions have been engaging students in youth exposure activities which help the student community learn from each other. In this effort Ravi Kumar from National School of Business Bangalore was placed at ESC PAU, France. On the other hand Laetitia and Maxime from ESC PAU, France did their youth exposure at National School of Business, Bangalore.

As partial fulfilment of student exposure in pursuance of their academic course, these management trainees are currently working on different business projects for different companies, NGOs and civil society organisation and deal with a range of issues including cultural differences between French and Indian workers. They were overwhelmed by FSL India’s vision to promote world peace, mutual respect and inter-cultural exchange by facilitating international voluntarism among youth in the field of Natural Resource Management and Socio Economic Development of local community.

With the help of a semi-structured questionnaire they wanted to have in-depth understanding about FSL India’s commitment to promote international volunteerism and inter-cultural learning. The delegates had an intensive dialogue with FSL India team represented by Mr. Deepak. They sought information about the working environment and the challenges encountered in promoting international volunteerism and inter-cultural learning. Having known about background information of FSL India, they were inquisitive to learn more about Indo-French team. Indo-French culture and the context in which the volunteers from across the world work together are the important dimensions of the deliberation. The dialogue ultimately aimed at identifying potential challenges and the way forward to address them. Here are the feedbacks from the students:

The interview with FSL India was quite different in various aspects. The work done by the organisation is quite applauding. The way FSL India caters to the needs of volunteers from different nationalities is great too.

I wish FSL India great success in promoting its Vision and have a successful future….Ravi Kumar, from India.

Very interesting interview! New and relevant information, thank you very much… thus says Laetitia MOUSTIE, from France.

Thank you very much for showing your unique experience …says Maxime ZAFIROPOULOS, from France.

FSL India takes this opportunity to wish these management trainees a good future ahead and become the forerunners of promoting world peace, mutual respect and inter-cultural learning.

Date: 28.1.2011

Place: FSL India, Bangalore

FSL India has rebooted with lot of energy for the new year 2011!!  And is getting prepared to make big changes and reach great goals during the years to come. The head offices of the 3 branches of FSL ( Kundapura, Chennai and Bangalore) had a review meeting on 28′th January for making the future plans.

The core team will meet each month with all the heads from 6 departments to monitor and plan development of the organization and the quality of the programs. 2011 will be the year of HRD for FSL India.

Core team of FSL India 2011:

During 2nd and 3rd of November Margarete (coordinator) from AFS Germany visited FSL India Kundapur and Bangalore offices. During 3 days in Kundapur, we had meeting and visited some project, Eco tourism has organized boat trip and had meeting with volunteer on an island. It was good time to see a partner and would be helpful for future our cooperation.

On 22nd September FSL India was invited by Rotaract Club Kundapur for the ‘Joint Meeting’. The meeting agenda was to create awareness among the people about saving India’s national animal ‘Tiger’, since it is in engendering situation.  FSL Kundapur Centre manager Aravind Thunga honored as the chief guest and inaugurated the promotional awareness sticker with the chief secretary of Rotaract Club Kundapur. The FSL coordinator Dayanand Salins, Long term and work-camp volunteers were participated in this program and presented information about the countries.

The 21^st International Youth Forum

The Role of youth for Achieving the Cairo Agenda

18 to 26 of August 2010, Seoul Korea

There were 107 youths were participated from 39 different countries in South Korea to seek ways to encourage youth involvement in achieving the ‘Cairo Agenda’. The participants discussed about the Protection of family dignity, World population for sustainable development and Promotion for public health of the world in this seminar.

The International Youth Forum initiated in 1990 in order to enhance youths’ awareness about global issues and their friendship, based on a special fund created by the Ministry of Sports and Youth of Republic of Korea. Since its first year, the forum has grown consistently and has developed in dealing with various international issues such as Volunteering, Multi-cultures and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and so on.

The program was hosted by Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Republic of Korea, Organized by National Council of Youth Organization in Korea (NCYOK) and Sponsored by Asia Pacific Alliance.

My personal experience was the little fear about fist fly in plane!! But Fsl team members guided me very well. I found lots of cultural differences between India & Korea, like dress code, food, infrastructure of the country, travelling in bus, trains & cars, etc. Also I did not see any animal on the street & never heard about blowing horn. The South Korea people are really kind but to communication was little problem for me, same time I managed with sign language. All this experience reminded me about the volunteers feeling while they come for voluntary service in India. Finally, in my point of view, FSL staffs are well supporting volunteers.

Special thanks to FSL, National Council of Youth Organizations in Korea (NCYOK), Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Republic of Korea (MOGEF). Last but not least, I am gratitude to all, who has supported me directly & indirectly for this golden opportunity

FSL India has organized meeting for all the host family members in Kundapur and Udupi on 27th July at Hotel Sharon, Kundapur. The topics were, flash back of all the FSL activities, three side expectations, experience sharing and some topics for best practice. 35 participants were present including 25 host family members and FSL staff. A volunteer also included in preparing and organizing this meeting. The host families were actively participated in this meeting to bring fruitful result for upcoming season.

ARUN.B, FSL-INDIA- Chennai Facility; Chennai,

Dear Friends!

I have completed a Glorious and enjoyable year as a family member of FSL – India. This thinks me like “worldwide but achieved nearby”. And I have been working as Field Coordinator-EDRN for the project of happy move Camp V_s Model Village project hands with Hyundai Motor Company.

I am highly motivated as part of the team, as ,I move into the 2 year, in the above said project for successful implementation, as well as my improvements and learning curve in the field of Development , of which I am proud to be a part of FSL – India’s team.

I take this opportunity to say to one and all in FSL-India, that I continue to get the support, that, I have received over this past year. Let me take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone from FSL team, and all my colleagues of all regional offices and FSL India Partner organizations, as they have, given support and encouragement to me to serve in the field of Development and work with the underprivileged.

On 30th and 31st May, 2 days training was held at our Bangalore office for work camp team leaders.

It was a good opportunity for the new team leaders to interact with coordinators/senior team leaders and to learn new things by sharing  the experiences with them. This training was mainly focused on how to follow the work camp system known as  “milestones”, sharing experiences with old team leaders and get to know how to handle the challenges during work camps.

Fsl India has organized 2 days training to the staff members in Bangalore on 28^th and 29^th of May.

The training was conducted by Mr. Manoharan from ‘Surakshaa Elite’. There were 23 staffs had attended and most of the participants were came from the offices in Bangalore, Kundapur, Chennai facility. Different life skills and professional qualities were taught by the trainer, which included, Effective Communication (with a focus on Cross cultural communication), Email etiquette, Leadership, Conflict Resolution etc.

IJGD has organised first Mentors Training in 2009 in Berlin. Participants from all over the world has participated in that event.

Mentors training 2010 consisted of  following sessions to keep minimum standard to make the WW program successful.

The sessions are,
self reflection on past performance, updating IJGD procedures, Quality management, coordination system, Finance, conflict management and drafting handbook and dialogue meeting with IJGD volunteers.
Also some field trip to project, inaguration of public drinking water filter and eco tourism boat trip.

Finally we are happy to get positive result out of this meeting and for positive feed back from partners.