Indian Dutch Education Agency

I am applying because the prize would help me to:

- improve activities Netherlands and in India

- building a bridge between different cultures.

The work in India is about introduction of our tools in Skill Development: Capacity building, working from and on Competencies, based on Problem Based Learning. This goes for the participants from India as well for the participants from The Netherlands, teachers and students. Also the Dutch participants, although from a already multicultural society, will spent time in a culture they have not experienced before. 

Honing your skills through the only thing you share, your profession, creates an environment to learn and understand the differences by using the tools mentioned before and value the outcome of cooperation.

But unfortunately it is a one-way project unto now. Dutch participants can comfortably raise money for their participation, where our partners in India have no resources at all. We would like to use the prize funding to balance that, so that students and teachers from India can come and experience our circumstances and the environment in the teaching institutions.

Not to forget that Capacity building between cultures is also very important for the Teachers and Trainers even at University level.

As a Teacher of Fine Arts & Crafts at a College for Care and Health Care I got the opportunity in 1987 to participate in an international program by CIF International, www.cifinternational.com , at CIF India and TISS www.tiss.edu  My actual work placement during 3 months was at Sion hospital to assist them to set up a Sheltered Workshop for paraplegics.

There is where I got impressed by the drive of young Indian people to work and study hard to secure their future, so much that it inspired me to put up the Indian Dutch Education Agency as a medium for Dutch students to do their internship in the social sector in India.

That evolved into cooperation with HAS University of Applied Sciences for Food Technology, www.has.nl/en , with Koning Willem 1 College, www.kw1c.nl/foreign-visitors , Ramanata Crisna Pai Raiker Agrischool, www.rcpragrischool.com and Mineral Foundation of Goa, www.goamining.org/organisation/mfg.php .

The goals for this cooperation are to improve Skill Development teaching at College level and University level so that there will be a growing exchange of experience, development and understanding in both countries.

It is my pleasure, with 25 years of experience with India, to inspire students from today's generations.  

Specific problems in the communities we are working at are the shortage of Skilled Trainers and the lack of modern teaching tools like capacity building, competency development and problem based learning. 

Goa in India is mainly a concept of consumer tourism, but people in Goa community have realised that this base is too narrow to build up a sustainable society and future. Therefor the mainly organic agricultural activities need a boost towards modern consumer requests and the disrupted communities also need a reorientation on the welfare situation of mostly elderly people in the villages, as their children had moved away for jobs in big cities or the Gulf countries, because their landholdings were destroyed by mining.

Through the uncontrolled mining activities in parts of Goa a lot of villages and communities got affected by the loss of resources from agriculture and living conditions. 

We are cooperating with RCPR Agrischool to improve agricultural aspects by Food Technology research from students of HAS (e.g. research for the best way to preserve raw jackfruit for export) and we hope to improve the Skills in the Health and Care sector by our internship programs from Koning Willem 1 College with Mineral Foundation of Goa.

What makes our work innovative is as mentioned before:

- Capacity building, Competency development and Problem Based Learning

Indian Society as a whole is still organised quite a lot along conservative education concepts. Which means Professor at the top, then his books and way beyond the student. 

Our work gives back some authority to the student about his own perspective for the future and help him towards achieving his goals. This looks to be in conflict with what education is in India, until they see the results. 

To improve that proces I want to have the possibility to put up training programs for trainers from Goa in the Institutes in The Netherlands. Not as an incident, but for building up an evolving community which excelles in unexpected development outside tourism and can be an example for India.

To create awareness among students in the schools in The Netherlands we have a board member from I.D.E.A. in a teaching job in each of the institutes HAS and KW1C. They have knowledge and experience about the fieldwork in India and they do the promotion work for the yearly programs.

We have a board member of I.D.E.A. in a leading function in Goa (Director of Mineral Foundation of Goa) as the contact person with the Institutes in Goa. He is our link between RCPR Agrischool, several Institutes in the Care sector and when needed with the Chamber of Commerce for Goa and the Government of Goa.

In this way we have recruitment possibilities in both countries and the Institutes in The Netherlands have already international training programs running for European and other countries. We have created awareness about our practical attitude by the internship programs of our students in India. 

With the infrastructure of people and knowledge it will be not to difficult to choose the right person for a training and also Institutes will be eager to sent their personal for a training. In fact we had already applications but could not realise programs by lack of funding.