Glocal Internship: Tevel B’Tzedek
Location: Ramechhap, Nepal
Theme: Community Development
Year: 2018
Nadav grew up in Givat Ze’ev, Israel, and was involved in youth movements and social initiatives from a young age. These experiences lead him to believe that the only change that could be made in the future must begin by influencing and empowering the youth of today.
During his internship, he ran evaluative research for Tevel B’Tzedek, an Israeli INGO working in Nepal, as part of their internship program that includes cultural exchange, language learning, and development-focused sessions. Their efforts involve working in agriculture, education, women’s empowerment, health, and youth empowerment; the latter of which Nadav focused on, mainly surrounding the organization’s youth programs in both rural and urban areas of Nepal. His evaluation research helped him to build multidisciplinary skills through a combination of interviews, focus group discussions, community mapping, observations, and surveys.
The findings helped to strengthen Nadav’s belief that mobilizing youth is a powerful force for change and has far-reaching effects on the whole community in a positive way. He also designed a project for the organization to implement, empowering youth to create a ceremony for the community during a main cultural holiday.
The field of development is broad and diverse, necessitating the utilization of many different skills and ambitions. Working in the development sector, practitioners find themselves in the midst of an array of ethical and professional questions, the answers to which depend largely on one’s self, values, and perceptions. Successfully and sensitively working in development requires strong motivation and belief, driven from one’s own life experiences, passion, skills, and moral values. The most vital part of development is determining how the roles of ‘me’ and ‘others’ interplay; this is necessary for the creation of viable interventions in all cultural contexts.