[APPLAUSE] Hi my name is Carly Forcade. And this summer I spent in Mumbai and Gujarat India, working and living in the very rural areas of the bustling city of Mumbai. It was an incredible experience. It was something unlike anything I've done before. I've traveled a lot in my past. However, I've never really traveled to anywhere quite like India. It was a really unique experience and something I'm really, really happy that I did. 

All of these photos are photos from my work, with Under the Mango Tree Society, which is the company that I worked with. It's part for-profit and part not for profit organization. I worked with the not for profit team, which was a very unique experience because I actually got really hands-on experience working with the field office team in Gujarat India, which most of you don't know is a state within India. And then I was in extremely rural areas such as [INAUDIBLE] which is very far away from Mumbai or, if you're familiar with the capital, Delhi. 

So my experience in Gujarat, I wanted to break my summer up into two months which is how long I was there, July, which was when I was in the field actually working with the women bee keepers, and August, which is when I was editing all of the videos I was doing. For July, I traveled to-- it was a very rural experience. I traveled to Gujarat India, where I was filming these women and their children in their daily lives to get a better experience of what Under the Mango Tree was doing. 

Under the Mango Tree, as I said, is a not for profit and for-profit company that worked with women bee keepers, which was an incredible experience for me because I loved to see women succeeding and having an opportunity to go further, especially in India and very rural India, where they don't have as much opportunity. A lot of their daily lives include working in the field, working at home, so having the opportunity to give them better agricultural yields, better profit for their families was really something special in my heart. Working with these women was something-- as I've said, this was very different from something I've done. And it was a process getting to know them. For many of them, they've never seen a foreigner before, so letting them open their hearts to me and their homes was definitely a process. 

So what I would do. When I first arrived, I had about a week in each village, two in some, and I went in there. And at first, a lot of them looked me like I was absolutely crazy. I don't a word of Hindi, so getting to meet them and work with them was definitely a challenge. So translations, smiling, hugging, sometimes just little offerings of food make huge difference. Also, going back every day and working with these women, just seeing your face again really helped. And it was really just an important experience because I was able to see what they did in their daily lives. A small moment, such as one day a woman-- I was walking down the road and she started to smile at me. That made a huge difference to me because it meant that she was finally going to maybe let me in to see a little bit more of her life. Which as you can see, they finally really let me in. I went into their homes. They cooked for me a little bit. And just those little, everyday experiences made a really big difference with-- 

[CHUCKLE] 

Very, very different. As you can see, some of these-- I was in the mud. I was traveling through fields. I was traveling on motorbikes. It was really a little bit of a challenge to get to work everyday you could say. But it was something that I wouldn't trade for the world. Talking about Gujarat a lot makes me also think of what I was doing in Mumbai, which editing all of the videos that I was doing while I was in the field. So I'm just going to show you quickly one of those clips instead of explaining all of the wonderful editing process. 

[VIDEO PLAYBACK] 

[SPEAKING IN HINDI] 

So I really enjoyed being able to get really close, even though I am slightly allergic to bees, which was something that-- 

[LAUGHTER] 

--because very, very close to them. But it's really cool just to be able to see the process because I'd never seen it before. So seeing them working the bees, they're really, really comfortable with them, so that was really exciting. Something she mentions, a lot of the women mentioned, was that they'd never heard heard of beekeeping before. They'd never viewed that as a process before Under the Mango Tree went in and really worked with them. 

She said she's a master [INAUDIBLE], which was something kind of incredible because it gave her a little bit of a step up. It gave her a greater experience working with Under the Mango Tree. And being able to improve herself economically and also socially was something they talked about. They talked about being able to talk to more women in their community being able to work for their community, which was something they really appreciated. She was one of the first people I filmed. 

I don't know if I mentioned this, I've never worked with iMovie before. I've never [INAUDIBLE] films before. So I'm an international relations and sociology double major, so this was something very much outside my comfort zone. But I'm really glad that I did it. He was one of the men I worked with in one of the villages that are really incredible. It's cool to be able to see a different culture and a different country in a different light. And I know a lot of foreigners would never be able to get inside someone's house. Where some of these footages, I'm filming on top of beds. I'm filming from rivers. I'm filming from cow pens. I'm filmed everywhere. So it was something very, very different. 

And that was what I was doing for the majority of-- in Mumbai in August. I was editing all of those footages, which might seem-- if you've ever done editing work, it doesn't seem very daunting, but It is, especially when you don't know the language. So translations were a big struggle for me. Making sure the light, the sound, every little clip making sure every little voice that you wanted taken out, that was a really big challenge But I also really appreciated the opportunity to work in a small business like Under the Mango Tree because I was able to see-- even though I was working with a not for profit team, I was able to see what the for-profit team was doing as well. They had honey packages right in the back room. I moved all around the office every day. It was an incredible experience because I was working with the owner, who is also an MHC alum. And also being able to work with people from all different backgrounds, which I really appreciated. Even though they were all from India, they were all from different parts of India. And they were all bringing their own backgrounds and resources to the table, which is incredible. It was something I really like about working in a small business. 

Moving forward, I'm really, really glad that I was able to-- moving forward, I'm really glad I was able to work in a small business in India. And it's definitely something that I'm really proud that I did And I know that now I would also like to work for the for-profit teams to see what they're doing and [INAUDIBLE]. 

[APPLAUSE]