At 9:00am I make for Grameen Bank’s headquarters located in Mirpur, a sub-district of Dhaka. I am scheduled to begin orientation at 10:30am along with the other interns. I was told earlier I would be working in a group of about twenty other interns from around the world. Although Mirpur is only about 5 kilometers from my apartment in Gulshan, the traffic situation is so bad here that it is not uncommon for it take 1-2 hours to travel that distance, so I decided to start a bit early.
The Grameen Bank Headquarters is 20 story building right in the middle of a busy commercial area of Mipur. I arrive at 10:00am and make my way to the 8th floor of the building which where the International Programs division is located. There I meet with a group of about twenty to thirty other students who are all waiting to begin orientation. There were students representing almost every continent of the world. In my group alone there were interns from Bolivia, Turkey, El Salvador, China, Singapore, Japan, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, India, England, Australia, Kenya, and of course the United States. There were a handful of American students from various universities across the country, such as NYU, Columbia, University of Michigan, University of Chicago and ASU of course. It was exciting to see so much diversity and I looked forward to all the different perspectives.
After a couple of hours of introductions and informal discussions, we were seated in a conference room and requested to fill out several forms and to write an introduction about ourselves and our desired objectives with Grameen. We were then escorted to an adjoining conference room, where we watched a short presentation on the History of Grameen Bank. Following this presentation, we were welcomed by the entire program management team and briefed on rules, regulations, and expectations. Considerable time was also devoted to safety concerns and advice with regards to living in Dhaka during the duration of the internship.
My first day was an interesting one, filled with hours of meetings and presentations. The most enriching part of the orientation was the opportunity to befriend a group of people from so many different cultures and to share thoughts on a common interest of public service and development. On the next morning, all the interns would be broken into smaller groups and introduced to an internship coordinator, who would be responsible for mentoring, educating, and assigning projects and tasks. A general schedule for the next eight weeks would also be presented. We were all given several introductory books and pamphlets to read during the week at the conclusion of the orientation.
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