Following on from Mark Cullen’s account of his Global Fellowship experience in China, Charlotte Jackson shares her experience of how she developed her enterprise capability in India.
Global Fellow – Charlotte Jackson writes:
Sometimes getting thrown in at the deep end and having to function really helps you to realise your potential! For me, the key skill I gained was confidence! Throughout the 6 weeks, I had numerous opportunities to talk to large groups of people, give presentations, and take part in discussions and debates. This really helped me improve my communication skills and public speaking.
The first part of the trip was spent following a cultural and linguistic immersion programme designed to help Fellows get to know each other, understand more about India as a country and visit some places.
Week one of the programme focussed on personal development of skills such as time-management and planning. In the second week of immersion, the Fellows all split up into smaller separately located groups. For my group, remaining in the capital Delhi, the focus was on developing team work and communication skills within our group to understand each others’ strengths and weaknesses and complete a variety of tasks.
The second part of PMGF saw me move in with a host family and attend school to complete an action research project. This experience certainly made me realise the importance of compromise, being flexible and working with what is available to you, an important consideration in terms of business and enterprise.
The final part of the programme was spent working at Tesco Hindustan Service Centre (HSC) in Bangalore. This gave me a unique opportunity to learn about international business practices. Before PMGF, I had very little experience of the business world so this part of the scheme was, for me, a huge learning curve. I was most interested in the social responsibility Tesco had towards its employees and the local community. In our second week at the HSC, we visited the Parikrma Centre For Learning which is a school set up to educate children from the slum areas of Bangalore with support from employee volunteers. Whilst working at the HSC, I also got the chance to learn more about public relations and publicity through working with the HSC PR company for a few days and this really helped when I came to communicate my PMGF experiences to my local community on my return.
Overall, the whole experience was incredible. I learned a great deal about the Indian culture and education system as well as about global business practice and enterprise. For me, PMGF was challenging and, at times, really pushed me to my limits but it was also incredibly rewarding and the skills I have personally gained from the trip left me thoroughly ready to tackle the challenge of moving for my university studies.
Don’t delay, spread the word of the PMGF to young people you think would be interested today!
The application process for the 2009 Global Fellowship Programme will be open from 18th November 2008 to 17th February 2009 and will only be available online. Those interested in applying need to visit www.global-fellowship.org as soon as possible.
You never know, someone you know could be writing for EnterpriseUpfront next year.