Hello Everyone!
Greetings from Kalimpong
I am Melissa Zermit Namchu, a new GFF representative from India.
Having completed my schooling in Kalimpong, I moved to Calcutta to pursue bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 2008. Further I went TISS, Mumbai from where I received master’s degree in Social Work. In 2015, I graduated from IIT-Bombay with master’s in philosophy in planning and development. In the month of June 2020, I defended my doctoral thesis in the field of Medical Anthropology from the National University of Singapore and University of Edinburgh in a joint degree programme.
Over the past decade during my scholarly life, I got many opportunities to work in different organisations pan India, UK and Singapore- that focussed on children, family, elderly, women, livelihood, education, health among many others. It gives me immense pleasure to be a part of GFF, one of the prominent organisations in Kalimpong that works towards social, economic and educational upliftment of the local residents.
As a domiciled citizen of West Bengal, I have been aware of the social environment in the hills. Though the government has been striving to uplift the society, there are lacunas at the ground level. Initiatives taken by GFF in the field of health and hygiene, education, sports and wellbeing, livelihood, village development and women empowerment will definitely help to a certain extent to bridge the existing gap. In doing so, I hope to work in tandem with the local NGOs and residents in order to identify the local needs simultaneously coming up with research ideas that emerge from the field. This would give me the platform to design new projects and implement them, thus working towards the aims of GFF.
I am very excited to join GFF and I believe the programme will provide me the prospect to implement skills and knowledge that I have received over the years in academia.
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