Threats from affiliated AIESEC Chandigarh Members...

ONCE AGAIN I NEED TO HIGHLIGHT...

I loved India, I loved the people, I loved the culture, I loved my experience BUT I was unhappy with my internship through AIESEC Chandigarh. I think that most of the interns who contributed to this blog would also agree with this point. I have nothing bad to say about India as a country so I hope the message is NEVER misconstrued! I thoroughly enjoyed my experience there and everyone who knows me, knows it was one of the best times of my life!

If you ACTUALLY read through the blog properly you will see that we are all extremely open minded people who were just trying to improve the conditions for future interns. Therefore now that I have left India it is VERY disappointing to know that we all fought REALLY hard to make a positive difference, and now I hear that conditions have not improved at all. Due to the fact I am still receiving emails from interns, I feel that it is my duty to share their stories on this blog. I have also started receiving emails from other interns from different LC's around India, hence why I have changed the blogs name to the 'AIESEC India Experience!'

I must remind everyone that I met some AMAZING people whilst in India, who I truely believe will be lifelong friends :) Unfortunately I have met a minority of people who are not so kind. It's very devastating, but I have been receiving threats from some affiliated AIESEC Chandigarh members due to this blog. I believe in freedom of speech and therefore will not delete this blog in the hope that it continues to help other interns. Although I am quite alarmed by these threats!

Although many things have been said to me that have not been possible to record, below I have posted a message that was recently sent to me. I have published it in the hope that the threats will stop when the person realizes that everyone in the world can read what they have said.

(THIS MESSAGE IS NOT A REFLECTION OF EVERYONE IN AIESEC CHANDIGARH!)

Thanks for your support.

Yours truly,

Unhappy AIESEC Chandigarh Intern

"take it easy girl come on you had one of ur best times in india and you say shit about it!"

"dont contact me or come to india you moreon you are a selfish bitch who does not know what right and wrong some place gives you the best time of ur life and then you say shit about that place to the whole world what r u ask urself and dont worry about me ill be more creepy to you if u show me ur dirty face again"

"now u gono get a messege everyday from me to remind you how much bitch you"

"u think you too coool now see that"

"fuck those interns in ur ass"

"sayyyyyyyyyyyyy somethinggggggggggg now u bitchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"hh"

Complaint Letter #6 about AIESEC Kolkata!

My AIESEC internship in Kolkata was almost non-existent and was nothing close to what had been promised to me in the JD and by members of AIESEC Kolkata before I arrived. The first problem was that AIESEC Kolkata took 12 days before finally taking me to the organisation. In these 12 days, AIESEC kept promising to come but then just would not turn up and gave various excuses for this. Once I was finally taken to the organisation I learnt that I was to work only one and a half hours a day, instead of the 40 hours a week that had been specified on the TN form. The job in the school turned out to be just like babysitting as we weren't expected to do anything imparticular. Before going to India I had communicated a lot with my manager Tanuj who ensured that the job would be teaching English and other core curricular subjects at the school. Many interns were matched to this organisation so there were 4-5 of us at a time in the classroom where we weren't really needed. After about two weeks of working there we contacted a teacher at the school who said we were no longer needed there at all. After this AIESEC failed to find us other suitable internships as the ones they offered were either too far away or inappropriate for the time we had remaining in India. I ended up travelling and then returning to Kolkata to work at Mother Teresa's House, both great experiences but not what I had come to India to do. Due to this internship and the poor reception of AIESEC Kolkata I have lost quite a lot of faith in AIESEC itself.

New Zealand Intern

Complaint Letter #5 about AIESEC Kolkata!

My name is K.G.K. and I am the AIESECer from local committee of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia. I underwent an exchange as a development traineeship in Kolkata, India for 5 weeks from 19^th of November until 25^th of Disember 2000. But, there was something wrong occurred when I was doing my exchange. Here, I would like to complaint about AIESEC Kolkata in term of their treatment towards me and my friend for the whole of my exchanging period. Here are the lists of the complaint:

1. There was no one from AIESEC fetched me in Kolkata airport (Netaji Subash Chandra Bose International Airport) in 19^th of November 2009 for the first time for me landed in Kolkata. AIESEC Kolkata only sent a taxi driver who held an A4 paper which it was written by my name. Plus, AIESEC Kolkata didn’t pay to the driver as me had to pay for myself about Rs 550. I was a victim of cheating because the normal price from the airport to my apartment only Rs 350.

2. In case of my assignment as a DT, I have to work under an NGO called Margam. According to the acceptance letter from AIESEC Kolkata, I have to start my assignment from 20^th of November 2009 until 1^st of January 2010. But, since I reached Kolkata for the first time in 19^th of Nevember 2009, I had to wait for 12 days to start my assignment because there was no one from AIESEC Kolkata comes to fetch me to bring me to the Margam office for the first briefing of my assignment. My friends also had the same situations which are Katie and Natalie from New Zealand and Leisha from Australia. We work under Margam.

3. According to the acceptance letter, my assignment is to be a teacher where the NGO will provide for me a personal work space and working time from 9 to 5. But it was instead. There was no personal work space for me, I only need to work from 6:30 pm until 8 pm every week day and my role is was not like a teacher, I was more like a baby sitter.

4. My assignment in Margam School only last for 13 days (2^nd of December 2009 until 15^th of December 2009). Since that day, we were unemployed in Kolkata. It was because the teacher from the school said me and my friend need to stop our job in their school because they already have a formal teacher to teach the formal lesson compare our role in their school only as a volunteer teacher. For this case, there was no action from AIESEC Kolkata.

5. In case of my apartment accommodation, it was totally terrible. The condition was really bad. There was no bedroom basic stuff for me just like pillow, bed and wardrobe. I had 2 washrooms in my apartment but only 1 can be used. 1 of the pipe in the washroom was broken where only the cold water can spill out. So, there was no hot water when I took my daily shower as at the same time it was winter in India. I was freezing. I lived in an apartment with 2 homes. For the first time I reach there, the numbers of interns were 8 including me. But, the number keeps rising every single week where AIESEC Kolkata keeps receiving a few interns and put them in my home. Before I back, the number of interns reached 17 people.

Regards,

Intern from Malaysia

Complaint Letter #4 about AIESEC Kolkata!

My complaints start from the very beginning of my India life, that is, a driver sent by the local AIESEC to pick me and another girl who came with me, cheated us by overcharge. In all we paid 550 Rs for the drive from airport to New Alipur which actually is due to the local AIESEC (Common sense I picked up in the later life in India told me that 550 is so big a scam that I just cannot bear it).

Second, just the minute I stepped into the apartment I was told that my project, Navdhara, had already been suspended. However, the local AIESEC never told me that. I cannot help myself bearing a guesswork in my mind that the local AIESEC used a fake TN form, as a bait,(I’d like to call it like that), to attract EPs in order to get more realized matches, which is used to scale their work performance. Not a long time later, my guesswork seems proved by concrete evidence---more and more Chinese EPs came with their dreaming projects only existing in the past. They are doing “trafficking”, aren’t they? Furthermore, the local AIESEC did little about this situation. Every time they came to our apartment they used the same template to tackle our inquiry about jobs, that is: “Em…I promise you…. but you have to wait….”(I wonder if those people are trained to shuffle off their responsibilities.) But as time passed, nothing happened. Many jobless had no choice but walk around the city to kill their time.

Third, is the living environment. We did not have the basic living utilities and maintenance. For example, incredibly, we did not have beds! If sleeping on the ground was still tolerable by regarding it as exotic experience, then unforgivable are things like: broken stove, broken water heater, broken lights, broken toilets. We are not savages who can live without light, toilet and baths!

I hope someone will take my complaints seriously and give me a satisfactory reply!

Sincerely,

AIESEC China Member

Complaint Letter #3 about AIESEC Kolkata!

First, the accommodation in Kolkata for us is really unacceptable. There were always problems with the toilet, water supply and the door lock. In addition to that, there was no bed in the room so that all the trainees had no choice but to sleep with a mattress on the floor. At the same time, AIESEC Kolkata kept sending new trainees to our flat. They even didn’t care if there were enough room or mattress for us. Because of that, some trainees had to share the mattress and some trainees were sleeping in the living room.

On the other hand, the local AIESEC also didn’t care about trainees’ health. For example, there was a girl from South Korea who once had very serious disease because of the local food or something else. She almost died on her way to hospital. After that, she spent several days in the hospital as Intensive Care Unit but there was nobody from AIESEC Kolkata going to see and take care of her, which made me really angry.

Then, what is the most unbelievable thing that AIESEC Kolkata has done is they are cheating on us. Most of their DT programs have already finished for a long time and they still post these TNs on the AIESEC website. As a result of that, a lot of DTs came to Kolkata and finally found that the project they were supposed to work on never existed. It is same for MTs, too. In my TN job description, it said that there would be a PWC-Global Enterprise Project and we would be trained by people from PWC and finally get the certificate from them. But the truth is there was no Global enterprise project, no training from PWC and of course, no certificate. All of that was a big lie which was used by AIESEC Kolkata to attract more EPs and increase their so-called NUMBERS.

I used to work in Incoming Exchange Department in my LC for one and half years and we never did any of those horrible things to our EPs. What I can say is that in Kolkata, there is no AIESEC spirit at all. I don’t think they really understand the culture of AIESEC and why people join AIESEC. What they care is always numbers, which cannot give any benefit to their members and all the EPs. And if no one can stop them from doing such stupid things in the future, they will just ruin the good reputation and image of whole AIESEC, which costs other AIESECers almost 60 years to build.

I do hope someone in AIESEC International can understand what is happening to AIESEC in India and do something to change it. And if there is anything what I can do to help, please feel free to contact me. Leave a comment at the bottom of this and I will try to get in touch with you.

Regards,

AIESEC China EP

Complaint Letter #2 about AIESEC Kolkata!

My name is D.D.Z., an AIESEC EP from LC SYSU in China. From last January to this February, I was doing a Development Traineeship in Kolkata, India with the TN ID of TN-In-IN-CA-2009-2078 and my EP ID of EP-IN-CN-SY-2009-20. This letter is to express my dissatisfaction and complaint about AIESEC Kolkata.

Firstly, AIESEC Kolkata did a very bad reception. I strongly condemn your attitude. My TN manager didn't ask anyone to pick me up at the airport and refused to tell me the particular address of the trainee house.

Secondly, I think the living condition in Kolkata is terrible. I didn't ask to live in a five star hotel, but I need a clean and tidy place, and I need hot water!!! The train house in New Alipore could not satisfy our basic living requirement.

Finally, I went to Kolkata for one month, but I didn't got any job!!!!! That's why I told other Chinese EP AIESEC Kolkata cheated us! The job on my AN form was about fund raising and working in the NGO. But the real job they gave us was not the same as the job on the AN form!

I think AIESEC Kolkata made me feel upset and I won't believe AIESEC India anymore.

It's not just AIESEC Chandigarh thats the problem! Complaints from Kolkata Interns:

Complaint Letter #1 about AIESEC Kolkata

My co-operation with AIESEC Kolkata has been strongly disappointing from the very beginning and I want to place an official complaint. For a long time together with other Eps we tried to change the situation but without any response from Aiesec Kolkata. we hope that together we can change something or at least warn future EPs about Kolkata and prevent them from coming here.

It started from the very beginning when I read the TN profile. Back then, I did not realize that what all the letter contained were lies. In fact all the TN profiles from AIESEC Kolkata were the same. While applying, I was sure that I applied for a job at PriceWaterHouseCoopers(PWC). Later, when the company called me for an interview, it turned out that I had actually applied for a job at hotel, not PW as stated in the TN profile. I was so surprised, because nothing about working at a hotel was mentioned in the TN. The company itself explained what their job entailed and as co-operation with them was really good; I decided to come. AIESEC did not help at all on that field.

As soon as I was accepted at the beginning of October, I waited for official documents from the company and AIESEC so that I can apply for a visa. AIESEC Kolkata assured me that it should not take longer than a week. In the meantime they asked me to pay 50 dollars for further procedures. I denied.

Then it was only worse because AIESEC has been lying to me and the company. Every week I was hearing a different excuse as to why the documents have not yet arrived which occurred continuously for 2 months. Later, even the company tried to help me and contacted AIESEC personally (actually Shreyansh Batia who was responsible for communication with EPs). Shreyansh assured the company that he had sent the documents on the 4th of November, and that they should arrive shortly. Weeks passed and I still did not receive them. Thousands of excuses were made, for example, "fault of courier". I finally got the documents on 22nd of November with the date of shipment 19th of November. So everything that I had been told before was just a lie. I was writing to AIESEC every day with no response. AIESEC Kolkata answered on average one out of five emails. They did not even answer phone calls from the company.

Unfortunately my problems were not over. No one picked me up from the airport even though I had sent the exact details of my flight. It was only because I knew another EP (thanks to the company) that I managed to somehow find the address. Also, no one took me to the job or offered any other help or support.

The house they've placed all the EPs in is another story. It is hard to even call it a house. There are two apartments - two rooms each and two bathrooms. Only one bathroom works. Sometimes we don't have water and when we have it is cold. We live here with 15 people all together now, but every day people are coming. We sleep on the floor on very thin mattresses, two people on one. But we have no more
mattresses with people still coming. No one is informing us about new arrivals so we cannot prepare for them. There is not a fridge or kitchen at all. No furniture also and no equipment. We sit on the floor on newspapers. There is no way to cook so we eat out. Its dirty and crowded. We don't have any shelves, so we keep everything in our luggage. Sometimes we don't even have electricity. We together and separately complained about this situation, but AIESEC Kolkata did nothing. Sometimes they promise something but never keep it. The only thing they remember is to collect money for rent. Then they will come,but to take EP to work - never.

There was not a single thing that Aiesec Kolkata did right. They never said sorry. I hope at least we can change it for future.

Regards,
  
 
  
Unhappy Kolkata Intern