Poway High School grad returns from India internship
A Poway High graduate recently returned from a trip to India, where she worked to help preserve traditional arts and crafts through a unique internship.
Margaux Payton, a senior at UC Berkeley who graduated from Poway High School in 2014, spent two months in a prestigious internship in Mumbai, India known as the Tata Social Internship.
The internship is an experimental program for students from the world’s leading universities in the sustainability projects of the Tata companies in India, according to the internship’s website. It provides students with a grass-roots level exposure to the real India and its culture while bringing international perspectives to the company projects.
Payton said she learned about the internship last summer, while she was on another internship in India at a non-governmental organization. “I ran into a student I knew in Mumbai (who was doing the Tata Social Internship. It piqued my interest and I wanted to go back to India, Mumbai specifically.”
Doing an internship at a nonprofit and a corporation taught her different approaches to poverty action and developmental strategies, she said.
In her internship, Payton worked to preserve and revive traditional art and craft forms that are declining in India. “Traditional arts are dying out,” Payton said. “(My internship was about) how corporations are trying to preserve them and keep them from dying out.”
One of the ways companies like those owned by Tata are doing this is by hiring local traditional artists, dancers and crafters to perform or do their craft at hotels, Payton said. This acts both as a tourism draw for the hotel and provides the performers and crafters the income they need to continue with their art.
During her internship, Payton worked on creating a manual for the hotels to use in regards to the artists and crafters. “The manual was to help enhance what was already happening at the hotel,” Payton said. “How the performance is presented, the presentation the hotel provides, how to preserve the art and craft the way they want.”
Payton also helped create a write-up about the traditional art and culture to help guests understand what they are seeing, she said. “Some of the hotels don’t have an introduction. This is one way to support the artists. People can relate better and research more. Small things, but impactful.”
Over 80 different forms of art, dance and crafting have been presented at hotels through this program, Payton said, and 22 hotels in India are actively part of the program. Two hotels, including the one she interned at, are part of a pilot program to roll out webinars on the program with other hotel managers.
It was all a very valuable experience, Payton said, especially the pilot program, as it allowed her to practice her Hindi.
“The culture (in India) is beautiful,” she said. “I really enjoyed meeting people there. Everyone was so friendly. I made lifelong friends.”
Payton said she always has a great time in Mumbai because she feels an unexplainable connection with the city. “I’m already planning my next trip back.”
Her interest in development and poverty came from her extensive volunteer work in Poway, she said, where she was a member of 4H. She volunteered at Sunshine Care and did beach clean-ups. “Through 4H, I became a part of the community through my volunteer work. It taught me to be grateful for what I have and to not take anything for granted.”
Payton said she also did a lot of traveling, which gave her a good amount of international exposure, as well as hosting exchange students. “It gave me an international awareness and curiosity.”
An international studies major focusing on political economics with a minor in global poverty, Payton said she hopes to go back to India for a year to work after graduating next summer, before moving on to graduate school, where she will study either international relations or developmental politics. Whichever field she chooses, she plans to focus on India and do development work, she said.
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