Question

Discuss any experiences you have had with state, local or tribal officials. Your response must be no less than two paragraphs each with no less than six sentences per paragraph.

Answer 1

My experience with state officials dates back to the time when I was working on a community project in an Asian country during undergraduate college days. This community was located at a faraway place and known for its primitive way of living. They had poor access to sanitation and basic amenities for life, leading to high instances of diseases, child mortality rates and overall life expectancy. My project was with a government healthcare agency, aimed at researching the causes of high disease prevalence and morbidity among the people. I had to interact with government officials throughout the project. I met people from director level to the ordinary ground level worker. My experience ranged from encouraging to appalling, varying case to case.

Mr X was the divisional in charge of the community healthcare. I got a number of insights from him about the community. He was a talented person, but his capabilities were limited by bureaucratic hurdles, widespread corruption, administrative delays, political influence among other factors. He wanted to do a lot for the people, but at times, found himself helpless. I also met director of health services for the state, who looked an indifferent person, bit cynical in nature, and often said "what is destined to happen, will happen for sure". Once he said that he was under immense pressure from a local political leader, who wanted him to purchase medicines from a blacklisted firm. Ground level workers were sometimes very helpful, while some others abruptly ended the conversation, thinking myself as a spy of the regulatory agencies. Some asked for money for information ( they believed, that being from a developed country, I must have had a lot of money). Once a person threatened me, not to investigate about things "unnecessarily". All in all, my experience gave me fair insight about how the government agencies work in a developing country.