Less than a year ago, Shabari D'cruz '03 MBA was living in Providence, R.I. and working for International Planning & Research (IPR), based in Maynard, Mass. She still works for IPR, but now lives in her homeland of India. In March 2010, when D'cruz told IPR she and her husband, Osmund Sushanth D'cruz '03 MBA, were moving to India, they supported her and kept her on as a market research consultant. Osmund, who was working at GTECH Corp. in Providence as a senior finance manager, is now freelancing in new business ventures in India. "There's no better place than India right now for startups," says D'cruz. "There are incredible options that didn't exist in the states."

Career and business opportunities for nonresidents are limited in the U.S. The wait for a green card is a lengthy, expensive process requiring an employer to sponsor a visa. Combined with a bad economy and high unemployment, options for people like the D'cruzs are looking better in India.

Working from her home abroad has been a positive change for D'cruz. Most of her clients are based in the US, so she works on Eastern Standard Time. Some have locations in Europe, Asia and Latin America, but that's not a problem. "Everything is done online, and I can be in touch with anyone in any part of the world," D'cruz says. "We do online conferencing, so I've gotten used to seeing them, talking to them, e-mailing them; it feels like we're all in the same city."

D'cruz finds the flexible hours and mobile base rewarding. "It has a sense of being on your own and running your own company."
Email > shabaridcruz@gmail.com 

Promoting the healthy lunch
Diane Sylvia ’04, ’05 MAT is ecstatic. President Barack Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 in December. “Very exciting changes will be happening in child nutrition programs,” said Sylvia, school nutrition programs review and outreach coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).

The new law is geared toward improving the quality of school meals, something Sylvia has been working on for 15 years.

Massachusetts DESE oversees 3,173 public and private schools and residential childcare sites in the National School Lunch Program. In 2009, DESE distributed $155 million in federal funds to schools in Massachusetts. The state contributed $8.5 million.

Although much of Sylvia’s time is spent helping schools with the application and review process to get as much funding as possible for meal programs, she wasn’t always on the administrative side. In 1996 Sylvia went to work for the Andrew B. Cushman Elementary School in Dartmouth, Mass., doing everything from cooking to washing dishes. In 1998 she became the school’s food service manager and stayed on for seven more years. While there, she began teaching students about nutrition and started programs to promote healthy eating, like “National Soup Month,” to get them to try different soups each week. Her programs “kind of ballooned” into schoolwide nutrition programs, says Sylvia.

Now, looking at schools from the outside, Sylvia says the state does a good job providing healthy meals with the money available. “School cafeterias are not part of the school department budget … They’re expected to cover costs with inexpensive lunch prices and federal reimbursements,” she explained.
Email > dsylvia@doe.mass.edu