On a bright Sunday morning, 62-year old Govindrao Bohite, a former banker, breaks large stones into small pieces to be used for the path that goes up the Pashan hill in Pune. He is helping fix the road for the water tanker that ferries several gallons of water through the year for his trees on the hill.
This is not an unusual task for Mr Bohite, or Nana as he is fondly called. He is one of the many volunteers of Pune-based NGO, Vasundhara Swachata Abhiyan, who have made it their mission to reforest the hills and ensure that the trees live. They planted have over 25,000 trees in Pune at Pashan, Mhalunge, and Rotary Hill.
The dedicated work of all these people, with support from the government and administration, has turned four hills into green lungs for the rapidly concretising Pune.
Mr Bohite surveys the Pashan hill. Picture Courtesy: Shatakshi Gawade
VSA has been working tirelessly over the past ten years on this mammoth task, all through voluntary work alone. They plant 500-1000 trees every year on four hills in Pune in and around the Pashan area.
Each weekend sees close to 200 volunteers working at the four spots. At least 30 volunteers, among them professionals and retired folks, contribute 1-2 hours daily before they begin their routine. Over the 11 years, over 2,00,000 people have contributed their labour here (shramdaan) even if it is for just an hour.
VSA’s core efforts are for pure air, pure water and pure food. Reforestation, along with natural farming, is part of their 7-point agenda. They also work for water percolation, plastic-free lifestyle, river cleaning, mosquito-free settlements, water conservation and honeybee promotion.
The NGO has ensured that the trees planted are all native to the region. They have kadunimb (neem), avala (Indian gooseberry), vad (banyan), pimpal (pipal), umbar (Indian fig tree), and tamarind, to name a few. They have also planted fruit trees like mango and ber (Indian plum) to attract birds.
For representational purpose only. Picture Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
For the last four years, VSA has adopted Subhash Palekar’s Zero Budget Natural Farming technique here, which has resulted in the faster growth of trees which are stronger and healthier.
The Zero Budget Natural Farming was developed by Subhash Palekar, an Indian agriculturist who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2016.
Nana has been witness to the death of trees caused by carelessly thrown cigarette butts. He also knows that sometimes people have set the trees alight just out of pure cruelty towards the green beings and good work.
To ensure that the trees survive the harsh summer and illogical mischievous elements, VSA quickly set up simple techniques to prevent fires from spreading, and now the residents around the hills have become alert, and warn the group of the smallest issue, whether it is fire or something else.
Volunteer work in progress. Picture Courtesy: Shatakshi Gawade
Among the weekend volunteers is Siddhesh Kadam, a resident of a neighbouring housing society. Along with weekends he also works on the hill on other days off. “On my first day here the older folks said ‘This place is like a temple. You can come and worship here, work here, and these plants will bless you for several generations to come’,” he shares. “Besides it’s nice to spend time with senior citizens. There is much to learn from them and nature.”
“And you don’t have to go to the gym if you’re working here!” quips Dipak Shrote, one of the founder members of VSA. “We tell people to spare just 1 hour of the 168 hours in the week where you don’t expect anything back.”
VSA has tried different experiments to keep the work going. When they started in 2007, there were no water tanks on Pashan hill, so they used to carry two bottles each for the trees. Several curious people became partners when VSA told them the destination of the water.
Eventually, people contributed enough money to set up water tanks. Now there are 25-30 tanks across the hills.
One of the water tanks which was built thanks to the contributions. Picture Courtesy: Shatakshi Gawade
However, it is not just 25,000 trees but the mindset of the people that is important. “Our volunteers who moved to Uttarakhand and Belgaum have started reforestation work there,” shares Mr Shrote.
“People want to do something good, but they often don’t know what. When people see us at work on the hill, they ask us out of curiosity and eventually join us. That is our true inspiration,” says Dipak. “On top of that, we felt that there’s no use just complaining. You must just get up and start doing constructive work. Then people as young as three years and as old as 80 years also joined the movement, which keeps us going.”
Weekly volunteer meeting in progress. Picture Courtesy: Shatakshi Gawade
Mr Shrote is eager to help more people adopt this work. “Anyone can contact us and we will there to help,” he says! But what has made this effort last an unending decade? It’s simple — come out and begin your work. It will always end up attracting like-minded people.
To know more about the organisation, please see their website: www.vsaorg.in
(This article has been written by Shatakshi Gawade)
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Most of us have college degrees and postgraduate degrees. Some of us go to air-conditioned offices which have a continuous supply of free coffee and snacks. What about those who fall between the cracks? How does society help those who drop out, the ones who are unable to cope with the rigorous system?
Mukti Foundation, an NGO is paving the way, by providing crucial vocational training to deserving people.
Mukti, an NGO, is training the unemployed youth, in plumbing and electrical work. Representative image only. Image Courtesy: MaxPixel
The NGO has made it their responsibility, to open the doors of opportunity for those who need it. Partnering with Equitas, a small finance bank headquartered in Chennai, they have started a skill development program, to provide vital vocational training to youths who have not completed their education or have no other options.
Meena Dadha is the brains behind this unique initiative. Her logic is simple. Many youth do not complete their education due to various reasons—financial issues, unstable backgrounds, mental health issues, etc. Unable to get qualified, they become unemployed, and join the section of population that falls prey to vices, and bad habits, in the absence of gainful employment.
Meena aims to get these youth equipped with necessary skills for employment. Her strong belief in bettering the economic and social status of these youth led her to start the program.
The Mukti Foundation was founded three decades ago, to provide free prosthetic limbs and callipers to amputees, and polio patients, and has conducted scores of camps, awareness programmes, and seminars, in different parts of the globe. This vocational training project is the foundation’s latest venture.
Mukti, in an earlier program, also provided artificial limbs to those who required them.Image Courtesy: Facebook.
At the moment, the course provides two courses—one for plumbing, and one for electrical work. Meena says that this is just to begin the proceedings and additional relevant courses will be added over time. She stresses that since most youth are from financially backward sections, it is imperative to get them on their feet, make them independent, and get them off the streets. Meena mentions that the only thing that is needed, on their part, is the drive to learn.
The classes are three-hour long, and the emphasis is on slow but thorough progress. For example, after a week of basic training, the students are allowed to handle wires and are then encouraged to explore further.
Mukti’s program encourages students to learn and explore.Representative image only. Image Courtesy: Pixabay.
The Deputy General Manager of Equitas Development Initiative Trust, Sathyanarayanan D has been aiding the NGO in finding these students, and get them to attend classes. According to him, the relocated and rehabilitated pavement dwellers have been moved into houses, with the initial 6 months of rent paid, and supplies stocked.
At Mukti’s latest vocational training programme, the youngest student is all of 14 years old. Meena says there is no age-bar, and that anyone with an interest to learn and earn, is welcome.
The vocational training initiative by Mukti is a welcome scheme, in a country where over 30% of the youth, are not studying, working, or, engaged in some sort of professional training. Vocational training empowers these young minds with vital skills, one with which they can earn their bread, in their home state or anywhere else.
Meena says everyone needs to earn their own money and be happy in their individual lives. That is when they will collectively value our culture, country and people. It cannot happen if the youth are hungry and unemployed. She also emphasises that the conditioning needs to start from childhood. Parents and teachers need to play an active role in the lives of the young, teaching and mentoring them, equipping them with necessary skills to tackle life problems later on.
When asked about her future plans, she says that the training program has just begun. She is happy to help the youth in any capacity she can. The rest, she will leave to chance.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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According to the “India Philanthropy Report 2017,” the philanthropy sector in India has considerably matured and has seen a steady rise over the last few years.
With funds coming in from NRIs and the Corporate Social Responsibility segment of companies, there is an urgent need to streamline the process by which donations are made and accepted.
Reports suggest that Internet penetration in India is likely to reach nearly 800 million by 2020. Pretty much everything is done online nowadays—from buying groceries to booking tickets and even sending in school assignments.
Could it be possible to combine the power of the internet, with the power of giving, to ensure that the process gets online, and to an extent, hassle free?
Dhaval Udani, an alumnus of IIM (Ahmedabad), seems to think so!
Founder – DanaMojo
Recognising the need to have a platform that assists NGOs in accepting payments and fulfilling all their requirements, Dhaval founded DanaMojo, a one-of-its-kind portal that provides a smart and intuitive payment platform which works for both NGOs and their donors. The platform started off two years ago with about 60 NGOs and today, more than 500 NGOs have signed up with them.
In a conversation with The Better India, Dhaval speaks about why he felt the need to create DanaMojo and how he sees online giving growing over the next few years.
“For donors to keep donating, it is important that the NGO engages with them. The idea of DanaMojo germinated from this thought, in an attempt to try and bring together NGOs and their donors,” he said.
From the beginning itself, the platform wanted to connect NGOs directly with the donors and facilitate a seamless conversation and engagement “One of the first steps in that direction was to create a platform through which donors could pay seamlessly to the NGOs,” he says.
Dhaval speaks about some of the common problems that donors seem to face when trying to make an online payment to NGOs.
“The process of making an online payment itself is fraught with difficulties—getting an 80G on time, and the general unresponsiveness by NGOs add to the problems. It becomes difficult for the NGOs to start addressing these issues because on most occasions they have bandwidth constraints and leveraging technology to their advantage isn’t their strong point.”
Therefore not being able to service the donors leads to lack of engagement and that in turn means lesser donations coming their way.
Team – DanaMojo
DanaMojo provides both online (credit card, debit card, net-banking, mobile wallets, EMI, UPI) and offline (cheque pickup facility in 1000+ cities) modes for the collection of donations.
Can a donor make a payment via the DanaMojo website?
No, DanaMojo is not a marketplace. You will not discover any NGOs on their portal. They merely provide a facility to the NGOs, which makes it easier for them to collect donations.
When asked about the kind of due diligence that goes into partnering with the NGOs, Dhaval says, “It is imperative to state that we have no hand in getting these NGOs any donors. We are only a platform and therefore ensure that each of the NGO that signs up with us has their KYC done. The relationship between the donor and the NGO is independent of us stepping in.”
DanaMojo ensures that the NGOs can focus solely on utilising the donations and continue their fundraising activities, rather than work on managing these payment processes, and takes care of areas like operations, technology, and systems.
Website screenshot
“Our next step is to try and reach out to many more donors for the NGOs. We want to fix many of the payment related infrastructure—acceptance of recurring payments, and facilitating more payment options for donors are examples of that,” he says.
If you run an NGO or know of one that would benefit from this facility then do visit their website here for more information.
With a small team of 5 members, DanaMojo has big dreams and wishes to change the manner in which donations are made in India.
If there was a magic lamp for fulfilling the dreams of the underprivileged, what would you have wished for on their behalf? A sturdy house for the lonely, elderly lady who quietly shelters herself under the flyover, her only shield from the wrath of the rain and sun? Education and a bright future for the child knocking at your car window, trying to sell off a stack of books to survive another day? A meal for the construction worker who washes dirty utensils for meagre wages part-time?
Magic lamps and genies may be fictional, but dreams and wishes are as much a part of reality as anything else. But the bridge between dreaming and turning that dream into reality may not always be impossible to cross, especially if you know the right route to reach it.
Wishes and Blessings is one such organisation in New-Delhi, that is tirelessly working on assisting the privileged to fulfill the dreams of the downtrodden.
Dr Geetanjali Chopra. Photo: Ipsita Sarkar
Led by Dr Geetanjali Chopra, it works on diverse social causes across India, from education to sanitation, providing relief in SOS situations, to working with visually-impaired children and orphanages.
Their primary objective is to connect donors with beneficiaries with the aim of spreading happiness and making the unfulfilled wishes of the underprivileged come true.
Shedding light on the core idea underlying Wishes and Blessings, Dr Geetanjali Chopra, Founder, states, “There are two kinds of people–people who need help and people who can help. Many times, one needs help but doesn’t know where to go. We are the platform for connecting these two sets of people. For example, if you plan to sponsor a child’s education, we will help you identify the child, and then we will monitor that process for you. When unfulfilled wishes are fulfilled by the privileged, they receive blessings from the less privileged. Hence, the name Wishes and Blessings.”
They began by working with visually-impaired children and soon their work expanded to include orphanages, old-age-homes and shelters for the homeless. Presently, they work across age, gender, economic and social barriers and address nine pressing issues including education, food, health and happiness.
For Geetanjali, it was a jump from the glossy and respectable world of academics. “I was an active academic for 15 years, and have written a book on international peacekeeping. I was a journalist for almost two years and worked with TV stations and print media. I also did higher studies in international relations, after which I taught international law for a bit and worked for the Centre of Policy Research, a thinktank in Delhi where I was a fellow for five years.”
Then came the leap of faith and humanity that she took towards Wishes and Blessings, and it reaped rewards that were far deeper than monetary gains. She recalls, “We started by playing Holi with visually-impaired people, then we started celebrating their birthdays. The satisfaction and happiness that one got out of doing this, no international conference or paycheck could get.”
Incidentally, Geetanjali’s dream for setting up Wishes and Blessings had unconsciously started taking shape when she was merely a child. She travels down memory lane, as she traces the roots of her passionate mission. “There was an old school for the visually impaired where I used to go with my grandfather. During one of the visits on my birthday, one child asked me, ‘Didi, mera birthday kab hota hai?’ That haunted me for many years.”
What started as a modest effort to positively influence the lives of the visually impaired, orphaned and aged, has today, spread its wings across diverse social causes and multiplied its impact across the Delhi-NCR region. Here’s a short list of their work:
Their Street-to-School Programme successfully enrolled over 150 street children into Municipal Council Delhi/New Delhi Municipal Council schools since 2015.
They have built public toilets for 300 people and six well-equipped toilet units for Gurukul, an old-age-home in Gurgaon.
They have served over 4,50,000 freshly cooked, nutritious meals to the homeless in Delhi NCR since December 2015
They facilitated the weddings of 14 underprivileged girls belonging to different communities in a mass wedding function in November 2016
They sponsored the education of over 250 underprivileged, orphaned, visually-impaired children with special needs, in private and semi-private schools.
To ensure easy access to affordable healthcare facilities, they have also facilitated health camps, organised medical drives and provided nutritional supplements, impacting more than 2,500 people, including HIV+ children.
They have a Disaster-and-SOS-Relief Programme wherein they have supported and rehabilitated more than 40,000 people adversely affected by natural disasters.
Although they have impacted thousands of people in Delhi-NCR, they too have been moved by donors. Geetanjali talks about her ‘favourite’ donation, “There was an envelope with 21 rupees from an anonymous source. That was my best donation. I realised that people just wanted to help, regardless of their pocket size.”
The organisation inaugurated an old-age-home for underprivileged women in New Delhi called Mann Ka Tilak on April 25, 2018. Geetanjali elaborates, “After a lot of research, we realised that senior citizens were not given adequate attention. There are a lot of NGOs working on education, children and now sanitation, but the statistics are shocking in the segment of old age people. We have just about 700 old-age-homes in the entire country. But the need is over 10,000. If you go by reports, these (700) will cover only about 13,000 people which is less than 0.02 percent of the entire elderly population. This showed us that there is a serious dearth of old-age-homes.”
It is the home-like environment and the company of like-minded individuals in a pleasant household setting that would set apart Mann Ka Tilak from regular night shelters.
A few months before inaugurating the home, an online campaign was launched by the team. And it was one with a twist. It was called the #SheNeedsLoveToo challenge.
Says Geetanjali, “It was done because come February-March, there is a lot of talk about International Women’s Day, and all these fancy magazines will feature women who have made it big, like business women, fashionistas, actresses. But we noticed that the women who are often neglected are the elderly and the underprivileged. She could be the ayah, the street sweeper, a helper, or a cook. And often these people who serve us are neglected by their families. We have been using social media sites and reaching out to new people for helping us. It is important to give them a place in society, to give them a voice, a platform to talk. And basically for people to sit back and notice them, to do something for them.”
The idea was to make people aware of the plight of the underprivileged elderly women by posting selfies or videos highlighting their stories.
In the process, Geetanjali and her team focused on the women living in their shelter homes and night shelters. Be it Alarakhi Amma, who crawls to beg for money at the Jangpura Metro Station or Hajra Amma, who took care of women during labour and birthing, even after her son snatched away her land. They all got a platform to vent their feelings through this campaign. The idea was to share stories and facilitate the process of people reaching out to help.
“Listening to their stories sometimes gives us goosebumps. Usually, nobody talks to them, so the very fact that somebody has taken time out to talk to them is valuable to them. The first exercise to sensitise people to the needs of others,” says Geetanjali.
She adds, “When you notice the underprivileged, take the time to talk to them and you will find that they need help. You could refer them to us and will we take care of the rest. It’s a step-by-step process where you see that with one campaign, you can get results.”
Lending an ear to the aged goes a long way in restoring their self-belief, feels Dr Geetanjali. Photo: Ipsita Sarkar
The hashtag challenge, however, was not as easy as clicking a selfie. Initially, people were not very forthcoming in posting pictures with their domestic help. That sense of complete apathy was unsettling for the team. However, through persistence and patience, they feel that they have been able to make a small little dent, especially for people meaning to reach out but didn’t know how.
We wish Geetanjali and her entire team of Wishes and Blessings all the very best for their noble venture. You too can reach out and make a positive impact on society. To know how to contribute, check out their website or write to them at office@wishesandblessings.net. You can also call them at 09873422455.
For India’s underprivileged, life is often brutal and unstable. From sleeping on the streets every night to collapsing under bridges or drains when they are sick. But all hope is not lost for them. Across the nation, initiatives, organisations and individuals reach out every day as the beacons of hope and change for people who otherwise would have had to live in despair.
The ‘Happy Furniture Projects’ is an effort by The Better India, in partnership with Pepperfry, to showcase and lend a hand to the excellent work done by such virtuous individuals and organizations. Together we identify these organisations, understand how we can aid them in their efforts, and deliver help – in the form of furniture.
In this article, we introduce you to the first two organizations helped by Happy Furniture Projects program, by Pepperfry:
Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan:
Paramjeet Kaur founded the Ashray Adhikar Abhiyaan (AAA) as a citizen’s campaign to fight for the rights of homeless people in India, and make the State accountable for their rights.
Her inspiration came from her experience working with NGOs for around 18 years. She noticed that rampant adult homelessness had a cyclical effect. Kids born on the streets were abandoned once they were adults, who would themselves end up giving birth to more children on the streets – all remaining homeless.
Families abandoned other adults for reasons ranging from mental illness to old age. Paramjeet decided to start and run her own NGO, which would focus on homeless adults vulnerable to mental disorders.
To begin with, in 2001, she formed a team and surveyed Delhi’s streets for 15 nights, the first ever headcount by an NGO of the homeless in the city. Then she got to work.
AAA has come a long way since its inception in 2000. Working with the Delhi Government through the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), AAA manages shelters across Delhi. Permanent shelters are present year round, and during winters, additional temporary ones are installed in the form of cabins, in buildings or tents.
The homeless are welcome in any of the 26 round-the-clock shelters in Delhi run by AAA. They get access to a clean place, a blanket to sleep, electricity, fresh drinking water, bathroom, water coolers, first aid, and a weekly doctor’s visit with free medicines, with a provision for hospital admission, if required.
For the mentally ill, AAA has taken the responsibility of bringing them from the streets for diagnosis and treatment, with records kept so that their presence can be secured for subsequent visits, as required by the doctor.
As of now, AAA has managed over 12 million beds, delivered health care service to around 1 million people. There is light at the end of the tunnel and AAA will continue to serve millions in the years to come.
Through the Happy Furniture Projects, Pepperfry has donated AAA some comfort in the form of furniture for their shelters – with a hope that it helps them continue the fight for good!
The Good Samaritans:
An initiative by Hyderabad’s George Rakesh Babu, this began as a free clinic to help dress wounds and treat elderly sick people. The movement has since then grown into a full-fledged ‘destitute’ home, with three branches across the city.
Providing basic medical care and running a small free pharmacy, the Good Samaritans provides aid to the abandoned, sick, old or dying unclaimed people left on the roads of Hyderabad.
It all began with a Tamil priest, an acquaintance of George, and the orphanage the priest ran. When the priest was unable to pay rent, he and his children were evicted by the landlord from the home they lived in. Stepping in, George helped in arranging accommodation for all the orphans. In this interim, the priest expired. With his limited resources, George faced a lot of trouble in organising final rites for the priest.
This experience opened George’s eyes to the fate of the abandoned or destitute in Hyderabad, and soon he started Good Samaritans.
From an alcoholic father to an old aunt, every abandoned person can find refuge at George’s shelter. Today, Good Samaritans has reached out, rescued and restored the lives of more than 300 homeless old people. Once the health of the resident improves, George also helps them get jobs – like doing small household chores, becoming watch persons, poultry farmers, etc.
And if their health takes a turn for the worse, George does his best to ensure their final rites are performed in a dignified manner.
Despite all odds, George relentlessly provides shelter to the destitute, using the financial aid he receives from voluntary and corporate organisations. However, many times he also dives into his and wife’s savings.
Recognising that George could use some help in his noble endeavour, Pepperfry donated furniture under the Happy Furniture Projects to the Good Samaritans. The furniture has been deployed across the centres – lending George a big helping hand.
We hope such help and recognition help George in his resolve to rehabilitate millions of lives.
(Edited By Vinayak Hegde)
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If you have a roof over your head, a bed to tuck in peacefully at night, friends and a family that loves you unconditionally, then you are among some of the most privileged people on the planet.
Not everyone is blessed with such privileges. For millions in India, such ‘luxuries’ are a distant dream. For them, every passing day is a struggle for survival through begging, sleeping on pavements and depending on someone else for food.
But not all hope is lost. There have been countless initiatives spearheaded by individuals and organisations across India, who have been incessantly working towards the betterment of the underprivileged sections and helping them rise with dignity from a life of abject poverty and disparity.
The ‘Happy Furniture Projects’ is an effort by The Better India, in partnership with Pepperfry, to showcase and lend a hand to the outstanding work done by such virtuous individuals and establishments. Together we identify these organisations, understand how we can aid them in their efforts, and deliver help – in the form of furniture that makes their efforts easier.
In this article, we bring you some of the organisations that are being aided through the Happy Furniture Projects program:
1. Miracle Manna
25 years ago, Shivaji and Prema moved to Bengaluru from Tamil Nadu in search of a better livelihood. While Shivaji was recruited as a driver, Prema soon got a job in a BPO and shortly after, their daughter Gracy came into the world and completed their small world.
However, in 1997, Shivaji’s cousin abandoned his wife and three small children. With no place to go, these children were spending their days on the road with their mother. When Shivaji learnt about this, he brought the children home and the couple decided to take care of them like their own.
While all the four kids were growing up, a thought that often gnawed Prema was the state of other children who were forced to live on streets. Ten years passed by and but the thought continued to persist to the extent that she thought if they could do it for four, they could do it for many more!
And that’s how, the Miracle Manna Children’s Home came into existence in 2010, when Prema and Shivaji converted their three-room rented house into a children’s home. Eight years down the line, Prema and Shivaji are parents to 23 children, who all stay in the same rented house with three rooms together.
Coming from homes ridden with poverty, violence and abuse in the darkest of slums in the nation’s capital, Sonal Kapoor believed that art and colours could help these young girls heal and went on to found Protsahan, a social enterprise that uses creative education and art innovation to empower street children and young adolescent girls in 2010.
It all started when the 24-year-old Sonal was shooting a film for a corporate. She came across a pregnant woman who had six daughters and was expecting her seventh child. As the conversation continued, Sonal heard this woman utter words that would change the trajectory of her own life.
The woman was living in poverty and obviously struggling to take care of her children. So unfortunate was their condition that she was already planning on sending one of her daughters, 8-year-old Julie, to a brothel to bring in money that would, in turn, feed the rest of the family.
These words not only scarred Sonal for life but also opened her eyes to the grim realities of life. She decided she wanted to change the lives of girls like Julie and three weeks later, Protsahan started as a one-room creative art and design school in a dark slum in Delhi.
With the goal of empowering every at-risk adolescent girl with creative education and entrepreneurial skills training so that she can break the extreme cycle of poverty and abuse, Protsahan achieves this with the help of the ‘5-pillars of creativity model’, which includes design, art, digital stories, photography, technology and cinema.
Today, Protsahan, which has been lauded with several awards and recognitions, is growing one child at a time with numerous projects and campaigns that are transforming lives.
3. Ajivam
Kansaharia is a village located about 100 km away from Varanasi, where quality education for children was an unaffordable, distant dream. But when 32-year-old Surya Sen Singh decided to do something to resolve this disparity for children in his hometown, one could say things finally began to look up for them.
One of the lucky kids in the village who could move to Lucknow for higher studies after Class 10, Surya went on to become an engineer and is currently working in Mumbai. But the boy who left still had his heart in the village and whatever he did in life, Surya always knew that giving back to his community and its children was his duty.
In April 2015, Surya founded a school named Ajivam in Ghazipur district of Uttar Pradesh for children from nearby villages. With classes from lower kindergarten to Class 5, the CBSE-affiliated school runs with permission from district-level authorities. Close to 30-35 per cent of students come from underprivileged backgrounds, whose monthly fees vary between Rs 200 and Rs 500, depending on their financial situation at home.
Taking forward his philanthropic initiative, Surya has now opened a public library in Ghazipur, through which he aims to serve local communities by providing free and easy access to a broad range of knowledge resources, information and training. Another key objective for Surya is to promote the idea of higher education of girls and self-dependence through better employment for the villagers.
4. Urmi Foundation
Based in Mumbai, Urmi Foundation works with children with developmental disabilities who are from low-income households. This basically means working on the educational and social needs of children who are living with autism, cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome and other such conditions.
In its six-year long journey, the organisation has dedicated ample resources and policy support to integrate this section of the Mumbai population with mainstream society and has lightened the lives of many children across the city.
Founded by Sonalee Shyamsundar, the foundation researched 18 special schools located in different suburbs of Mumbai, operating under the city’s civic ambits, before developing a model that could serve their needs better. The foundation then began its work by assessing the needs of the schools they have adopted and the special children they are helping.
Alongside children, the team also works closely with parents, who are often ashamed of their children, unsure about how society will treat them, and also some who do not wish to invest anything in the education of a child who might not help them in any way once he/she grows up.
Through counselling on special education and its importance, the team members try and convince the parents to enrol their kids in school, while even going the extra mile by helping them with the admission process.
The motivation to start such an organisation had taken form in Sonalee after returning from a vacation in Sri Lanka where she saw the people treat special children with tremendous love and care. This made her think of the situation back home in India where the stigma attached to any kind of developmental disability is so huge that it is cruel and often dangerous.
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“Our slogan is ‘Drink for a cause’ and the reason we hold a Chai for Cancer (CFC) adda,” says a young woman, smiling.
She serves hot chai to the assembled motley of people who are of different ages, localities, and backgrounds, in a small alley in Chunabhatti, a suburb on the Central Lines in Mumbai.
The group has assembled for fundraising in support of patients who are coping with the big C.
‘Chai for Cancer’ (CFC) adda, an offshoot of Friends of Max, is supported by the global non-profit, Max Foundation.
Friends of Max, India, works for patients of two rare types of cancers, namely CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia) and GIST (Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumour), both requiring lifelong treatment.
The motto of the meet is to have a cup of chai, make new friends, learn all about cancer and donate a minimum of Rs 100. Cheques are accepted too, with the donor getting the 80G tax benefit.
What began four years ago, has reached over 66 cities in the country today, with 150 plus addas and over 72,000 cups of chai added to the list.
Through these addas, the group has managed to collect nearly Rs 25 lakh per year, which is used for the treatment of patients.
CFC addas are informal hangouts that work from anywhere–homes, offices, parks, hospitals etc. A ‘host’ who is a well-wisher or a volunteer, organises the adda at any venue of his or her choice. They are supported by a CFC Kit which contains tea (donated by Society Tea), paper cups, banners, posters, flyers, ‘thank you’ cards and 80G forms for donations. If the host wants, they can provide some snacks too.
Holding their attention and keeping the atmosphere light and peppy, is the lady behind the CFC adda—Vijayalaksmi Venkatesh, better known as Viji and fondly addressed as Amma.
The regional head of Max Foundation in India and South Asia, she says, “In India, a cup of chai is the best tool to break the ice between people, irrespective of the region, faith, economic strata and age group they belong to. And this is the reason I thought of CFC addas to spread awareness about cancer!”
Viji continues, “As a patient-support group, we want people to know that cancer isn’t the end of life. There shouldn’t be any stigma attached to this disease.”
In most South Asian homes, a cancer patient and his/her family feel isolated. The disease and the patient are discussed in a hushed voice. In fact, many family members don’t even reveal the problem with the patient.
“When family members of a cancer victim come to meet us, the first thing they ask us is to hide the ailment from the patient. Our work begins from there. We have realised that most are sullied by misinformation, heresy and superstition. We believe that an exchange of experiences and the right knowledge between patients, caregivers, and physicians is an utmost necessity,” says Viji.
According to her, a patient is encouraged to fight the disease once they know what ails them. “Besides the medical treatment, all they need is support, encouragement and a congenial atmosphere at home!”
Remember the dialogue from the Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s iconic film Anand where actor Rajesh Khanna, a cancer patient, urges his friend Amitabh Bachchan, to be happy and make him happy too. A famous dialogue from the film goes, “Main marne se pehle marna nahin chahta. Tumhari aankhen mujhe roz yeh yaad dilati hai…(I don’t want to die before my death. Your eyes remind me of this every day.)”
Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee, Indian-born American physician and oncologist wrote the book The Emperor of all Maladies, a non-fiction book on cancer, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He said that the book was a response to the demands made by two of his patients: “I am willing to go on fighting, but I need to know what it is that I am battling.”
This is what cancer patients need–encouragement, the knowledge of exactly is wrong with them and what the treatment will do for them.
This is the sphere of activity for the Max Foundation. Moreover, even the doctors today insist on the patient’s participation in the treatment.
“Our collaboration with patient organisations enables patients and caregivers to overcome the stress of a cancer diagnosis and find comfort in the community. We try to help them navigate the path from diagnosis to treatment. Many times, patients stop treatment or the follow-up for some reason or the other. We gently remind and urge them to continue with the treatment. The best part of Friends of Max is that the survivors, who are living with CML for more than 15 years, make it a point to interact with new patients and help them overcome their fears,” explains Viji.
Cancer Aid Foundation, Indian Cancer Society, V Care Foundation, Yoddhas–Indians Fighting Against Cancer, The Pink Initiative are some of the patient organisations that they work with.
Moreover, Viji makes the effort to know the details of each of the 16,000 patients with Max Foundation India.
Mumbai resident Pramod George, employed at the marketing department of Indian Express, was diagnosed with CML way back in 2003. Speaking to him is such a delight that one forgets that he is a cancer patient. He shares, “Never did I think to ask ‘why me?’ I realised that CML was, in fact, a boon in my life. It helped me connect with so many ‘blood relatives’ all over the country and make new friends. When I enrolled for treatment at Max Foundation, along with a few like-minded people, we formed ‘Friends of Max’, an NGO which has more than 16,000 CML patient-members spread all over the country.”
Stating that he is one of the trustee members of Friends of Max, he continues, “I make it a point to interact with new patients regularly. The moment they realise that they are talking to a 15-year-old survivor, their approach to the disease changes and they develop hope. I’m not cured, but I am a survivor.”
Besides the usual chemotherapy and radiation, cancer medicines too are quite expensive. In this regard, Max Foundation has been helping scores of patients by providing free medicines.
After proper scrutiny of the patient’s medical records and their income details, CML patients are adopted by the Foundation.
“The first thought that came to my mind when I was diagnosed with CML was how I would afford the medicines. Our society has stigmatised the disease and many times, patients try to hide it, with the result that they deprive themselves of the support system that this disease needs. The first time I approached Viji Amma, she quietly held my hands and assured me, ‘Don’t worry beta, we will fight it together’, and that, along with the free Novartis tablets, has helped me fight the battle for more than 13 years,” says Suresh Pawar. He works as deputy manager (Low-Tension Maintenance) at Reliance Energy, Mumbai.
As Viji Amma concludes, “We are all, in a sense, travellers on a journey called ‘life’. Alas, some of us are struggling to make sense of some twist of fate.”
Cancer can affect anyone but there are many people and organisations ready to help. To know more about the addas, look them up on their Facebook page or write to them on friendsofmax@gmail.com.
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” ― Dr Seuss
Before their summer holidays began, the only ‘homework’ my sons received from their school, was to read as many books as possible through their summer holidays. In fact, the school did not just encourage them, but also provided incentives if they successfully read a diverse selection of books.
This is perhaps the kind of homework that each child must be asked to do.
While my kids have access to books, not many do, and to address this need, Guzarish, an NGO based in Delhi started a pan-India initiative called ‘Books for All’ in 2016.
In a conversation with The Better India, Ankit Manchanda, one of the co-founders of the organisation, spoke to us about this movement, its impact and how others can become a part of it.
Ankit works with Prachi Luthra, Jaibeer Singh, and Sanymi Gupta, who are all former Teach For India fellows and the co-founders of Guzarish. All of them bring different perspectives and strengths to the organisation, but what unites them is the passion for making a difference and reaching as many children as possible.
How does Books For All work?
Happy beneficiaries
The organisation follows a 4-step method to collect, sort, and then distribute the books.
Speaking about it, Ankit says, “We rely heavily on social media to get people interested in the work we are doing, and promote the library through various channels including online campaigns and book distribution drives at schools, colleges, apartments, and societies. Once they know about they and us are willing to donate books, all they need to do is visit the website, or send us a Whatsapp message at 8879972012 and fill out the form with some basic details which include address, number of books being donated, and so on.”
Pickups happen in and around Delhi/NCR every day, and once the person has filled out the form and mentioned which Sunday they are available, the same is organised free of charge.
Ankit claims that approximately 2,000 books, including story books, textbooks, reference books, practice workbooks, and dictionaries are collected every week this way.
Explaining the next step, Ankit says, “The books are then brought to our warehouse in West Delhi, which also doubles up as a library. We, along with the help of about 40 volunteers and interns, sort through every book, the ones that are torn, or not in good condition are sent for recycling while the good ones are stacked up for circulation.”
Each book is then barcoded to ensure that the book activity can be monitored; this helps the team curate books in a better way.
At the library
Ankit says, “We charge a flat fee of Rs 10 for each book that is chosen; this is irrespective of the original book cost. We do this primarily for two reasons— to cover our logistic costs and to ensure that the kids who take these books value them and not just see this exercise as a charity.”
While the collection as of now happens only in Delhi/NCR, books are sent to states across India—Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, to name a few. We have tied up with various NGO’s and government schools in all these states and the books are sent to them directly. Teach For India, Deepalaya, Food For Thought (setting up libraries across the country), Lamstan (serves ladakh), Akshar Foundation and Aroh foundation are a few of them.
When asked how the children get to access these books, Ankit says, “Each NGO has their own method of distributing the books to the children. We also have the entire list of books online so the NGO’s can place an order for the books that they want. At the center we have set up in West Delhi, we encourage children to come, touch and feel the book and then take them home upon a payment of the fee. The library is open on all days of the week.”
What happens after the child has read the book?
Books makes them happy.
“We encourage the students to leave reviews of the books they have read. This pushes them to read more and also helps others pick up those books,” says Ankit.
The kind of insight that the children come up with after reading the books is what amazes Ankit. Sharing a few instances, he says, “There was a kid who had read a book on Bhagat Singh, and in a review, she wrote about how she sees similarities between his and Mahatma Gandhi’s struggles.”
Dilshad, one of the beneficiaries of this initiative started coming at the start of the library and would ask for colouring books because he loved to draw and colour. He would ensure that he brought his work back to show it to Ankit and the others; this gesture of his is what Ankit says has stayed with him.
The story of Taranum and Firoza will also establish just why this initiative works so well.
Stocking up on the books.
“Our father is an auto-rickshaw driver, and works very hard to provide for us. Books For All has been a blessing for us because until now managing to get books and study was difficult. Thanks to this initiative, we are now able to study properly, and most importantly, be consistent.”
The girls visit the library at the beginning of their academic session to get their sets of books and diligently donate the old ones. Their ambition is to become IAS officers and make their father proud.
“Being able to bring so much joy by doing something so small is what keeps me, and the team motivated,” says Ankit.
When asked about the impact in terms of numbers, he mentions that in the last one-and-a-half years, they have collected over 70,000 books and distributed close to 40,000 books. When asked how many kids they have reached with this initiative, he says that 4 lakh children have been impacted.
It was while she was a neonatologist at Mumbai’s Sion Hospital that Armida Fernandez, now 76, came across a six-week-old baby girl who had been raped. The baby’s body was mutilated, and despite trying everything available in their power, she and her team could not save her.
Apparently, the perpetrator had raped the infant to relieve himself of a sexually transmitted disease, a belief held in many communities in India and Africa.
Fernandez was so shell shocked that she didn’t know what became of the mother after the incident. The horrific state of the baby and barbaric nature of the assault had left a numbness in her that lasted years.
Fernandez had been working at Sion since 1971 in the hospital’s neonatal care unit, looking after premature and sick babies from the poorest communities in the area, including the slum of Dharavi. The mothers that came to her were often in a fragile state, and their babies were even worse off. Several infants were born with crippling defects, a consequence of poor maternal health and lack of nourishment. Fatalities were very common, both in infants and their mothers.
In fact, at the time, it was common for premature babies to die in the intensive care unit. At times, mothers took their infants home, where they survived, but returned to the hospital a few weeks later to say that their baby had died.
For many of the mothers, staying alive was a challenge, let alone caring for a newborn. They lived in abject poverty with multiple responsibilities, and if the child was born with any physical or mental disability, the mothers were simply unable to care for them.
The pathetic state of affairs rankled Fernandez. She couldn’t bring herself to come to terms with the loss, the grief, the sheer helplessness of what she routinely witnessed. Yet, she did not know how she could change things.
She encouraged mothers to breastfeed as it would protect the baby from any infections. In 1989, she started the first Human Milk Bank, explaining the importance of nourishing the mother for a healthier baby and making them take every precaution. From 6-7 fatalities, the number of deaths fell to one in ten over some time.
But the incident of the raped baby girl marked a turning point for her. Fernandez understood that this was not a battle where she could wait for victims to fall in her lap. She needed to enter the battlefield to make sure her victims were spared. Whether it was to stop violence against women and children or to ensure that expectant mothers took better care of themselves, she realised that she needed to enter their homes, lives, and communities to induce a change in attitudes and behaviours.
Yet she had no experience of the kind.
She barely knew what NGOs did or stood for, let alone how to register or run one. She did, however, mention her desire to a businessman friend; he offered to sell his house in Nashik and give her the money to set her off on her journey. Unfortunately, he died of a massive heart attack the following morning, and his wife decided to honour his last wish. She sold the property and handed the cheque over to Fernandez.
The generous spirit of a departed friend and his grieving widow loomed large before her. This marked the birth of SNEHA, an organisation committed to maternal and newborn health, child health and nutrition, empowerment, health and sexuality of adolescents, and prevention of violence against women and children.
Instead of waiting for patients or victims to turn up, SNEHA began to enter the communities–the slums and chawls–to which the poorest belong. Volunteers were galvanised to spread one primary message–a newborn’s health is inextricably linked with that of its mother, so the latter’s nutrition is every bit as important,
With no prior experience, Fernandez started in a most unstructured fashion, but things began to fall into place. At a paediatric conference, she met another doctor from University College London (UCL) who came to see their work; it resulted in a partnership that lasted 15 years where UCL provides research and support to SNEHA.
Help came in other ways whenever she felt she’d bitten off more than she can chew. A colleague pitched in as director for a while and brought in significant changes. In 2007, Priya Agrawal, who had worked in the NGO sector, joined and helped her restructure the operations. In 2013, Vanessa D’Souza, who had spent 21 years at Citibank, joined first as a volunteer and then as CEO, bringing in much-needed financial savvy. Many others assisted, and Fernandez says that SNEHA would be incomplete without them.
Of course, lack of structure and experience meant that things did not always work out. They once lost out on a funding opportunity with a donor from the USA when they could not articulate their vision and finances.
However, with a committed team and donors, 400 full-time employees and 750 volunteers, SNEHA grew faster than Fernandez ever envisaged. The organisation now reaches a population of around one million and has 2,65,000 direct beneficiaries.
Starting with one Mumbai slum, its core programmes are now in almost all districts of the state, reaching six other states including Gujarat and Jharkhand through partnerships. The approach is data-driven and sustainable, involving training for all stakeholders.
For example, SNEHA trains police officers to reduce domestic violence. “It’s not enough to try to change community behaviour; the change has to be all-encompassing,” she explains. More recently, the government has asked SNEHA to run the Nirbhaya Centre to support rape survivors in the city.
Saving many lives
A Goan by birth, Fernandez grew up with loving parents who discouraged her from studying science and medicine. Her mother felt it was too much work, while her father–a poet, immersed in arts and literature–felt science was limiting. Her six siblings studied humanities and charted out careers in related fields.
But Fernandez insisted on pursuing medicine in Hubli, Karnataka, followed by post-graduation in Mumbai, where she met her husband, a fellow doctor and her future life partner of 51 years. After completing her studies, she wanted to work in villages, but her husband pointed out that Mumbai had enough poor people for her to help. If her desire was to improve lives, the slums and chawls were full of those needing assistance.
Even as Fernandez continued to rise to head the Department of Neonatology at Sion, she and her husband–also a doctor–had a daughter in 1974. At 16, Romila developed lymphoma and underwent radiation; it soon advanced to breast cancer and she succumbed to the disease in her mid-30s.
After she lost her only child in 2013, Fernandez realised that there was very little support for people who have cancer. “It wasn’t about the financial aspect. Patients and their families need support, be it emotional, spiritual or just a listening ear.”
So in 2017, she started the Romila Palliative Centre, initially housed in Mumbai’s Holy Family Hospital, where she was the medical director. The centre has directly supported over 700 patients and their families with home care and emotional support.
Two other initiatives came as a result of her association with Holy Family Hospital. One morning, a famous gynaecologist of the city was taking a morning jog when he suddenly dropped dead. Upon closer examination, Fernandez and the other doctors realised that if someone had found him and given him a cardiac massage in time, he might have been saved. That’s when, in collaboration with cardiologists and the hospital’s administration, she started i-Care, teaching cardiac massage to laypersons.
She also noticed that many older people whose children were overseas were struggling to cope with problems of old age along with loneliness. She saw this and started ‘Connect and Care’, a movement to visit home-bound older citizens.
Fernandez’s direct association with Sion Hospital ended when she retired, and SNEHA is now in able hands. At 75, she stepped down from her medical directorship at Holy Family, but she still has her hands full. It is only because of a persistent cough that this writer managed to catch her at her beautiful and simple home in Mumbai’s Bandra, with an unobstructed view of the Indian Ocean. Perhaps this is what gives her a limitless view and the resolve to swim unhindered in life’s choppy waters.
After working in education for more than a decade, many people ask me, ‘Why do you work with the government?’ The inevitability of the argument is evident from my core belief that the public education system is the true gatekeeper of equality. We have to believe that education is not a private good but a public service that should not discriminate. With more than 65 percent of the 200 million children studying in government schools, with a three per cent dip in government school enrollments year-on-year, and with 25 percent of class 3 students unable to read a class 1 textbook—we have serious issues to tackle.
According to the ASER report of 2017-18, about 64 per cent of school-going students in India, i.e. around 115 million of them, still go to government schools. We cannot deny the fact that achieving socially equitable outcomes requires the effective functioning of ‘public systems’ because it is only governments that have the resources and capacities to reach all people. Quite honestly, it is the only way to truly build a nation of literate, as well as educated individuals.
The human resources at the disposal of the government bodies, along with the constitutional mandate, help bring about meaningful change to a vast majority of the society. Let’s not forget that there are many things that governments do right. The value addition of non-profits is to identify the not-so-many wrong things and support the governments to do almost everything right.
Incidentally, over the last few years, there has been an emergence of a new kind of organisations—which work to empower government systems to deliver quality services at scale. These organisations believe in the idea of strengthening the existing system at multiple levels, instead of creating yet another model or parallel system of change.
With a similar theme, we founded Leadership For Equity (LFE) in 2017, a systems change and research organisation that helps strengthen the effectiveness of government school systems. At LFE, the fundamental belief is that Public Education Systems are, by definition, ‘gatekeepers’ of equality; and in a way, effective and sensitive public education systems will ensure that quality education is provided to every child.
At LFE, we define a system as an interconnected series of entities where decisions and actions in one entity are consequential to others. For all children to be in school and learn, these entities play a role—both individually and collectively.
Having worked in the sector for some years now, we see that social sector leaders are often prone to biases and concerns when it comes to working with the government. There is a deep-rooted sceptical view of collaborating with them, which is justified to an extent.
In our workings with governments, we have realised a few things that will be useful for anyone in the education sector or otherwise. These lessons or mantras have helped us to center ourselves while creating impact.
As a veteran philanthropist and supporter of Education in Pune, Anu Aga keeps saying that working with the government is a ‘spiritual’ experience. Although it is convenient to blame the administration for their flawed execution of projects, it is equally crucial to understand the limited resources with which the teachers and officers work. Thus, inculcating a spirit of empathy comes foremost for a non-government stakeholder initiating any intervention with the administration.
At the core, what works is building genuine empathy for the people inside the government systems.
Consider a system with an average of 40 per cent vacant positions across all levels, and over which you have a significant number of individuals who take on additional charges and responsibilities—all while working on the changing whims of people in power, with limited resources and expecting immediate delivery with unrealistic timelines!
Apart from being a government employee, they play multiple roles in their lives. There is no option but for us to recognise that because it is in those smaller conversations that they find joy, and we truly understand what motivates individuals.
A senior director in Maharashtra’s education department was handling three different directorates, including being in charge of a new department. We could clearly see a marked shift in his efficiency. Constant stress and pressure caused his health to deteriorate and he wasn’t able to perform to his fullest. Over time, just listening and seeing his condition made my co-founder and I spend our extra hours to help him with departmental planning. The trust that we built with him through that phase, still shows up now, one year after he retired.
2. Co-creation works, it is the only thing that works
One question we keep asking our project managers and the new-age entrepreneurs who want to work with the government is, ‘What are you willing to let go?’
A key thing for organisations to figure out is how to deliver value to the governments and support their planned agenda, then getting something completely new. For example, the municipal schools in Pune have been facing multiple issues, such as low learning levels in Language and Math, and lack of concrete learning in English. This has led to a significant exodus from regional medium schools such that the number of students are reducing at more than five per cent a year.
To address this challenge, we started with the Shikshak Sahyogi Dal Project in 2015-16, which helped provide in-service support to teachers by creating an exclusive cadre of teacher mentors, known as ‘Sahyogis’. These teacher mentors support 1,600 teachers from the Marathi and Urdu medium Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) schools by conducting classroom observations, organising month-end teacher workshops and providing one-on-one personal coaching. This project has also created a platform where the best practices of the teachers are appreciated and shared with the larger community.
In 2018, when we started working with a teacher training body in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, the academic heads wanted to explore online blended training for teachers instead of face-to-face. We aligned our support to the academic body by being with them at every step of the way—creating phased research-based approaches, building project plans, creating course content, training master trainers, building impact metrics, and thus co-creating an online course that delivered their agenda.
The blended project was prototyped with 40 teachers, piloted with 650 teachers, and is now being scaled to 40,000 teachers across Maharashtra, in 18 months! All of this with around 70 per cent course completion rate, 90 per cent teacher implementation in classrooms, and 95 per cent teacher satisfaction. This is now being scaled to three other subject departments, summarised in this report.
When we decided to ‘let go’ of the idea of vendor-created content, or insisting on having our way of measuring impact or a world-class online course, it all worked out meaningfully. There were definitely some uncomfortable conversations, but this process of supporting the government by ‘co-creating’ was far more impactful.
More often than not, many social entrepreneurs, including myself, get inspired by meeting senior government leadership—either passionate bureaucrats or elected representatives. We take their verbal cues as a support of the ‘entire system’ to move forward.
We often miss out the people below—what I call the ‘middle management’—who reside inside the government. In an education department for example, these positions would be Directors, Deputy Directors, District and Block Officers, and Academic heads. A district education officer (EO) in India manages about 2,500-3,000 schools with an average staff of about 8,000 people, including teachers. Similarly, a block education officer (BEO) handles about 100-150 schools.
Those positions are critical for any organisational setup as they handle the high expectations of execution set by the top leadership’s vision as well as manage the complexities of the people they manage. They are also the real change agents in any large scale reform work inside schools.
Unfortunately, their voices are never heard, nor are they given opportunities to expand their competencies. A diktat from the top leadership does not necessarily mean that they are equally invested in the idea. There are several examples of quality initiatives which are led by the top leadership, but die down because the middle management was not taken along—the implementation of several Right to Education (RTE) mandates is a startling example. Even after ten years of adopting the RTE Act, 30 per cent of schools still don’t have a boundary wall.
So, for any new initiative or idea, the social sector leaders have to learn inclusion—to include the second level leadership in the governments, who are equally, if not more important, than the top leadership in creating sustainable change on the ground.
Working with governments is more complicated than you think! But the fruit of making something happen by working closely with them has an irrefutable impact. While this task is made harder by persisting inefficiencies along the government delivery chain, we have to believe in radically strengthening public education systems in India.
Achieving sustainable learning outcomes requires the development of leadership (of teachers and officers) through deep immersion and continuous reflective practices. Every child in India can receive an excellent education if we solve the current leadership crisis in public and private sectors, and practice a new kind of leadership that is rooted in the pursuit of creating more equitable public systems.
(Written by Madhukar Banuri and Edited by Shruti Singhal)
With The Positive Collective, The Better India’s COVID-19 coverage is available to regional language publications for free. Write to editorial@thebetterindia.com for more details.
According to the Economic Survey of India, about 70 per cent of rural households depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Moreover, about 82 per cent of these farmers are small and marginal.
In addition to the glaring inequities, small and marginal farmers are worst hit by weather conditions like droughts, floods, pest attacks, all resulting in low productivity.
A fish farmer casts a net
Neelkanth Mishra identified the strenuous conditions of marginal farmers. A social entrepreneur from Jharkhand, he began interacting with fishing communities while working as a Program Officer with Oxfam from 2006 to 2009. He saw that inland fisheries were an excellent way for farmers to earn a steady source of livelihood. It was a primitive sector, and he saw the opportunity in developing it.
For this, he founded the Centre for Aquatic Livelihood- Jaljeevika – a fishery-based non-profit organisation, in 2013.
The organisation introduces rural folk to inland fisheries and trains fish farmers in developing cost-effective technology. They also teach them how to manage fisheries to improve production and profitability.
“Through Jaljeevika, we have taught fish farmers how to make fishing tools and equipment with minimum investments, promoted women to take up fish farming, taught them how to produce fish seed, while also helping fisherfolk to become micro-entrepreneurs through value addition and processing of fish. For example, a lot of them have learnt how to process dry fish which they could also be selling,” shares the 45-year-old.
Community fish farming
Jaljeevika has engaged with fish farmers in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, and Andhra Pradesh, transforming over 1,000+ fisherfolk into microentrepreneurs. Overall, their projects have improved the lives of over 25,000 people in the country, which include over 5,000+ women organised in Self Help Groups (SHGs).
Journey from a social worker to a changemaker
Neelkanth was born in Jamshedpur, the city famous for its steel industries. Fascinated by the world of numbers, Neelkanth decided to pursue his bachelor’s in Mathematics from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and graduated in 1998.
“During this time, I started reading up and got inclined towards addressing social issues. So, I thought of either pursuing journalism or working in the development sector,” recalls Neelkanth.
Neelkanth Mishra, changemaker and founder of Jaljeevika
He decided to bring his plan into action by pursuing a Master’s degree in Rural Development from Ranchi’s Xavier Institute of Social Service. After completing his course in 2000, he joined The Free Legal Aid Committee in Jamshedpur and addressed the problem of ‘witch-hunting’ in Jharkhand and Bihar.
He prepared case studies of 150 victims, raised widespread awareness on the issue, and worked with lawyers and individuals to facilitate legal action. In 2001, these efforts bore fruit when the Jharkhand government enforced the Witchcraft Prevention Act.
For the next few years, he worked with a few NGOs on issues of tribal rights, human rights, Dalit rights, child rights, helping raise funds, creating awareness and promoting improvement in the lives of minority groups.
Fish farmers carry their seed to the community pond site
However, the most crucial turning point came when he joined Oxfam’s office in Lucknow as a Program Officer. This was the first time he was working on a livelihood development programme involving fishing communities based out of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh.
“There were three main takeaways from this experience. For inland fishers to be successful, you need to teach farmers how to reduce their production costs. This could be achieved by teaching them how to make fishing equipment and fish feed by themselves. Also, market linkages needed to be established along with promoting the benefits of integrated farming,” he says.
He immediately realised that this model could be replicated across different parts of the country. To spread the information, he joined Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture (RRA), a network of NGOs from Odisha, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar.
Fish farmers have been taught to make their own cages using locally available materials
“By tapping into this network, we conducted several training workshops with NGO leaders and with people on the ground. I also began guiding pilot projects that began in these states,” he says.
After three years of fisheries training and development, Neelkanth saw the need to found a formal organisation that focused on the subject. Thus, in 2013, Jaljeevika was founded and registered as an NGO.
Empowering fisherfolk with knowledge and skill
“In the initial days, swing, there was resistance from people because many of them had never engaged in fisheries management. The novelty of the concept brought in a lot of scepticism,” shares Neelkanth.
A farmers shows his fresh catch
However, they were certain that the financial benefits from the trade would dissipate all doubts.
“To improve the catch, a proper fishing cage is needed. However, this increases the cost for the fisherman as the equipment costs over Rs 2 lakh! We decided that this cage could be made by the fisherfolk using locally-sourced materials like bamboo, nets, wood,” he explains.
They also gave essential pointers regarding cultivating fish seed or baby fish.
“Fish seed bought from hatcheries was expensive, and in several cases, we noticed that farmers were getting it from West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. Despite all the money and efforts, the farmers did not know the quality of the seed, and often they would get dead ones. They also did not know when these should be released in the ponds, the appropriate temperature of the water, or how to ensure a low mortality rate for more production,” he states.
Training programme and workshop for fish farmers
Thus, they began teaching farmers how to culture their seeds by tapping into local networks and other available water resources. Promoting the production of fish feed by the fishermen would surely bring down costs.
“They did not know how to make this by themselves. So, we taught them how to make feed using rice husk, waste from processing mustard to make oil, lentils, and other agri waste. We also taught them about the right proportions because the fish need carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in the right amount,” says Neelkanth.
Additionally, they also taught fish farmers to propagate Azolla, an aquatic weed, that could be used as fish feed.
Neelkanth also noticed the shortage of water resources where fisheries could be managed. He found the solution in a co-operative model, where all the water bodies in a particular block or a village could be consolidated. Those who did not have ponds at home could work in these community-managed fisheries.
Jaljeevika has also promoted fish farming among women and now they have empowered over 5000+ women
With more hands-on-deck, there was efficient management and sharing of responsibilities among the fishermen.
Another programme that Neelkanth is proud of involves women SHGs.
“Collaborating with the Maharashtra Rural Livelihood Mission in 2013, we began working with women SHGs in Yavatmal, Gondia, and Gadchiroli. Initially, we started training about 100 women from eight SHGs. But now, we have helped over 4,000 women participate in fish farming and have 600+ SHGs working with us,” he says.
They also promote entrepreneurship by helping farmers process dry fish, take up ornamental aquaculture, and set up fishing collectives. This facilitated the formation of 130+ fishing cooperatives and groups, most of which have been operating in Bundelkhand, Pune, and Sangli.
And, the story of success is best told by fishermen who have experienced the benefits of the model first-hand.
A cleaning drive in-process so that fish can be bred in the water source
Take Bundelkhand-based Sanjiv Mishra. The 44-year-old has been working as a fisherman since 2004 after he got a pond at home. But, he faced several challenges.
“I did not know when to release the fish seeds in the pond, and they would often be eaten by the bigger fish. But after interacting with Jaljeevika in 2017, I learnt the right way of releasing seeds in the pond, along with how to prepare the pond bed before monsoon,” he says.
He adds that he also learned how to make fish feed at home using rice husk, jaggery, mustard pulp, which has resulted in healthy growth of the fish. He was taught to culture and process fish like pabda, chingri, and kawaii, selling these in live and dry form to local fish vendors.
“From producing three to four tonnes of fish in a year, I now produce nine tonnes. The fishing profession was looked down upon in our area. Jaljeevika has shown how fishing can be a profitable business, helping in our social upliftment. Now, many people are ready to take up this trade,” he says.
Overcoming hurdles to create change
Fish seed which is ready to be transferred
Despite impacting over 20,000 households with their model, raising funds from donors and spreading awareness, it has not always been a smooth ride.
“Whenever we start a project, the initial challenge is always to build trust. This is not a sector that yields immediate results, because working with people, cooperatives, nonprofits on the ground takes a lot of patience. But, after a year or so, when different stakeholders start experiencing the benefits, they begin trusting us,” he says.
Another thing that he points out is how there are very few institutions in the country that work on research and development of inland fisheries. “There is a need for qualified professionals who can transfer knowledge to the fisherfolk. Right now, most of the learning for people involved in this trade is on the job. But, with intervention from researchers, the fisherfolk can be trained faster,” states Neelkanth.
Hydrilla, a type of weed which is used to make fish feed
Regardless, Jaljeevika has done remarkable work and been recognised for it as well. In 2017, Neelkanth was recognised as an Ashoka Fellow. Jaljeevika was also the recipient of the Outlook Poshan Award in 2019. In the same year, they emerged as finalists for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Equator Prize, which recognises community efforts in reducing poverty by sustainably using and conserving biodiversity.
So, what lies ahead for the organisation?
Neelkanth shares that they want to add more grassroots NGOs in their network so that the model can be effectively scaled. He also wants to reinvent more efficient entrepreneurship models and bring in IoT (Internet of Things) and artificial intelligence to help in the transfer of knowledge.
Women workforce at a unit where value addition is being done to the produce
“The ultimate goal for us is to bring all stakeholders in the fishing sector–cooperatives, farmers, vendors, private companies, banks–under one umbrella for greater interaction and wholesome development of the sector. This will bridge gaps and improve the rural economy,” he signs off.
As a 90s kid, one of the biggest milestones in my school life was using a computer for the first time. I may have been in the second standard at the time, and the idea of the internet was fascinating to me. It felt like sheer magic!
But, as I grew older, I realised how privileged I was to be studying in a school that enabled such access. The glaring digital divide in India correlates to one’s financial footing.
For Shoaib Dar, this understanding came when he was working at a government school as a fellow for Teach for India (TFI). The young teacher addressed a simple question to students in class 7–How many of them had ever used a computer?
“There were 30 students in my class. But only one girl raised her hand. I was shocked! That was when I thought that this situation needed to change,” says the 29-year-old.
The big gap
Shoaib teaching in the classroom. He believes that with an interesting curriculum, kids will not only learn how to use computers effectively but can also become innovators in the future.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) report of 2018 surveyed 596 government schools in 619 districts in the country. The survey looked at different parameters of education that indicated how well the children learned in schools. It revealed that only 21.3 per cent of schools had computers.
“There was a need to improve digital literacy among kids while making the process interesting. On top of that, the curriculum needed to be drastically changed to accommodate logical thinking and problem-solving,” recalls Shoaib.
But, the problem that lay ahead of him was finding computers that weren’t too expensive. This would mean they could buy more computers, and thereby, reach out to more children.
Shoaib began speaking to his engineer friends who told him about Raspberry Pis. These are low-cost and smaller computers, priced between Rs 4,000-5,000 and readily available.
A child working with the Raspberry Pi system
In his second year of fellowship, Shoaib decided to carry out a pilot project at the school he was teaching. He sought help from two of his friends and they set up a 10-day boot camp where they installed four Raspberry Pi computers. They taught Scratch programming to kids to create their own games, animations, and stories.
He saw how this programme was successful as the kids were more enthusiastic; they were also using their computer programming skills to innovate solutions to everyday problems. Thus, in September 2017, he decided to formally found the Pi Jam Foundation, an NGO that would be the right platform to scale their operations.
Now, Pi Jam Foundation has reached over 15,500 kids from 51 schools, across Maharashtra, Telangana, and Kashmir. They have installed 400+ computers across these schools for free!
Additionally, the NGO has come up with innovative ways to ensure kids don’t stop learning during the lockdown. They developed ‘Game of Corona’, an interactive game in the form of snakes and ladders, that informs children about the dangers of Coronavirus.
The NGO has also rolled out creative computing sessions so that the kids can access them online on government portals like ‘Diksha’, the national digital infrastructure for teachers. These focus on Game Design and Animation, which is available in Marathi. Now, they plan on making these available in other vernacular languages.
In conversation with The Better India, Shoaib discusses Pi Jam Foundation’s journey, their work, and their ultimate goal.
Engineer-turned-Educator
The Pi Jam Foundation uses low-cost computers like Raspberry Pi for school kids to improve digital literacy
Originally from Srinagar, Shoaib came all the way south to pursue his Mechanical Engineering degree from the Vellore Institute of Technology. After completing the degree in 2013, he decided to go back home and figure out what he wanted to do.
“My father and his group of friends in Srinagar were running a local NGO called, ‘Dawn’. They focused on issues like promoting drug de-addiction programmes, working with local communities, creating awareness on mental health issues, among others. I ended up working there for about eight months,” he says.
He then moved to Bengaluru and started freelancing, designing machine parts, creating 3D models for life jackets etc. At this point, he realised how much he loved working practically than just focusing on subjects in theory.
Shoaib, the founder of the Pi Jam Foundation, is an engineer by training, but his passion led him to work towards improving the education system.
“As a child, I loved making things rather than just sitting and reading text. Most of my learning has been based on experiments that I did by myself. But, our education system does not provide a child with that space to explore their creative side. I began asking myself how I could contribute to bring about a systematic change,” he says.
Shoaib understood that he would have to work as a teacher. He started researching, and when he saw the TFI fellowship application towards the end of 2014, he applied in a heartbeat.
He was soon selected for the programme and was assigned the Rajashri Shahu Maharaj PMC, a Municipal School in the Mundhwa area in Pune. The fellowship lasted from 2015 to 2017 and he taught Science, Geography, and Math to 60 students of classes 7 and 8.
This was a great period of learning for Shoaib and he started making important notes.
He noticed that the education system was quickly developing in the West with a focus on subjects like mathematics, science, and computers. By skilling their children, they were breeding a cadre of smart innovators who went on to solve the world’s problems.
Guiding kids so that they learn to use it effectively and harness the technology to find solutions for existing problems
“This was a stark contrast to the education system and learning patterns in India. Here, the emphasis was on marks than the dissemination of practical skills. But, it is these practical skills that would later help children not only in securing decent jobs but also in becoming innovators,” shares Shoaib.
To beget critical thinking and problem-solving skills, he set up a community space within the school. Since the school didn’t have a science lab, this space served the purpose of an ‘Ideas Centre’.
“This experience brought me closer to the communities, which helped my understanding of their conditions. To get the kids interested, the learning had to be contextual. We started looking at their daily problems and possible solutions,” recalls Shoaib.
These were the events that ultimately led Shoaib to carry out the pilot project, start the Pi Jam Foundation, focus on skill training, improve digital literacy, and develop a curriculum that was interesting for the students.
Nurturing a generation of innovators
Through their work, Pi Jam has impacted the lives of over 15,500+ kids in 51 schools!
Shoaib was certain about one thing– he wanted the kids to enjoy the process of learning.
“Children feel that computers are these complex devices that control them. I want them to understand that it is actually the other way around. Also, I did not want them to feel that working with computers is a hobby or an extracurricular activity. I want them to see the potential of learning these skills and how they can be participants in shaping the changing digital world,” he says.
To carry out these objectives, Shoaib developed a curriculum that would pique the interest of students from classes 5-10. About 50 teachers from these schools have been trained to implement this curriculum in their respective schools.
The first focus area is promoting ‘Problem-solving’. “Before one finds a solution, it is important to identify a problem and understand its different aspects so that a viable solution can be put forth,” he explains.
The second component of this curriculum is ‘Physical Computing’, which is teaching kids how to harness technology to come up with solutions. This is where improving the scale of digital literacy takes place.
Further, training is not just on the basics of operating a computer but, programming, interacting with the physical environment, and working with other devices to come up with a viable solution. Here, Shoaib gives an example.
Pi Jam also provides a platform for kids to showcase their innovations
“The kids started looking at accidents related to two-wheelers and they wanted to come up with a solution. They used a sensor whose interface is connected to the computer. This sensor is attached to a helmet and a motorised latch is placed over the vehicle’s keyhole. Now, only when the rider wears the helmet, the latch opens up, allowing the key to be inserted and the vehicle to start up. This was really innovative,” he explains.
The third component is, ‘Design thinking’ which is very similar to problem-solving. But here, the kids are taught to understand and approach any problem empathetically, while also using reliable data. They try to look at how and why the problem is pertinent, who is most affected by it, and its root cause. “This gives the act of problem-solving a humane aspect. I believe that this skill is going to enable children to tackle complicated social problems in the future,” says Shoaib.
The last component is, ‘Digital making’, where the students create digital artefacts instead of just consuming technology. This can be in the form of an app, website game, or animation.
The kids work on their ideas and showcase their innovations in ‘Maker’s Factory’, an annual platform that celebrates the projects they work on.
A brilliant example of a solution developed by some students deals with weather monitoring and its parameters such as humidity, temperature, rainfall, and wind speed. The students connected different sensors with their computers, and the data they collected is being used by the Indian Meteorological Society in Pune!
Pi Jam has also designed the curriculum for computer learning in a way that the children learn how to think critically while approaching their solutions with empathy.
Shoaib believes that this also helps the kids in understanding their local climates better, thus making them climate-conscious.
This is reflective of how the kids are learning about computers and coming up with viable solutions applicable in the real world. It is when you speak to the teachers that one learns how much the kids have learnt.
Take Swaranjali Bhise, a teacher at the Epiphany School. It’s the same school where the students came up with the solution to curb two-wheeler road accidents. The school is located near slums like Bhavani Peth, Kashewadi and Ghorpade Peth in Pune.
The school has TFI fellows and thus, could connect with the NGO in June 2018. Pi Jam has installed about nine Raspberry Pi systems and helped train about 300+ kids.
“I love the fact that students are learning new things, way beyond the basics, which has gotten them really excited. They are so inquisitive, and identify problems, as well as provide effective solutions. The curriculum has also improved classroom interactions. They have also trained us, teachers, to implement the curriculum and continue to meet us every month to discuss challenges while helping us solve them,” says the 42-year-old.
Overcoming challenges for a brighter future
Kids during a practical session
Running an NGO that works with over 15,000 kids is obviously not a piece of cake. But, Shoaib says that the response of the students, teachers, and even parents has been very positive. This has kept them motivated and upheld the belief that their work is making a difference.
The challenge, however, is related to compliances and regulations.
“As an NGO, our goal is to provide world-class computing education to kids studying in government-run and under-resourced schools for free. So, to really scale our initiative, we need to have sustainable revenue flows. But, the process of getting clearances and all the paperwork related to donations takes a lot of time. There have been instances where interested donors haven’t been able to contribute because of these complicated processes,” he explains.
But, through award grants and by carrying out projects in collaboration with other grassroots foundations, they have been able to manage their operations effectively.
The enthusiastic founder of the NGO also has a few plans.
He shares that they now want to introduce AI and ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) as a part of their curriculum. But, he wants to ensure that these concepts are taught in a more relevant context.
Shoaib receives an award by NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum in 2018
“We now hope to scale our programme in more schools through collaboration with the government. I want kids to realise that these skills are not just for securing a job but to understand the world’s ever-increasing problems and how they can come up with solutions. Our hope is that kids embrace their full potential to become the problem-solvers that the future needs,” says Shoaib, signing off.
Jolly Johnson, founder of the Helping Hands Organisation (H2O) based in Kerala knew the exact moment when she heard her calling.
“I still remember my first visit to an old age home. I met an old woman from Uttar Pradesh who took me in her arms and started crying. She said that I reminded her of her daughter. I didn’t know then that this moment would be the beginning of some of the major decisions in my life,” says the 33-year-old.
One of her decisions was to start her organisation to help children with disabilities and on the autism spectrum.
H2O has so far helped over 2,000 students with autism and has a network of 12,000 youth volunteers conducting various skill development programmes for children with disabilities.
Random Acts Of Kindness
“I grew up near a church in a small village called Valithura near Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala. I was also active in the church’s activities, because of which one of my first dreams was to become a nun. A lot of people found that to be odd, but for me, the whole idea was to help out people,” explains Jolly.
Because of the constant desire to help people out, soon after completing her 10th grade, Jolly started taking tuition classes for underprivileged students.
“Initially my plan was to take tuitions with a minimal fee but later on when I visited the homes of these children, I realised how much they were all struggling and decided to take the classes absolutely free of cost,” she says.
But her acts of compassion didn’t stop there. Even during her college days, Jolly would visit senior citizens on weekends at the Santhwana Old Age Home, Vettuthura, and deliver essentials to them.
Jolly was also an active member of several organisations during her college days like the Mahila Mandiram and the Rotary club of Thiruvananthapuram through which she received the opportunity to become a part of innumerable awareness programmes and fundraising drives.
“Soon after graduating college I got a job at ICICI Bank, but in a few months, I had to quit my job because my mother fell ill and she needed someone to help her full time,” she explains.
It was during that time that Jolly decided to start a daycare for special children to make the most of her time at home.
“I started doing a lot of research on special schools to get a better understanding of the kind of attention and care these required. This was when Dr M K C Nair, a family friend, suggested that I set up a learning and skill development centre for children with autism. That was the beginning of H2O in 2012,” Jolly explains.
A Loving Friends To Her Students
“The aim of H2O is to create a platform for specially-challenged children to attain a sense of independence through various skill development programmes,” explains Himavathi, co-founder of H2O.
The organisation started out by providing behavioural therapy, music therapy, horticulture therapy, prevocational training for children below the age of 15 and vocational training for the senior level learners from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Gais Amir, who has been a volunteer at H20 for more than 6 years, says, “We have had to face a lot of difficulties regarding funds to carry out these projects. So some of us from the College of Engineering Trivandrum came together and started collecting old newspapers to raise money for the NGO. For the past six years, our college has been able to give around Rs 10,000 every month towards the cause.”
“H2O has also conducted several campaigns, including a kite festival to raise funds to expand the organisation. But looking back, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come,” he adds.
Where They Are Today
Today, H2O rents a 3-acre plot consisting of the building and a horticulture farm which cultivates several vegetables like tomatoes, cabbage, beans and ginger. The organisation currently has over 12,000 youth volunteers from across different colleges in Kerala co-ordinating over 92 WhatsApp groups.
“I got to know about H2O through my college seniors when I was in my first year. Ever since then I’ve been an active participant and it has given me a completely different outlook to life. I’ve been able to train several children. We teach them pot painting, candle making, paper bag making and even help them cultivate their own vegetables,” says Hari Krishnan a final year student at Marian College, Kuttikanam, Kerala.
Over the span of eight years, Jolly’s organisation has been able to help over 2,000 such learners and has been successful in opening up a conversation on the need for skill development for these children.
“I still remember visiting my neighbour’s daughter with cerebral palsy. She was younger than me but I somehow felt connected to her. And although I had never seen her before in my life, there was an urge inside me to make her feel happier. I’m glad that this feeling stayed with me all through my life. Else, I wouldn’t have been able to help so many people through my organisation,” Jolly concludes.
Due to the lockdown, The Helping Hands Organisation has been struggling to meet their financial requirements. You can help these students by donating to the account given below:
Acc Name: Helping Hands Organisation
Acc No: 0379 0530 0001 0499
IFSC Code: SIBL 0000 379
Bank Name: The South Indian Bank Ltd
Branch: Kesavadasapuram
(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)
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While many of us have resorted to Zoom and Skype to maintain continuity in our work, the pandemic has turned out to be a curse for the poor and the marginalised. Ragpickers, especially, hardly received any support or compassion, even though they recycle almost 20 percent of the country’s urban solid waste and keep cities clean.
In this trying time, the Noida-based Atmashakti Trust, offered a ray of hope. The non-profit works towards the rights and entitlements of the marginalised communities in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, and led the path on disaster response to ensure last-mile services in a society where inequality is pervasive.
Founded in 1995, Atmashakti Trust has been working in Odisha and Uttar Pradesh to create awareness in constitutional rights and entitlements amongst the most marginalised rural communities with an emphasis on Tribals and Dalits. It facilitates the formation of local-level Sangathans, who take up a range of issues such as Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, Natural farming, Training and capacity building.
(L) Ruchi Kashyap. (R) Team Atmashakti
The complete lockdown for containing the spread of the coronavirus left lakhs of industrial, domestic and daily wagers everywhere in the country without work, money, and even access to food.
“Those of us in Noida and Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh and Gurgaon, Haryana, stepped up to draw from our limited resources to save affected families around us from starvation. We called it ‘MissionRahat’, and aimed to support them with dry rations and cooked food to tide over the worst phase of the lockdown and the side-effects of the pandemic,” says Ruchi Kashyap, Executive Trustee of the organisation.
Due to the announcement of lockdown at short notice, another sector, the ragpickers, had minimal scope to save food and other basic needs.
“Our society has not yet prepared to give ragpickers the space they deserve. Therefore, we decided to work for these communities to bring back their identity for which they suffer every day,” adds Kashyap.
“The lockdown wrecked our lives. We were stuck in our sheds without work and access to food as we could not move out of our houses,” says Khusbu, a ragpicker from Bhapura slum of Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Ten years ago, Khusbu and her husband left Darbhanga in Bihar to Ghaziabad in UP for work and a better life. But fortune did not smile on them. Instability and unavailability of their preferred jobs pushed them towards ragpicking.
“I could not believe it when I received a bag of dry rations from the volunteers of the organisation. It was more than I had expected. We had knocked several doors for help but were unsuccessful. Because of the timely help rendered by Atmashakti, we no longer fear for hunger,” informs Khusbu.
Kohinoor Bibi, 45, is another ragpicker from the Seemapuri slum in North-east Delhi. She lives with her husband and six children.
She says, “We were not able to step out from our sheds as policemen were threatening to beat us if we were found outside. My family of eight was in dire need of help, but why would anyone look at us? What identity did we have in society? We had thought that no help would be offered to us.”
But in their hour of crisis, help came to them.
She continues, “Atmashakti provided that crucial help. They gave us six weeks of rations, which reduced our burden. Ragpicking is the only job that gives us money to run our families. We earn on a daily basis and our income is dependent on the number of rags we collect every day. The lockdown cost us heavily.”
Atmashakti Trust distributed dry rations to over 3,000 ragpicker families that included 20 kg of Rice/Flour, 2 kg of Dal, 1 litre of edible oil, and one packet of salt.
“The plight of the ragpickers is at the crux of the snags, unlike other informal workers. As we began our COVID-19 relief response, we realised that they were the most vulnerable communities. However, it was not an easy task. We got in touch with the District administration of Ghaziabad to support more than 2,000 ragpicker families in Uttar Pradesh,” says Ruchi Kashyap, Executive Trustee of Atmashakti Trust.
Battling life and death
A waste segregated site in Bhopura slum in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Often considered as the primary foot-soldiers in collecting, sorting, and managing the large chunk of garbage generated in cities like Delhi, Noida, and Ghaziabad, everybody turned a deaf ear to their misery.
“The earnings of ragpickers depends on how much waste they collect each day. They do not have a choice to earn a daily fixed wage. That puts them in a vulnerable position as they cannot save money and food for the future. At the same time, factories and manufacturing companies were closed due to the lockdown, which was the only source of their daily earnings. So, their future was uncertain,” states Kashyap.
Kiran Devi, 54, lives in a jhuggi near Bhapura slum in Ghaziabad. Like others, lockdown also had the worst-ever effect on her family. With her husband mostly unwell, she had to shoulder the family’s responsibility.
“Though we have been staying here for the last ten years, we are consistently being denied an Aadhaar card or a Ration Card here. Not having these documents is depriving us of access to government benefits. Where will we go? But thanks to Atmashakti, we survived,” says Kiran.
Though ragpickers are estimated to be between 1.5 million to 4 million in the country, their contribution to our economic activity is worth about ₹3200 crores. And yet, they continue to struggle for their identity and survival. We leave no reason to offer them the poorest position in our societies.
“Their crisis cannot be solved unless there is a consistent effort to give back their lost identity. We all have to do our part to change their public perception. Atmashakti’s humanitarian response has planted seeds of hope for many,” says Balicharan, a social worker, He was coordinating the organisation’s response programme in Noida and other parts of Uttar Pradesh during the lockdown.
He elaborates the COVID-19 response strategy:
1. Using the public distribution network: In Loni, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, most areas were under the contaminated zones. Using the Public Distribution Channel, they reached 8,000 distressed families in 36 wards, who were non-ration cardholders and deprived of essential rations.
2.Coordinated mechanism with NGOs/Solidarity groups: Solidarity networks in Delhi/NCR helped administer relief work by identifying genuine needs and avoiding duplication.
3.Coordination with the local administration: They collaborated with the local administration to extend the reach of intervention.
Discrimination at its worst
(L) Kavita Devi, cooking for her family, with the dry rations she received from Atmashakti Trust. (R) Khusbu
Ragpickers live in temporary sheds in the slum areas of Delhi, Noida, and Ghaziabad. Their work is considered menial, and they are often treated as untouchables by the so-called privileged classes.
Gopal Verma, a volunteer at Atmashakti, sheds light on how discrimination towards ragpickers has created a new narrative.
He says, “It is understood that we all should adhere to isolation and physical distancing, but ragpickers are being abandoned in the name of these practices. Despite their services, they are at the receiving end of hate and dismissal. How can we think of an equal society when the so-called upper layer of the society does not extend the helping hand to the deprived?”
More than 600 ragpicker families in the Sihani slum in Ghaziabad went without help during the lockdown, he adds.
While other informal workers are being helped by youth clubs, NGOs, and charitable organisations, nobody came forward for ragpickers. Various research findings also revealed that ragpickers hail from the poorest and other marginalised communities, which exposes them to the betrayal and ubiquitous social alienation.
No law to favour them
In the absence of a policy for rag pickers in our country, they remain out of the formal employment sector. They toil to keep our cities clean, and yet, have been conveniently forgotten by our policymakers.
“We don’t have an identity in society. As a fallout, our children are denied enrollment in the Anganwadis. Can we not even expect this from the government?” asks 45-year-old Kavita Devi. She resides in Ghazipur while her two children are in Bihar for education.
“As there is no law that favours their concerns, these ‘invisible Indians’ continue to struggle for their survival. We tried to make sure that all ragpickers in these regions receive rations till the lockdown subsides, and they can resume work,” says Neha. She was overseeing the procurement of the relief materials vital for the timely distribution of rations.
The easing of lockdown has a mixed effect. Although many ragpickers have returned to work, waste recycling factories have resumed operations in very few places, causing ragpickers to work at reduced rates. Moreover, middlemen dealers, who purchase the recyclables, have not resumed work in full numbers.
“The ordeals of the ragpickers are acute and multifarious. We are happy that our team could proactively engage with volunteers and solidarity groups to reach them. It is time to bring back their dignity in the society,” concludes Kashyap.
(Written by Nabachannel Kishor and Edited by Shruti Singhal)
Joseph Madiath was a mere boy of six when he organised the labourers at his father’s rubber plantation in Kuttanad, Kerala, demanding better wages on their behalf. Sent off to a boarding school soon afterwards, Joseph got himself expelled from the institution for creating a students’ union that protected the rights of the students. At college as well, he came under scrutiny for vehemently advocating for students’ rights, amid a tumultuous political situation in the country.
Today, destiny’s troubled child, Joseph, is a messiah for over six lakh people in Odisha, most of whom hail from remote, underdeveloped tribal districts. He has been closely associated with multiple Nobel Laureates, adopting their discoveries to improve the lives of the rural poor, through this non-profit organisation Gram Vikas.
In an exclusive conversation with The Better India, 69-year-old Joseph revisited his inspiring journey so far, recalling the poignant stories of social inequality that stirred him as a child, as well as the villagers who once resisted his efforts to introduce toilets in their homes.
Joseph Madiath
Appalled by caste discrimination in childhood
Born just three years after Independence, Joseph was an ordinary village boy who grew up running around the village roads and listening to his grandmother’s riveting stories of social discrimination.
In his childhood, he also learnt about his grandfather, a cultivator, sharing lunch with labourers who ate a gruel of rice from a hole dug in the soil. That was apparently the norm of lunch meant for the working-class minorities.
Even Joseph himself was not allowed to play with young children from certain sub-castes in front of everyone.
Appalled by such deep-rooted casteist discrimination around him, a young Joseph grew up to be a rebel with a cause.
The rebel hero who saw the real face of India on pedals
After recurring stints of organising people and conflicting with authoritarian systems throughout his school and college days in Calcutta and Chennai, Joseph decided to embark on a cross-country bicycle tour.
He was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi famously travelling across India in a third-class compartment to see the real face of the country.
“In nearly a year, I cycled through the remote villages and hamlets of India. I was taken aback by the poverty and misery of so many people, especially the people in tribal villages,” he says.
While paddling his two-wheeler, Joseph would dream of working for the betterment of these people one day. Joseph returned to college a changed man — one who organised student volunteers to help the society.
In 1971, when war between India and Pakistan broke out, hordes of refugees from Bangladesh poured into the Indian side of the border, in Bengal. The government sought volunteers to manage the refugee camps and provide relief to them. Joseph created the Young Students Movement for Development — a forum of student volunteers who happily served the ones in distress.
Madiath with his team of volunteers in 1971
“At that time, a cholera outbreak happened among the refugees in Calcutta. My team was assigned the one task rejected by all — to offer a dignified end to those who succumbed to the epidemic. I would carry the dead bodies in the truck and bury them,” Joseph recalls.
Coming to Odisha…..
The same year, a catastrophic cyclone tore through the coastline of Odisha in October. Back in the day, the state was least prepared for the calamity. Thousands of people were displaced from their homes and needed immediate relief. “By that time, the refugee relief in Bengal was fairly under control with global help pouring in for them. So, with a team of 40 student volunteers, I travelled to Odisha to help the cyclone survivors,” shares Joseph.
The stark poverty and misery of the coastal state affected Joseph. He also realised that the periodic occurrence of such natural disasters had demoralised the people, who now felt dependent on relief resources instead of starting their lives anew. In Patamundi block, Joseph organised a cooperative society which motivated the people to cultivate at least two crops a year. The alluvial soil in the region was highly conducive for the same. However, he was met with resistance from the people who asked him to leave when they learnt he was unwilling to be a relief donor forever. Around the same time, he got a proposition from the then collector of Ganjam district, who invited his team to help support the Adivasi population. “In our analysis, we saw that the tribals were the most marginalised people in the state. We gladly accepted the opportunity, and set up a new organisation — Gram Vikas — in 1979, in Moguda village.” By that time, Joseph had set his mind to stay in the state amidst the lesser privileged communities.
…..And making the state his home
The administration instructed Joseph to train the tribal people in animal husbandry and dairy development, so that they learn modern life skills and can integrate into mainstream society. However, when Gram Vikas volunteers went door to door in the tribal pockets, they learnt that the Adivasis there considered milk extraction from animals a grave sin.
Their forest-based culture respected all animals and believed that an animal’s milk should be reserved only for its offspring. With the first setback, the volunteers decided to consider other ways for their upliftment.
“We realised that the people were in such impoverished state mainly because of unscrupulous money-lenders and landlords, who duped and deprived them often. With the central government promoting the moratorium on bonded labour at that time, we tasted our first victory in the land by securing the tribal lands illegally snatched by these landlords and lenders,” narrates Joseph. Gradually, Gram Vikas’ operations expanded to other areas of Odisha. Next, they convinced the tribal communities to give up cutting trees for firewood, and use biogas for cooking instead. The Gram Vikas institutional building had installed the first biogas plant in the entire region. Impressed by their success, the government of Odisha once again sought their help to set up similar plants in different underdeveloped villages. Gram Vikas representatives trained engineers, technicians and local people, who collectively managed to set up 59,000 biogas plants in nine years across the state.
Villagers working to set up biogas plants
Creating Gram Vikas
Today, Gram Vikas has 400 active volunteers, and has positively impacted more than six lakh people in the past four decades. Indirectly, they have impacted more than two million lives. From biogas to sanitation, water supply to solar power, Joseph and his brigade of Good Samaritans have transformed village after village both in tribal and non-tribal belts. While conducting a meticulous survey of the living conditions in 100 villages, Joseph realised that the most pressing problem affecting people was ill-health. Recurrent disease outbreaks, stemming from the abysmal attitude towards human waste disposal was responsible for the same. Raw faeces flowed directly into water resources from where it would be collected for drinking and bathing purposes.
Joseph informs, “We created MANTRA — Movement & Action Network for Transformation of Rural Areas through which we wanted to ensure that every family in the village had a toilet and bathing facility at home. Irrespective of their financial status, people should have access to safe water for drinking, coming to their homes from a central overhead tank through pipelines.” Despite initial objection from people due to conditioning towards primitive habits, Gram Vikas managed to make MANTRA objectives a success. Later, they also helped electrify several villages using solar power. And this is where Joseph’s interaction with Chemistry Nobel Laureate Michael Stanley Whittingham must be mentioned.
Joe Madiath inaugurating a programme
“We worked with Michael to see how energy could be stored for a longer time, which could be used for productive purposes, say, pumping of water. Michael developed the Lithium-ion battery that works in solar micro-grids.” Collaborating with him, Gram Vikas installed the invention in several locations in Kalahandi district.
Revered by Nobel Laureates
Joseph is also fondly revered by another set of Nobel Laureates — Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee — who won the award in Economics in 2019. The duo has famously described Joseph as, “A man with a self-deprecating sense of humour who attends the annual meeting of the world’s rich and powerful at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in outfits made from homespun cotton.” Joseph also remembers Esther as a dedicated researcher who worked among village communities along with Gram Vikas for a long time.
Liby Johnson, the executive director of Gram Vikas, shares his experience of working side by side with Joseph for nearly an era, “Joe has this uncanny ability to sense what needs to be done in a village. I have learnt greatly from the way he interacts with people, observes and analyses. For example, the way he designed a water supply system for a village making use of a spring in the hills is something a lot of us internalized.”
He continues, “Gram Vikas has done more than 400 such systems so far; every person who does the scouting, planning and designing follows what Joe first did in the mid-1990s. He taught me how to be foresighted and deal with uncertainties that come in your way while working with difficult issues of people’s development.” “Dr Joseph is a phenomenal mentor and a role model,” says Eshaan Patheria, a Harvard student who worked with Gram Vikas from August 2018 to September 2019 for 13 months as an SBI Youth Fellow.
And about himself and his work, Joseph has only one thing to say, “I am passionate about improving the quality of life of the rural poor. But, my passion alone will not bring the change we need. More people and organisations need to come forward with similar ideals.”
Until 2001-2002, Rath, a town located around 150 km from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, did not have an English-medium school. Due to lack of development and few opportunities, not many students from this backward region of Bundelkhand could not pursue higher education in established institutions outside town. Those who could found themselves unprepared to compete with students outside the confines of academics.
Similar was the situation of Prabhat Saxena, a native of the area, who scored 81% in his Class XII board examination in 2001. Two years later, he was among a handful of people who cracked one of the country’s most challenging engineering exams, and secured admission in IIT-Dhanbad.
Despite being a topper and earning praises around town for his achievement, Prabhat felt out of place when he started studying petroleum engineering outside his home town. “While I was good in academics like many studying in the institute, I felt I was lagging in terms of extra curricular activities, personality development and other such aspects. My classmates who were from metro cities and other urban areas were ahead in these terms. I had studied in a Hindi medium school and always struggled with English. I faced more challenges and hurdles compared to classmates from urban areas,” he tells The Better India.
To ensure that no student from a rural area has to experience this inferiority complex, Prabhat started an NGO in 2015 to help over 3,000 underprivileged students from six districts of Uttar Pradesh. The students receive quality education and career guidance. Since its launch, around five students have cracked IIT, 17 have cleared JEE Mains, seven have made it to the state civil services and 38 have cleared the National Talent Search Examination (NTSE).
Holistic education
“It was rare for students to go out of town to pursue higher education. I realised that many students like me would face the same issue due to lack of exposure, career guidance and aspects that help groom one’s overall personality,” the 35-year-old says.
Hence, from 2004, Prabhat started reaching out to teachers in his hometown, offering support and suggestions to enhance education. During his visits home, he conducted career guidance seminars and provided necessary help to underprivileged students. He continued this through his academic years. Prabhat graduated in 2007 and took up jobs that have led him to work in Norway, Kuwait, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi over the years. He is currently working in Qatar.
While building his career alongside, he set up a library in his hometown, conducted health awareness camps, and organised talent hunt examinations while guiding underprivileged students.
“In 2015, I felt the need to scale up my work and decided to launch an NGO, Srijan Ek Soch. The aim was to go beyond guiding students in their career, and ensuring quality education in their early years,” he says.
Prabhat decided to set up smart classes for students between Classes I and XII in private schools to enable easy learning and provide quality education at par with their urban counterparts. “We requested three schools to dedicate a classroom to install projection screens, internet connections, computers and create other digital infrastructure for students. Some volunteers helped train teachers in explaining concepts in a better manner. Emphasis was given to improve the English of both teachers and students and enhance the students’ personalities,” he adds.
Prabhat with children
Prabhat succeeded in helping hundreds of students in the town. By 2019, he was guiding them in cracking IIT and other competitive examinations.
The same year, Prabhat launched a project, Srijan Ek Sankalp, to replicate the education model in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. In July, he adopted Kaithi, a village in UP, and roped in seven full-time volunteers to ensure consistent efforts go into sustainable education for lesser privileged students. In October, the NGO partnered with IIT Roorkee to facilitate the Central government’s Unnat Bharat Abhiyan project by adopting Horawala village in Uttarakhand. Education is provided to students here free of cost, and no monetary contracts are signed with the schools.
Since then, the NGO has established smart classes in over 15 villages, reaching out to over 3,000 students. Prabhat says a major challenge he faces in this work is changing the mindset of people. “Locals feel that the initiative might not offer long term solutions or support. Students are less confident in trying out new mediums of learning. School managements are also unwelcoming at times,” he says.
Prabhat says the initial years required a lot of patience and efforts in convincing stakeholders and building trust. “We could not impose our views directly, and had to find sublime ways to improve teaching models in the schools. It is hard to make people believe in your ideas. But once the students started seeing changes, the task became easier,” he adds.
Chain reactions
Rajendra Gupta, a teacher with Din Dayal Upadhyay Rajkiya Model Inter College, says, “The institute set up a smart class in 2019. The upgraded infrastructure has helped explain concepts of mathematics and physics through the visual medium. Students can grasp topics easily and it helps reduce teaching time,” he says.
Rajendra adds that these classes add to the teachers’ knowledge and helps them impart education with confidence. “The students are interested in learning in a fun way, which motivates the teachers too. Attendance has also been steady,” he adds.
Over the years, Prabhat’s ex-colleagues and peers Nikhil Shrivastava, Ravindra Gupta, Anurag Bharti, Vijay Gupta, Punit Dubey, Shubham Sankhdhar and KK Jha have also joined the cause. “We fund 70% of the expenses from our salaries, and the remaining funds come from corporates and partners through their CSR initiatives,” he adds.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a setback for the cause. “The schools closed due to the lockdown. Hence, we started ‘Shiksha Ki Gaadi — Education on Wheels’ to ensure education was accessible. Three minibuses travelled to rural areas reaching out to 1,000 students and ensuring that students do not miss out on studies,” Prabhat says.
Ram Prasad, a parent from the Lalitpur district, says there has been significant progress in his daughter’s academic performance. “Earlier, due to an inadequate educational system, my daughter did not possess much knowledge about various concepts and happenings around the world. However, ever since the Shiksha Ki Gaadi started visiting our village, she has been able to keep up with her studies,” he says.
Prabhat says the initiative has evolved into an ecosystem and improved the education system of his town. “Ravindra and Vijay used to be my students. They realised the importance of this initiative and how it benefits them. Hence, they decided to return to their hometown and dedicate all their time to educate underprivileged students,” he adds.
Srijan has recently launched isaksham.com, a web portal for students from Classes I to XII, allowing them access to all the study material related to their classes and subjects, free of cost.
“A chain reaction has started, wherein students are gaining the benefit, and the teachers want to find creative ways of teaching. The students have access to all the educational assistance that one might get in schools in big cities. We aim to reach 10,000 students in 40 villages across India by 2021. I do not wish any rural student to feel the inferiority complex I did while studying in metro cities,” he adds.
This article has been published in partnership with NASSCOM Foundation.
Working in the social sector may sometimes seem like a drop in the ocean.
But a positive impact is not a numbers game alone. It is the quantitative and qualitative analysis of positive change brought about by the cumulative efforts of individuals and organisations. Every effort—big or small, policy-level or grassroots—counts in the larger scheme of things.
Technology has been a proven catalyst to increase scale for NGOs and the NASSCOM Foundation understands this reality and endeavours to become the digital transformation partner to all the NGOs across India.
In partnership with Techsoup and through its BigTech program, it strives to help changemakers, NGOs and public trusts to scale their capacities by providing high-end technology products at super low costs. The Foundation is arguably one of the largest software donors in India with a vision to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to empower social sector stakeholders and transform the lives of the underprivileged.
Here are a few NGOs that have amplified their impact thanks to NASSCOM Foundation:
1. The Bombay Mothers and Children Welfare Society (BMCWS)
A Public Charitable Trust started in 1919, The Bombay Mothers and Children Welfare Society (BMCWS) has been working towards the social development of several marginalised communities in urban and rural parts of Maharashtra. From healthcare, hygiene, education to vocational training, the organisation has helped transform the lives of over 3 lakhs people across the state.
However, part of the credit for this scale of impact also goes to the technological aid they received from Microsoft through NASSCOM Foundation culminating in a digital transformation of the organisation. With the foundation’s help, the charitable trust was able to achieve automation in the workplace through access to computers, high-end operational and medical equipment like pathology software in their hospitals, e-learning software to enhance rural education and telecommuting which was highly useful during the lockdown period. Some of the prominent impact points driven by the BigTech program was the establishment of artificial intelligence through Alexa in 15 rural schools and computer training for more than 8,000 youngsters.
Since 2012, My Choices Foundation has been helping break the cycle of violence, abuse and exploitation suffered by women, children and families across various marginalised communities. Active in eight states of India, the organisation drives impact in these vulnerable populations through two prevention and intervention programmes — Operation PeaceMaker focused on eliminating domestic violence, and Operation Red Alert to stop trafficking.
Their mission to disrupt structures of violence and sex trafficking in the country is largely driven by the optimum use of technology. With the help of the technology provided by NASSCOM’s BigTech program, they are making the world safer through their Vulnerability Mapping tool and NexGen Red Alert application, both hosted by Microsoft Azure.
The NexGen Red Alert is a mobile application that gathers valuable data from their implementing partner-NGOs and volunteers and enables real-time reporting of any suspicious activity. On receiving the data, My Choices quickly analyses it to alert the authorities for swift action.
The Vulnerability Mapping tool uses big data and artificial intelligence to accurately identify hotspots of human trafficking across rural India that enables the organisation to extend timely help when needed.
Focused on providing solutions for sustainable and universal healthcare, Dakshas Foundation, a non-profit organisation has dedicated the last seven years of their existence to creating a robust healthcare delivery fractal. It ensures hyper-efficient healthcare delivery through the supply of missing equipment and health practitioners in rural clinics and hospitals, while also enabling other stakeholders to deliver preventive, primary and peri-surgical healthcare in remote areas. At every level, the foundation strikes to ensure that quality healthcare is delivered, not denied.
And access to technology is crucial to scale up such potential impact, which is why Dakshas decided to embed its service design onto a technology platform to be replicated efficiently. In 2020, they created a virtual e-clinic to extend telemedicine facilities in remote areas with the help of 28 on-ground health centres. It was just in time before the COVID-19 lockdown and proved to be extremely helpful in prevention.
With the help of this technology, Dakshas was able to gather multiple groups of data scientists to facilitate the development and deployment of a COVID-19 predictive model on Microsoft Azure. They then went on to suggest an expected number of cases a week in advance, providing authorities enough time to prepare for any surge. Owing to the efficient use of technology, the foundation also expanded infection control practices from 28 to 330 institutions impacting over 7,000 vulnerable individuals across Hyderabad and Bangalore.
Dedicated to suicide prevention, Sisters Living Works since 2015 is working towards raising awareness about the suicide epidemic in India and providing resources and education for its prevention.
They have been leveraging technology efficiently since their inception. A remote working facility, they use online tools like Microsoft Office Suite for efficient operational activities and video conferencing software like Skype, Teams and Zoom for internal communication as well as conducting workshops and support group meetings. Some of their prominent events, like the Annual Conference for Suicide Prevention 2020, Into the Light Virtual Run 2020 and the Annual Survivors Day was conducted online using these technologies.
Started in 1985, VIDYA focuses on driving sustainable change in the education sector. In the last 36 years, the NGO has impacted 4 lakh lives– educated and empowered 12000 children, 5000 youth and 2500 women—through 78 projects across India.
However, their initiatives in underserved communities and low-income schools came to an abrupt halt during the COVID-19 lockdown. At that juncture, their efforts to initiate digital literacy through the Digital Empowerment Program (DEP) came to the rescue. The organisation spent 2400 hours training 120 teachers on tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Adobe Spark, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint etc. to equip them to conduct virtual classes efficiently. With their relentless efforts, VIDYA was able to help almost 5,000 individuals including students, teachers and parents through digital literacy.
“NASSCOM Foundation firmly believes in the power of using tech for social good. It is for the same reason, through its program BigTech it has donated software worth USD 150,000,000 to 10,000+ NGOs across India. The Foundation also has been working with major companies like Microsoft and Adobe to provide training on their various software to build capacities of NGO employees.” Ashok Pamidi, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation.
These are just a few examples of the kind of impact NASSCOM’s BigTech program has driven in association with several donor companies such as Microsoft, Adobe, Quickheal Antivirus, Zoom, Zoho, Google, BUSY Accounting and many others. If you are a changemaker with the potential to scale up with the help of technology, register here: bigtech.nasscomfoundation.org.
I can’t breathe — these haunting words are perhaps muttered every few minutes in isolation wards, homes and ICU beds across the country.
At this grief-ridden time, individuals, private institutions and NGOs have stepped up to care for the COVID-19 patients left gasping for air — delivering oxygen cylinders to those who need it.
We will continue to update this list as more information on other institutions doing the same come to light. As India grapples with curtailing the spread of the coronavirus, we hope that patients get some relief through the good work carried out by these NGOs.
Please note:Kindly call the NGO hotline numbers to ensure the availability of oxygen supply before venturing out.
1. Hemkunt Foundation, Gurgaon, Mumbai: The Gurgaon-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) was launched in 2010 and continues its community welfare work even in the face of the pandemic. Tweets from its community development director, Harteerath Singh, show the organisation’s work continues until the morning’s wee hours at 3 am.
Just an insight- the most crucial (life and death situation) 🆘 calls usually come between 11pm to 3am
From 4am to 8am it’s usually very quite and that’s when we choose to rest
The organisation distributes oxygen cylinders for free at their Gurgaon office, prioritising patients’ whose oxygen levels are below 80 per cent. They advise people to provide required documents to receive the oxygen supply.
The organisation is also providing free oxygen cylinders to Mumbai at their Versova Gurudwara as well.
In #Mumbai we have opened our second collection centre at Versova Gurudwara , JP Rd
after opening another one in Airoli. Ppl may now collect their free #OxygenCylinder(s) by heading there
We are currently expanding our network through making Gurdwaras are offices#COVID19India
2. Mayapuri Industrial Area, Delhi: Abhishek Gupta, the owner of an oxygen manufacturing plant in Mayapuri Industrial Area of Delhi has opened up its gates to distribute oxygen refills, free of charge.
All one has to do is bring their empty oxygen cylinders to the plant to be refilled for free. The plant has a capacity of 21 tonnes and refills nearly 14 tonnes per day, as per this report.
Abhishek reiterates that he is working with the Delhi government and police to ensure oxygen supply uninterruptedly reaches hospitals on time as well.
Relatives of patients in need of oxygen are requested to make their way to the industrial area to refill their oxygen tanks.
3. Unity and Dignity Foundation, Mumbai: Started by Shahnawaz Shaikh in 2014, his foundation began supplying free oxygen cylinders to the needy during India’s first wave of the COVID-19 wave.
Shahnawaz told NDTV that last year, when cases weren’t so severe, he supplied around 6,000 cylinders from their centre in Malvani. Today, they receive 500 daily calls for oxygen supply. “We are working 24×7 to supply oxygen to the needy free of cost,” he said. They receive an irregular supply of up to 50 cylinders a day from their sources in Bhiwandi.
The 32-year-old had also sold his SUV worth around Rs 22 lakh in 2020 to ensure an uninterrupted supply of oxygen cylinders.
To avail of their services call their ‘war room’ on 9892012132.
4. Sakina Foundation, Hyderabad: This NGO in the city is providing oxygen cylinders of all sizes, including over 40 litres, free of cost. Admitting that the organisation has not been able to meet the surge in demand with over 200 calls being received every day, Mohammed Asif Hussain Sohail says they’re trying their best to cater to as many as they can. Having spent Rs 10 lakhs on the purchase of oxygen cylinders, Sohail says there are only 3,000 oxygen cylinders available for a city that is demanding 10,000.
5. Madhya Pradesh: Five friends on a mission to help fulfil the oxygen demand in the state have provided up to 4,000 cylinders to date to cities, including Indore, Ujjain, Barwaha, Kasrawad, Mandsaur, Shajapur and seven other cities. Kamal Juneja tells The Better India that he and his friends had been providing hot meals to affected patients in the first wave and have now resorted to providing oxygen cylinders for free. Rajesh Jain, Amarjeet Saluja, Deepak Baba and Muskan Guru assist him in his mission to reach 12,000 cylinders delivered.
The team gets their oxygen supply from places like Adarsh Oxygen Industry Pvt Ltd.
From vans enabling teachers in local communities with the right tools to taking classrooms to the doorsteps of the underprivileged, technology holds great promise in helping NGOs use their limited resources effectively. It has the potential to help NGOs reach more people and create a greater impact.
Lenovo, in collaboration with The Better India aims to promote this phenomenon through its ‘New Realities: The India Chapter’ campaign. As part of the campaign, Lenovo works closely with its NGO partners to make technology accessible to everyone.
Here’s a list of five NGOs across India that are harnessing the power of technology to bring about widespread sustainable impact on our educators and students.
Agastya International Foundation
Based in Bangalore, Agastya International Foundation is an NGO that seeks to stimulate the creative thinking potential of rural children in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh with an emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. Over the years, Agastya has established a network of science centres, making it easier for more children to access education.
However, for many children living in rural villages, commuting to – centres is largely difficult. This is why Agastya decided to take education to the doorstep of these less fortunate children.
Supported by Lenovo, Agastya launched iMobile labs, small vans that are set up to carry laptops that are equipped with Lab on Tab, a unique multi-sensory learning method containing digitised content for students from class 6 to 9. In this program, youth from the local community are trained to be teachers – thus creating job opportunities and helping the local communities grow.
Lenovo supports three iMobile vans across Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurugram. So far, the program has reached 15 million students and 2,50,000 teachers.
Meghshala
Meghshala is a platform that equips teachers with multimedia teaching resources via an easy-to-use android application. These resources are created and curated by a team of teachers and are organised by subjects and grades. These e-lessons reach government school teachers who can use them either as an in-classroom facilitation tool or as a pre-classroom preparation tool.
Over the last two years, Lenovo has been providing tablets and smartphones for both teachers’ training and to be used by students. This helped Meghshala reach more than 1,800 schools and 4,900 teachers in Karnataka and Manipur. Lenovo supports Meghshala in training teachers and promoting STEM-based education for children across class 1 to 8.
This partnership has impacted over 2,10,000 students across India.
A teacher using Meghshala’s online teaching resources
Door Step School
The Society for Door Step Schools, also known as Door Step School or DSS, was established in Mumbai to provide education to the marginalised sections of society. DSS provides education and support to children of pavement dwellers, slum dwellers, construction site families and other underprivileged sections of society.
With support from Lenovo DSS has helped teachers to use digitised content, prepare lessons that can be taught over phones and tablets. Additionally, DSS trains teachers to use mediums such as Zoom and Google Meet to conduct online classes.
Since the closure of schools due to the pandemic, this initiative has helped teachers reach over 1,140 young students.
Students of Door Step School using mobile phones to learn
TechnoServe
Working across 30 countries, TechnoServe is an NGO that aims to alleviate poverty through business solutions such as linking people to information, capital and markets. TechnoServe provides individuals with the knowledge, skills and tools needed to lift themselves out of poverty. The NGOs projects focus on skill development, local economic development, water and natural resource development and women empowerment.
Through this partnership with Lenovo and Motorola India, TechnoServe is empowering women in technology by providing technical skill training to 100 female students from marginalised communities studying in colleges in Mumbai. To help students build a career in the IT sector they will be trained in the IT/ITES and BFSI along with other soft skills.
As part of the initiative, Lenovo will also provide two months of paid on-the-job training to 150 students at the Lenovo manufacturing plant in Puducherry. Post this training, 75% of the students get a confirmed placement and certification.
Medha
Started in 2011, Medha provides skill training, career counselling and job placement to students at their existing educational institution. Lenovo supported Medha by establishing Career Service Centers at government and government-aided educational institutions. These centres connect students from disadvantaged backgrounds to internships and placement opportunities.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Medha has been providing digital access to students by lending Lenovo devices- to complete their internships and to access other training modules.
During the second wave of the pandemic in India, we had reached a stage where most or all of us received messages requesting help for sourcing oxygen cylinders, medicines or hospital beds. Social media platforms were filled with gut-wrenching stories of grueling recoveries or grief. While most of these stories and issues are raised from urban areas, the ones in rural areas go unheard of.
The situation in the remotest areas of the country is more grim owing to lack of healthcare infrastructure, awareness and skilled medical professionals. To help people in remote areas, several Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) have launched initiatives to provide medical assistance, food and essentials to the vulnerable, while some are even raising awareness among people as well as healthcare professionals.
While we may not be able to help them directly, we can provide monetary support to NGOs who can continue doing their work.
Here are five NGOs that you can make donations to:
Rural Response Tracker
Agami is a Bengaluru-based NGO launched by a group of lawyers to ensure justice is accessible to all citizens. Owing to the pandemic, the team has launched a Rural Response Tracker, which provides information about various initiatives to help rural communities in India.
Launched a month-and-a-half ago, from a list of four or five initiatives, the team has now collated 850 initiatives that are providing relief in rural areas.
On their website, users can search for initiatives state or city-wise, read about them and directly make donations on the provided details. If someone requires more information before making a decision, contact details to the respective NGOs are provided as well.
This volunteer-led effort collates existing information from public resources, cross-checks them, and regularly updates their website.
Here’s a link to choose an NGO of your choice to help.
Adivasi Lives Matter
Started in 2016, Adivasi Lives Matter is a platform for individuals and youngsters from various communities to share their stories. To do so, the platform provides training on how to become content creators, make videos using their mobile phones, and more.
While the pandemic has caused starvation and unemployment in these remote communities, there is also widespread fake information spreading on social media and via word-of-mouth. This has caused many COVID patients to avoid seeking medical help or even avoid taking the vaccines, in some cases.
Now, the team is on a mission to help the adivasis by providing necessary medical assistance, vaccinations, and ration kits to over 6,000 families regularly.
Founded in 2002, this NGO works to empower women to resist and end sex trafficking. Most of the vulnerable women and children living in red light areas, slums and refugee camps are facing unique challenges. Since most of them have no official documents, they are not eligible for government aid like rations or transit housing.
They also have no official employer who will provide for their expenses, if they fall sick.
In these dire times, Apne Aap is working towards providing them with medicines, oxygen supply, vaccinations, food, sanitary pads, safe housing and even WiFi to pursue education.
A group of 16 volunteers, including doctors and professionals from the United States of America, have developed a first-of-its-kind online map to help critical and anxious COVID-19 patients looking for bed availability. With an interface like Google Maps, Madad maps is a country-wide map that shows available hospital beds.
A user can access real-time information around their locality and connect with hospitals closest to their location. On selecting a particular hospital, the user is provided with the availability of oxygen, ICU and ventilator beds. Apart from that, a phone number is also displayed to contact the hospital.
The team also conducts weekly interactions in vernacular languages with healthcare professionals in rural areas to dispel panic surrounding the disease and create awareness.
You can help them by spreading the word about their initiative to those who might benefit from it.
Adhyayan Foundation
In India, 113 million children are enrolled in government schools. They come from vulnerable communities and their parents work as migrant workers, farmers or daily wage earners. However, since the onset of the pandemic, while urban India has managed to transition to online learning, these children have compromised on their education.
Adhyayan Foundation is working with schools and students and devising strategies so that students can continue learning without disruption. They also hope to empower these students to become leaders and safety champions who spread awareness about COVID-19 protocols.
In the last two years, the organisation has worked with over 800 schools in Goa, even before the pandemic and has improved their standards by 70%. Now, they hope to do the same so that schools in rural areas can either reopen safely or provide remote education for their students.
Your donations will give them the support to continue working with these students and government bodies to implement impactful changes.
