World Challenge is a global competition aimed at selecting the best projects or small businesses from around the world that have shown innovation and enterprise at grass roots level and provide them a financial aid. It is organized by BBC World News and Newsweek. This year, there were two finalists from India who we feel deserve a mention for their efforts in helping different sections of the society.

One of the finalists was Keystone Foundation, which helps the Adivasi honey-collectors in southern India to get better value for their products. These tribals excel in the art of wild honey collection from bee colonies in the most dangerous sections of cliffs. However due to exploitation by commercial planters, they do not get the right price for their efforts, threatening their ancient way of life and livelihood.

Keystone Foundation has helped them with the processing and packaging of the honey, so as to fetch a better market value. It has also taught the Adivasi hunters to make candles and balms from beeswax, which was earlier thrown away. A range of products are sold in Keystone’s shops, the proceeds helping Adivasis of around 50 villages. Below is described the humane and sustainable way in which these hunters extract honey from the honeycombs on cliffs:

For generations the Adivasi people of Southern India have specialised in collecting honey from wild bee colonies on cliffs. The hunters are lowered by ropes towards the colonies, where they waft smoke to calm the bees before breaking off a chunk of comb. Even in times of hunger, the hunters are always careful to leave enough of the nest for the bee colonies to recover. “They have been able to come up with systems that respect the bees and the environment,” explains Keystone’s Matthew John. “There are certain areas where they do not touch the combs at all, because they feel they are holy cliffs. But for us they are gene pools that they are preserving.”

The other Indian finalist is an organization called She Hope Society, which helps rehabilitate and bring dignity to the disabled in the Kashmir Valley. With help from a New Zealand charity, Sami Wani set up a Centre offering physiotherapy, corrective surgery and low-cost prosthetic legs for all who need it. In its two years of existence, the Centre has already reached out to around 700 disabled people. Sami explains the need that drove him to undertake this initiative:

Two decades of conflict in Kashmir have left a dearth of basic services. The disabled, in particular, have precious little support. “We don’t have big donors and we don’t have any government help over here to rehabilitate disabled children”, explains 27-year-old physiotherapist Sami Wani. Social factors such as poverty and prejudice add to the problem.

She Hope also provides basic education and micro-loans to its patients, helping them stand on their feet in more ways than one.

These are just two of the several thousands of organizations working towards the improvement of conditions of some of the neglected and weaker sections of society, bringing about change in their own ways. Though they have not been selected as winners in this competition, we do hope that they will receive help and support from many other quarters and continue with their good work.

Read more about the competition and all 2008 finalists here.
Link Courtesy: Amita Chauhan from GiveIndia. Thanks!
Image Courtesy: World Challenge 08

Indian television afficionados may have come across an advertisement of a mobile service provider depicting how a mobile phone could be used to spread education in remote areas. It got us interested and we wanted to see whether such an idea (no reference to the company!) was actually being implemented. After some not-so-intensive news searching, we came across an article by BBC India’s Amarnath Tewary which describes how the radio is being used in Bihar to teach English to school children.

The Bihar Education Project, in collaboration with the Education Development Center (a US-based organization), launched this innovative teaching idea in order to improve literacy of the state. Bihar currently has a literacy percentage of only 47%.

Amarnath Tewary reports:

The students are looking inquisitively at a radio set perched on a plastic chair in the middle of the classroom in the capital, Patna.
They are all waiting for a new English lesson to begin – on the radio. 

So, for half an hour, four days a week, millions of primary students in Bihar today learn English through this radio lesson.

The year-long interactive radio lessons are being broadcast by the four regional state-run All India Radio stations. The lessons cover seven million students attending 65,000 primary schools in all the 38 districts of the state.

And what does a student have to say about this?:

“It is very easy to learn English on radio. Every day we wait for this class. Even if the teacher is not in the class we learn and enjoy the programme,” a student, Sakshi Kumari, said. 

The state government has granted a 1000 rupees to every school to enable them to buy a radio. And the benefits of such initiatives in Bihar are told in this para:

Interestingly, backward and dirt-poor Bihar appears to be a trend setter here – a recent federal government report found that school students in the state are now faring better in English and mathematics than anywhere else in the country. 

The article is very well written and also gives you the perspective of the teachers in these schools. It is truly inspiring to see such initiatives being taken in the field of education, which is perhaps one of the most important areas requiring development in our country.
Last, but not the least, we couldn’t help but add the punch line – What an Idea!

Image courtesy: Prashant Ravi from BBC News

They are afflicted with polio and are disabled. Yet these two casual labourers and friends – Amrendra Shukla and Ravi Paswan – have saved more than 40 people from getting swept away in the disastrous floods of Bihar. The old adage “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” has never been more beautifully depicted as by these two brave souls, reported by Amarnath Tewary in BBC News:

“Before our eyes little children, women and elderly people were being swept away in the strong currents of the flood water,” Shukla told the BBC.

An idea came to him and Paswan to tie three empty drums together with thick bamboo sticks and then place a wooden bed on top.

They initially took six children on it for 3km (1.8 miles) in neck-deep water to reach a safer place.

Over three days they evacuated over 40 people – mostly children, women and elderly people.

The disastrous floods in Bihar has brought in its wake untold tragedy and hardships on people. However, from the wreck have emerged many heroes who never really had any intentions of becoming messiahs for the millions trapped in misery. It was circumstances and their inherent qualities that made them look inwards and turned them into great comforts for the suffering masses.

Aastha Volunteers

Another one of them is Anand Mohan, a recent graduate of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), who intended to return to his home in Bihar for a few days before joining a multinational in Australia. Destiny had something else in store for him, and when he came to Sharsha, he found his hometown ravaged by the floods.

“Now we do not want to go anywhere else. Here we’re getting everything from these people. They’re taking care of us more than the government or other agencies,” said Sanjay Kumar Mukhia from the neighbouring district of Madhepura.

He lost 16 members of his family in floods caused by rampaging rivers.

“My three year’s old son survived only because of milk supplied by these bhaiyas, (brothers),” said another flood victim, Ghuran Ram.

Vijendra Rai’s three children were suffering from acute diarrhoea – but they all survived thanks to timely medical help from Aastha volunteers.

What is even more admirable is the way these youths shrug off media attention that most other proclaimed organizations, government bodies and media houses clamour for. Theirs is the spirit that The Better India strives for.

Read the complete BBC article here.

Image Courtesy: BBC News

Link Courtesy: Ramanand Nayak. Thanks.