Education, we’ve always believed, holds the key to a progressive future. Currently, less than 50% of our children in the age group of 6-14 years attend school. The Right to Education (RTE) bill 2010 provides a necessary foundation for spreading primary education in the country, which should improve the percentage of children attending school. In absolute numbers, this bill could impact 35 million children who are right now deprived of education due to various reasons.

Aseema, a Mumbai based non-profit organization, is working with underprivileged children to provide them a nurturing and stimulating educational environment. By doing so, it aims to bring these children back into the mainstream of society.

Assema Montessori is a first of its kind center for street children in India. Established in August 2000 at Pali Chimbai Municipal School, the Montessori provides children with a firm education foundation.

In 1996 Assema started the Project Igatpuri for educating the tribal children of Awalkheda, a small hilly village situated 5 kilometers from Igatpuri.

The Better India caught up with Aseema and here is an interview with them:

Click here to visit the website and to know more about Aseema.

Urban India is glaring at a huge waste management problem with no clear policy examining waste as a part of the production-consumption-recovery cycle.  In India, over a million people find employment in rag picking and recycling of waste; and this is an unorganized sector.

Most of the rag-pickers are poor, illiterate and belong to rural immigrant families. Many commence their profession at the young age of five to eight years. Most of them have never attended any school. While collecting rags they are subjected to chemical poisons and infections. Due to malnutrition, they suffer from stunted growth and anemia. These rag pickers have been weaned out of our social fabric and as begging is being abolished more and more beggars are becoming a part of this scavenging community.

Conserve  India, an organisation in Delhi founded by Anita and Shalabh Ahuja  was born of a desire to reduce India’s mountain of waste. Their team, after a lot of research, struck upon the idea of Upcycling by washing, drying and pressing plastic bags into sheets.

Handmade Recycled Plastic (HRP) is  made from  polythene bags picked from Delhi’s streets, rubber from old truck tyres’ inner tubes, old denims and saris. The processes used to make ‘Conserve’ bags and accessories have been specifically developed to be as energy efficient as possible and to keep out polluting dyes and chemicals.  This not only helps the environment, it also cuts costs, giving the organisation more money to invest in other social projects.

Ragpickers enjoy working for Conserve as it directly implies that they, perhaps for the first time in their lives, will have enough to feed their families and rent homes that they can be proud of. On an average, a conserve ragpicker earns around $70 a month compared to a ragpicker who earns somewhere around $25.

The ragpicking community is unorganised; it is hard for them to protect their rights. By giving them ‘Conserve Employee Cards’, Conserve India helps them have a voice in the society. Conserve India has also started a campaign called Recognition for Ragpickers. As part of this, the organisation is trying to persuade the Delhi government to create an official register so as to recognize Delhi’s 150,000 ragpickers and give them their right to a fair wage.

Conserve also offers training to its workers so they can do better jobs in their organisation. Conserve supports schools in slums where many of its employees live. With an initial funding from Asian Development Bank, Conserve is now starting two new projects for tracking the general welfare of its workers and providing health clinics for those who have no access to healthcare.

In collaboration with top designers, Conserve India makes high-end fashion items like handbags, wallets, shoes and belts from the handmade recycled plastic.

Conserve India has collaborated with Fair Trade for marketing its products, which are available in stores across US, Japan, Europe . Their products can also be bought online through the Conserveshop.

By buying Conserve’s products one not only gets to be a trend setter in fashion, but also gets to help some of India’s poorest people and its environment.

For more information visit their website http://conserveindia.org. Infact if you want do something about the waste clogging the streets of your city, you can set up your own Conserve and be the change that you want to see in the society. Mail Conserve India at info@conserveindia.org or call on +91 11 43095301.

This is the story of a land that was at one time lying ravaged, drought stricken and forsaken. It was a committed revolution led by a couple, Bablu Ganguly and Mary Vattamattam, which has now transformed this land into an agro forest habitat. The unproductive soil was rejuvenated, rain water was harvested, trees were planted, crops were cultivated and the entire land blossomed.

Timbaktu in 1990

Twenty years ago, Bablu and Mary set their foot on this barren land in the district of Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh. People had given up on this land, of which Bablu and Mary decided to buy 32 acres; probably the last thing one would expect from a young couple.

The spark that triggered this initiative was a book – ‘The One-Straw Revolution’, by a Japanese author Masanobu Fukuoka. The book carried a very special message on how humanity can live an enriching life hand in hand with the nature. Bablu and Mary carried this spirit and conceived their vision for this land that they called ‘Timbaktu’, meaning ‘Where the earth meets the sky’. Their aspiration was humble and they wanted to keep everything simple – get closer to the land and help it regenerate itself.

They knew there was potential in the land of Timbaktu which was once part of the rich and powerful Vijayanagara Kingdom. Its forests were considered to be the finest, its fruits were savored across the country and various armies fought to keep control of this once fertile land. But everything was destroyed by ruthless deforestation and use of environmentally damaging pesticides and fertilizers.

Over the years, villages in this region have been tormented by chronic drought, unproductive land, unemployment and poor infrastructural facilities. Bablu and Mary decided to build the Timbaktu land by engaging with the villages around and formed an NGO called The Timbaktu Collective. “Our vision is to stop the degradation of the land in Anantapur district and to find ways to reverse it. We want to green the hills and the land. We want to develop alternative lifestyles. Lifestyles that are sustainable and provide more liberty and happiness, than those based on exploitation. The farmers see their land degrade and the wells drying up, but they don’t know what to do, so they just continue their patterns of self-destruction. We want to find a path that leads out of this vicious circle, not without but together with them” – they say.

Timbaktu today

In 1991, the couple decided to put their first crop in the land of Timbaktu and as everyone around them said, the crop failed. That became even more instigating – Bablu went ahead and bought 7000 saplings. He and Mary brought farmers from the villages to build creative water harvesting structures ensuring that every drop of water was judiciously used. Seed dibbling and such traditional farming methods were practiced – and the colour of the land started changing. Timbaktu was transformed from a barren earth to a lush green forest. It’s heartening to see that birds, snakes and butterflies have come back to Timbaktu and a lost glory is reinstated. This is a true success story of eco-restoration and the experiment is being replicated with community support in a 10,000 acre waste land named as Kalpavalli.

The Timbaktu Collective grew to become a 105 member strong team who serve over 140 villages in Chennekothapalli, Roddam and Ramagiri mandals of Anantapur district. The organization runs two schools, one of which is a residential school for children from disadvantaged families. There is also a thrift credit system for the women which has now grown into a well established alternative banking system. Farmers in the villages are given training in organic farming methods and the Collective supports a Cooperative Society that assists the farmers in marketing their organic produce. With youth development, child rights activities, helping the disabled, cultural activities and many such programmes, the Timbaktu Collective has changed the face of humanity here.

Bablu and Mary stay in Timbaktu, in a house that is built with mud, built by them and built using things available in the land of Timbaktu. Their children studied in the school run by the NGO for the villagers. Their organization has made a difference to the lives of over 12,500 marginalized families. How much more purposeful can their lives get? How much bigger role models do we need to start doing our bit for the world around us?

Visit Timbaktu to know the true spirit of this land. Find information about them on their website www.timbaktu.org. Also, watch this video where Bablu and Mary take you through the 20 years of Timbaktu. You can also write to them at timbaktu.info@gmail.com. 

This article is dedicated to one of the many unsung heroes bringing about a change. His name is Vipul Thaker, a simple man with simple dreams. Without going into his background, let me start from one of his birthdays. It was on that day when he decided he wanted to do something different. He decided to educate a Rabari (a tribe in Gujarat) child. A makeshift classroom was created on the terrace of his two bedroom house. As days passed by, Vipul went on to explore the talent in the slum surrounding his housing society. A few more students joined his class and subsequently the classroom was shifted to a light post on a nearby road. His class had no roof and was hence exposed to the harsh elements of the weather. The classes went on nevertheless. Every evening at around 09.00 pm the class would commence.

Within one year Vipul had around twenty children who worked in the day time and regularly attended his evening classes.

Looking at the progress of this informal school, the parents who belonged to the Rabari community came to his aid. They gifted Vipul with an empty hut to which the classes now moved. Of all the problems that Vipul faced, one was that of gender discrimination. The girls were not allowed to study. After much persuasion from Vipul, the parents were convinced and the girls walked in for the very first time. Within a month their strength doubled.

Vipul Thaker's school and students

This school wasn’t Vipul’s full time profession. He had a day job. He did receive some voluntary contribution from a few NRIs. After a point, he decided to admit his students in to a municipal school. Additionally, the evening classes were regularly conducted to ensure students did not miss out in case they didn’t go to school in the day.

Vipul had a dream to nurture – he wanted every child to get education on par with what their more privileged peers got. He negotiated with the private school principals, head masters, teachers and finally led to the introduction of a scholarship scheme. And so today out of forty students, around twenty five of them have been admitted to a school with better amenities for the students.

In the last few years, some of his students have shown their skills at the state level in the field of dramatic and graphic arts. Today he can proudly say that these children have something to look forward to. They have a future too. Vipul considers the renowned Gujarati educationist Gijubhai Badheka as his source of inspiration. He believes that Gandhian ideals too have been a prominent force behind his willingness to contribute selflessly.

The important thing, dear readers, is that this man and many more like him are actually striving to provide an identity to these children. They are providing a platform through which these children can express their ideas and needs.

Vipul and thousands of such grassroots revolutionaries are working towards bringing a constructive change in the society and we salute them for their relentless work in making a better India.

We are happy to announce our partnership with Beyond Profit – A New Social Enterprise Magazine. Their mission is to bring you the most interesting and unique stories, people and ideas from the social enterprise sector. We believe this is similar to our objective and hence it made sense to join hands! The following is the first post (podcast infact ) as part of this partnership:

At Beyond Profit, we hold female social entrepreneurs close to our heart (probably because we are a team of mostly women!). Microfinance is a field in which women have long been a majority of customers, but a minority of the leaders. Praseeda Kunam is an exception, a pioneering woman who launched and runs her own microfinance institution. Praseeda left the job market after getting her MBA to start Samhita Community Development Service, which serves poor women in Madhya Pradesh, a particularly impoverished state in India.

In this podcast (link provided below), hear Praseeda speak about the challenges of being a woman entrepreneur in the financial inclusion space, the role of technology in the rapid expansion of Samhita, and the road ahead for her organization and the sector.

Praseeda was the winner of the Srijan 2008 “Most Promising Business Idea Award.” The Srijan Microfinance Forum recognizes emerging and innovative microfinance initiatives in India and serves as a platform for public debate about some of the sector’s most pressing issues.

Click here to hear Praseeda Kunam’s Interview with the Srijan Secretariat.

Srijan Website: www.intellecap.com/srijan2009

Perhaps not many Indians know him, but he is widely credited to have been the inspiration for Nobel laureate Al Gore’s interest in climate change. Now, renowned environmental scientist Dr. Ashok Khosla has plans for creating 100 million jobs by 2018 in rural India. As founder and chairman of Development Alternatives, a New Delhi-based non-profit involved in the creation of micro-factories that would make basic facilities available to the village-dwellers, and enable them to generate employment. The initiative has already created 3 million jobs over the past 15 years.

Sunita Sohrabji writes in indiawest.com about the ideas and ideals of the man who is the brain behind the successful $120 million venture:

“Poor people are seeing more products, but have little access to them. The poor do not have purchasing power,” said Khosla, the 2002 winner of the United Nations’ Sasakawa Environmental Prize, and the Schwab Foundation’s outstanding social entrepreneur award in 2004. Khosla, an alumnus of Cambridge and Harvard, was recently made an Officer of the British Empire.

Development Alternatives uses a market based approach to further its cause, rather than relying on charity. Wondering how it works?

In a typical model, the village will form a cooperative to purchase the equipment needed for the project, and determine wages for the workers, typically slightly above the area’s minimum wage. Development Alternatives’ social enterprise arm, Technology and Action for Rural Advancement, markets the products created by the villagers.

The organization’s compressed earth block technology is being used throughout the country to ease the shortage in housing for rural dwellers. More than half a million homes have been built using the technology, in which villagers mix raw earth with a stabilizer to create a brick, with a mechanized or manual soil press.

The organization believes in innovating to create new opportunities for the poor, and lays particular emphasis on social as well as environmental sustainability.

TARA and Development Alternatives have also created a new-generation weaving machine that allows its user to be more productive and create higher-quality handlooms.

The organization has also created a paper-making machine, which recycles wastepaper and cotton rags into high-end paper goods, or standard paper for use in classrooms.

This is not all. Besides helping the villagers in improving their agricultural output, Development Alternatives has now started a new project – franchised village cyber kiosk. Called Tara-kendras, these centres can impart vocational training, career counseling, agricultural and medical advice, a market place for buying and selling as well as accessing government services.

“This is one of the most revolutionary things we’ve developed,” said Khosla. “It brings the village into the global economy and the global economy into the village.”

“It’s extreme value at very low cost and one of the major solutions to solving the problem of poverty in India,” he asserted. Three hundred Tara-kendras are currently in operation throughout the country, and the enterprise will become profitable when 1,000 kiosks are established.

The efforts of Development Alternatives and Dr. Khosla are laudable. He has several awards and achievements to his name, not the least of which is that as a Harvard teaching fellow, he was responsible for designing and teaching the very first class on the environment! Yes, the same that Gore took during his first year there!! In spite of all his success, Dr. Khosla’s heart lies with India’s rural poor, and his endeavors speak highly of his commitment.

Development Alternatives and TARA have taken some innovative steps in promoting rural employment. Read more on these in the article here.

Image courtesy: indiawest.com

Act Now For The Better India.

India is one of the biggest unbanked countries in the world. Lack of a permanent address and other collateral keeps millions away from the banking and credit sector, which could otherwise improve their lives by a huge margin. In order to facilitate this financial inclusion, Grameen Solutions (the Microfinance powerhouse founded by Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh) and Obopay (the service provider for payments via mobile phones) have come together to form the Grameen-Obopay Bank A Billion initiative. This will provide access to financial services like cross-border remittances, money transfers, payments, and saving and credit accounts through the omnipresent mobile platform.

Priya Kekre reports in CIOL:

One of the biggest challenges the world faces today is financial inclusion or what one may call banking the unbanked sectors. There are many research and economic studies that state that when a critical mass of people or consumers are brought into the banking sector it has a multiplier effect on the countrys GDP, leading to economic growth. It is estimated that the banking sector itself grows by 10x while the countrys economic embassy undergoes a revamp. If millions of people are included into the banked sector, they get access to credit, savings, financial services, and remittances, which automatically increases their purchasing and investment power, says Vijay Balakrishnan, CMO, Obopay. Hence, many developing nations are looking at financial inclusion as an economic and strategic objective.

The thrust is on the inclusion of the poorest sections of society who cannot afford banking and financial services nor have the credit-worthiness to be eligible for these services, but have basic earning capacity. The mobile phone having become an easily available commodity all over the country, providing such solutions on this platform becomes the best way forward. The concept of ‘mobile micro credit’ is here to stay, and hopefully will reach and uplift a billion of the poorest in India and rest of the world.

Read the complete article here.

Home Page Image Courtesy: GrameenFoundation.org

We all know that tourism provides employment and income to millions in India. But have you heard of an entire village being trained to become a tourist hot-spot? This is the story of a small hamlet in Assam, mainly populated by impoverished families displaced by floods. These people have been trained for four years to play the perfect hosts to tourists, and come November, they will get the opportunity to display their new-found skills.

Durgapur, the little village on the fringes of the Kaziranga National Park, has about 70-odd families and has been jointly adopted by the ministry of tourism and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). These families have borne the brunt of the worst floods, and most live below the poverty line. They do not have much to call their own, and there are not many avenues for making a living in this place. The skills being imparted to them via this initiative, with the help of several help-groups and NGOs like North East Social Trust (NEST) and Indian Institute of Hotel Management, aims to provide a regular source of income for these families.

Pullock Datta reports in The Telegraph about this interesting project:

Most of the families living in the village are below the poverty line and only a few own small plots of agricultural land.

“The villagers were provided training by the Indian Institute of Hotel Management and Catering Services at Guwahati and handicraft experts from Bangalore,” the NEST official said.

A troupe of dancers from the village even took classes at Uttar Kamalabari Satra in Majuli.

“Six youths were also provided training as tourist guides,” he said.

All the houses in the two square km village are Assam-style dwellings with thatched roof and bamboo walls.

It may sound a bit like a large-scale drama production where all the inhabitants have a role to play, and the entire village is a stage. However, if the production helps these unfortunate people earn a decent and honest living, it is an innovative solution to combat India’s enormous poverty.

Read the complete article here.

Image Courtesy: The Telegraph

About DEEDS:
DEEDS is a Charity for the Hearing Impaired. It is an acronym that stands for Development Education Empowerment for the Disadvantaged in Society.

Their Vision:
‘To Enrich & Touch the lives of at least 10,000 deaf persons  by the end of this decade’. In pursuance of this Vision, so as to make the deaf financially Self Reliant & Contributors in main stream Society’.
 

Key Areas of Focus:
 - Free Education for the deaf
- Free Vocational Training for the deaf
- Ensuring Job Placements

Ongoing Projects: 

They have 11 ongoing projects in Mumbai ,Vadodara , Noida and Dehradun.  
Some of their projects are as follows:

• Noida Deaf Society – Noida (Computer centre providing Basic & Advanced Computer knowledge)
• DEEDS Ishara Initiative – Mumbai (Teaching English Literacy with the help of Sign Language)
• The Bajaj Institute of Learning – Dehradun (Provides education from KG to XIIth totally free
• DEEDS Catering Institute – Mumbai (Provides a one-year full-time diploma with stipend in catering certified by Maharashtra State Vocation Board)
• DEEDS LTMG Tailoring Project- Mumbai. It provides free training in the tailoring vocation.
• DEEDS Computer Center at Sanskardham at Goregaon. It imparts basic and advanced skills in computers.
• DEEDS Computer Center at Samvad Karnabadhir Prabodhini at Dombivali. It imparts basic and advanced skills in computer.
• DEEDS  Computer Rooms in  schools like Rochiram Thadani School for the Hearing Handicapped, Chembur and Pragati Vidyalaya for the deaf, Dadar.
• DEEDS also provide material support to 27 schools for the deaf in Mumbai as per requirements.

Achievements:

Their success rate in placements also has been considerable.  They have placed over 400 candidates in various fields like banking, hospitality, catering, house-keeping, traffic attendents at petrol pumps, Brew Masters, Jewellery-making, diamond sorting, clerical jobs and back office processes. They are constantly striving to improve our ties with the various sectors of industry to identify lucrative opportunities for their candidates. 

Upcoming Events:
DEEDS is conducting a fund raising event on the 22nd October in Mumbai. It is a hilarious play with a comic twist, adapted and directed by Shubha Khote. Click here to know more about the event.

Stay tuned for volunteering opportunities with DEEDS.

Contact DEEDS at:
Development, Education, Empowerment of the Disadvantaged in Society
8 Bajaj Arcade,
31, Union Park, Khar(W),
Mumbai 400 052. India.
Tel: +91-22-26005083/84.
Email: humanity@deeds-india.com

Read more about DEEDS and their work at their website: http://www.deeds-india.com/

The Tsunami that wreaked havoc in Dec, 2004

Everything that M Malar owned was washed away in December 2004. After eking out a bare subsistence for four years, this mother of three has finally been shown a ray of hope. She and 37 other Tsunami survivors like her can begin life afresh working as permanent staff members of “Green Friends” at the new vermin-compost yard set up at Sholinganallur by the town panchayat.

The yard has been set up with the help of an NGO Hand-In-Hand (HIH), which runs 19 yards in Kancheepuram district with the participation of the local bodies.

D Madhavan reports in this article in The Times of India:

Two years ago, Malar, originally a resident of Odaikuppam in Besant Nagar, was accommodated in one of the 6,700 quarters built by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board for tsunami survivors in Semmancherri.

But this was not enough for Malar. She had to feed her children and give them an education – she did several odd jobs, from working as a maid to hawking goods.

Two months ago, there came another turn in her life. She and 37 other tsunami survivors of Semmancheri were offered a permanent job by HIH in the new yard.

A self-help group was formed to help them sustain their livelihood. “It is a second life for me. Now I can ensure that my three children get a good education. I want to ensure at least one of them pursues medicine,” Malar told The Times of India.

The tsunami-survivors were given free training on all aspects of maintaining the yard. These women in turn will teach the residents about the need to segregate their waste into biodegradable and non-biodegradable parts. Initially, the “Green Friends” will receive monthly compensation, but after a year they will be in charge of sustaining the project.

Read the complete article here.

Image Courtesy: Inmotion Magazine, AREDS Team