CSR that works! 

Fifteen women from the Savda Ghevra resettllement colony( North-West Delhi) assembled in a room, in early-April, to begin a new chapter in their lives. Growth-for-All, in partnership with TCS, launched an Adult Literacy Program.

Shyamwati, who lives with her husband and four kids, is a classic case-in-point. As I chatted with her, a Bollywood-style story emerged. Her husband runs a tea shop; eldest son, Bhola, is a part-time security guard; other three sons are at various stages of schooling.  She hails from Etah district of UP, and recalls moving to Delhi a year after Indira Gandhi was assasinated. Illiteracy has its virtues: the mind relies on significant events as  anchors!

I was keen to find out why she had been never been to school.  Actually, she did have chance to attend school. For a few months,  she would walk 2 km to the next village , where the school was located. Until one day, the school master caught her plucking fruits from someone else’s tree. He whacked her. In anger, she hit him on the head with an iron rod, which resulted in 18 stitches on his head. Scared, she ran away from school, and never went back.

Gayatri’s tale is sadder. This mother of three kids dropped out of school for financial reasons when her brother died of polio.

After all these years, Shyamwati, Gayatri and thirteen other women are determined to achieve functional literacy through TCS‘ Adult Literacy Program( ALP).

The TCS ALP is a fascinating program. Originally conceived by the legendary F.C.Kohli, TCS now has a complete set of structured, PC-enabled content that teaches adults to manage their lives satisfactorily. No degrees or diplomas are earned, but each adult is equipped to do basic things like reading signboards, application forms, and other simple messages so that they are no longer helpless.

TCS volunteers get involved in training a community trainer, and running some of the classes during the 40-hour module. The TCS model is a great example of CSR which plays to an organisation’s strengths. TCS know software; so, its only natural that they go out and create a software that helps fight illiteracy, using animation, sound and puppets. TCS has a massive work-force; so, it makes sense for them to engage them in voluntary efforts. The end-result is a great CSR effort whereby adults learn to read and write in as many as nine Indian languages.

Vivek, Bhavna, and other volunteers from TCS- who write software during the week - travel quite a distance, during weekends, to get to Savda Ghevra, and train the community trainers. By doing so, this sincere bunch is doing its bit to ensure that the benefits of the economic boom are shared with their not-so-fortunate brethren.

At Growth-for-All, we are privileged and delighted to have TCS with us.

I first heard about Jaipur Rugs Co from the ‘Rural Business Hubs’ team at CII. But, when I finally made the trip to Jaipur and met them, it blew my mind.

N.K Chaudhary, M.D, Jaipur Rugs, is one of the most unassuming and modest persons I have met. But, his dreams for rural artisans have been anything but small.

From modest beginnings in the late-90s, his ‘Jaipur Rugs Company’ has built its entire business model around having village artisans work as entrepreneurs. Today, 25000 artisans- mainly women- engage in weaving or reeling as a home-based occupation. Jaipur Rugs Co provides ‘door service’ to these artisans by delivering raw materials, providing training and quality checks, arranging financing for looms, and picking up the semi-finished carpets and rugs.
The scale and efficiency of this outsourced manufacturing model is astounding, and clearly a win-win arrangement for the company as well as artisans. Weavers across eight states( Gujarat, Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, Jharkand, Orissa, West Bengal and Nagaland) earn 80/- to 100/- per day. Before Jaipur Rugs Co came into the picture, they could typically earn just about 30/- with middlemen pocketing most of the margins.

With his belief that “enabling is more important than charity”, N.K Chaudhary is committed to adding 5000 looms and engaging 30,000 more artisans in the near future.
An important outcome of my trip was that we got his agreement to try out the same model with urban poor, by working with us in Delhi.

Vineet Rai( of Intellecap & Aavishkar) is one of the most interesting people I have met in the social sector. His fertile mind has been responsible for a Social VC Fund( Aavishkar), a leading Microfinance consulting firm( Intellecap), and now a unique franchising model to take microfinance to every nook and cranny of the country( Intellecash).
Simply put, Intellecash is ‘micro-finance in a box”!
Through a franchising model, Intellecash offers to help local entrepreneurs set up a micro-finance business. What it offers in ‘a box’ is tools, training, processes, and hand-holding. When I met Vineet, his team- led by Chris Mitchell- was living inside Holambi Kalan( North-West Delhi), in order to hand-hold the Delhi-based microfinance institution, Aajeevika, which has engaged Intellecash.

Apart from Delhi, this franchising model is underway in Maharashtra, HP and Mizoram.
The Intellecash hypothesis is that micro-finance has yet not focused on the really-poor states of North & East India. To be able to do so rapidly, only a leveraged model like franchising can deliver.
While the jury is out on the eventual success of this ambitious plan, Intellecash is busy identifying interested entrepreneurs who may be keen to take the franchising option to run micro-finance ventures in their local markets.
Given my firm belief in leveraged, outsourced models to drive reach in a vast country like India, I would place my bets on the Intellecash strategy.

I spent two interesting days visiting the villages around Udaipur, and especially the Ubeswar area. My local host, Dr O.S.Rathore( former Principal of Agriculture College, Udaipur), took me to village Bujdha, which has a population of 4500, of whom over 1000 are tribals.
The highlight of this trip was my meeting with a gentleman called Vardi Chand, who has created a remarkable business around Vermi-compost and organic farming.
Until a few years ago, Vardi Chand was a salaried employee earning Rs 3000/- p.m. Today, he has transformed into a new-age businessman producing 20 tonnes of organic manure each month, and selling them via internet, to customers spread across the country. Besides this, he raises and sells organically-produced wheat and vegetables to hotels who value this.
It was fascinating to see how Vardi Chand, with some help from his son, actually runs a website www.organicfarmingindia.com out of this small village. By using this site for e-commerce, he converts the dung produced by his 40 cows into marketable organic manure, that earns him over Rs 4 lakhs p.a..

Can there be a better example of bridging the digital divide?
The internet truly symbolizes the global, connected world. Likewise, the current fad for organic foods could be dismissed as the fancy of the rich. What on earth could either of these two symbols have to do with poor farmers in India who have more-pressing, survival issues to address. The deteriorating state of the poor Indian farmer, and the globalising world have often been considered by observers to be opposing trends.
But, does it have to be that way? Can the two trends work with, and support each other, rather than be antagonistic?
The Vardi Chand example shows that the Digital Divide can indeed be bridged. As organic food sales($40 billion in 2006, and currently account for 1–2% of total food sales worldwide) grow rapidly, in both developed and developing markets, it is likely that farmers in India can draw inspiration from him, and reach out to national and global markets.

Birma Devi animatedly described her ambitions for her two sons who have studied upto Inter and Matriculation respectively. She wants one of them to become a teacher, and the other a politician. Listening to her, it’s hard to believe that, just ten years ago, hers was a family where they had hardly enough food for even six months in a year. But, for 10,000 families in Jharkhand, and many more in neighboring states of Central India, the silent Tasar revolution has offered new hope.
The efforts of NGO Pradan (along with its sister organization, Masuta) now account for as much as 15% of India’s Tasar yarn production. Their vertically-integrated Tasar strategy covers everything from rearing (of tasar cocoons), to reeling (producing yarn from tasar cocoons), and finally, weaving.
Hari is one of the 12 farmers in Sadalpur village who took the step towards Tasar rearing after hearing from Pradan and others that he could earn upto Rs 15,000/- additional income. It was exhilarating to walk through the 70 acres of ‘netted’ greenery in this village where 65,000 ‘Arjuna’ plants host the Tasar cocoons. (The nets prevent damage to plants, and protect from birds of prey).

We next drove to nearby Raksha village where a group of 30 women have formed a ‘Mutual Benefit Trust’ (MBT) to produce tasar yarn, from the cocoons. This is where Birma Devi works. While she and other women are at work, their small children are looked after at an on-premise crèche. The kids even sang and danced for our benefit!
There are almost 2000 such yarn producers in all.

Madhabananda Ray, the Chief Executive of Masuta points out that this Pradan/Masuta model allows 53% of added-value to be retained by the actual producers, unlike the traditional model where only 25% was possible, after cocoon and finished-goods traders had taken away the lion’s share. Also, apart from the sheer quantity of jobs created, there is also the qualitative, social dimension – tasar offers a dignified job opportunity for marginalized groups like women and landless farmers without being exploitative.
The Tasar revolution can only be the beginning of something much bigger. If everyone has to earn a livelihood, NGOs like Pradan need to keep innovating. In Madhab’s words, “we need a Bell Labs of livelihood innovation”

Satyabrata Acharya has one of the most important jobs in India. As Programme Director, Jharkhand for NGO Pradan, he leads 12 teams who are responsible for guiding over 100,000 families out of poverty.
Dhrubaa Mukhopadhyaya heads one of these teams. When, after graduating with an M.Phil from Jadavpur University, she joined Pradan in 1995, her teachers and classmates thought she was nuts! Today, she and her team of Executives, Subject Matter Specialists (SMS), and Development Apprentices work with 250 villages in two districts of Jharkhand and Bihar- helping them improve their land condition, increase agricultural productivity, and explore additional livelihood options.

Sericulture expert, Prabhati, and Development Apprentices, Meena (Patna University,’07) & Bhavna (BHU,’07) are three young ladies roughing it out in the villages. Working as part of Dhrubaa’s tight-knit team, they display a passion that is hard to find in urban centers today. I witnessed Prabhati and Meena training villagers to produce Tasar cocoon, while Bhavna sang & danced with tribal kids at a mobile crèche being run by Pradan at village Raksha( while the mothers were busy at the Tasar reeling centre).

Having been a spectator to the HR mayhem in metros and mini-metros, where youngsters driven purely by material gains, accept and leave jobs every six months, it was something else to see this young Pradan brigade in action.
Pradan carefully hires and nurtures this young talent. Sujata Nath, the talented HR Executive who traveled with me on my field visit, filled me in on the details of the intensive 12-month apprenticeship that all Pradan hires go through. But, as Pradan scales up its operations to meet its Vision 2017(of working with 1.5 mn poor families), it needs as many as 100 teams(= 800 people) across the country. For Pradan’s HR Director, Nivedita Narain, this is the real HR challenge. On the one hand, Pradan needs to hire such large numbers; on the other hand, retaining this trained and committed team is an equally big challenge. As these executives reach their late-20s or early-30s, and have families, they feel the need to move to an urban centre, in order to get better housing and education.
One way to overcome this hiring challenge is for Corporates to collaborate with large NGOs like Pradan. 4 to 6 years of Pradan training produces some of the best managers who understand rural markets; for corporates addressing mass markets, this could be a boon. By working together with corporates, Pradan could continue to hire the best youngsters, while offering them a road-map (to a corporate career) after 4-6 years.
Are companies like ICICI, Unilever, Asian Paints, and Mahindra’s ready?

Remarkable People! 

In 1929, two women in Mumbai founded Swami Samarth Sangeet Vidyalaya, a truly-unique women’s institution, that has not just imparted high quality music lessons in Hindustani classical music, but has focused on making music a means for building self-confidence, development, and employment of many women.

Today, a young scion of the family, Hemchandra Javeri( “Hemu”), is all set to build on this rich heritage and experience. He visualises The Swami Samarth Program as a potential means of uniting and energizing less fortunate communities.

I have known Hemu well for 22 years since the time we went to IIM/C together. Also having witnessed his meteoric corporate career, I know that Hemu is extremely determined and serious when he says, “Music is the universal language that is an integral part of Indian psyche and culture. Music in India has many sounds and origins, but its overall importance, and its role in energizing and uniting us is unique and substantial. Over the years, women have played a big role in spreading the beauty and enjoyment of music.  We believe the guiding principles are relevant even today, and offer great opportunity of value addition to our lives, and the lives of the less fortunate”.

Hemu is in the process of fine-tuning these plans, but the broad contours are clear. Girls and young women will be taught Indian classical and modern music( with emphasis on the former) in key cities and towns across the country, within targeted, underprivileged communities. The primary focus will be on girls and young women, and to create social change through them, in their communities. The curriculum- a combination of theory and practical learning, with regionally-relevant content- will emphasise on creating a group of passionate students and teachers.

The program will ensure full funding for students and teachers, with wider scholarships for the deserving. By offering scholarships that allow students to use this money for their overall development and growth, it will enable many to improve their economic life.
It will also provide a tangible potential career and livelihood option for those who chose to do so.

Knowing Hemu as many of us do, this kind of rigorous planning and vision shouldn’t be a surprise. So, when Hemu concludes our conversation by saying that, “We will evaluate our success by the number of women and communities we are able to change and empower”, we have got to take him seriously.

I, for one, am especially delighted because Hemu has agreed to dovetail his initial program roll-out with my plans for ‘Growth-for’All’. As reality shows like Indian Idol, SaReGaMa, and Voice of India rock the TRP charts with unknown stars from small towns, the timing is just right for The Swami Samarth Program to make an impact.
 

Economic Times has recently recognized Dr S.S Badrinath, the founder of Sankara Nethralaya as its ‘Corporate Citizen of the Year’. While the achievements of this wonderful institution are truly creditable, what struck me most in the ET feature( ” The Modest Doctor with a Great Vision“) was the ‘business model’ that was described.

On the one hand, India has a third of all blind people in the world, and mostly poor. Coupled with the fact that we also have the largest number of diabetics,  eye care is truly a challenge, which needs the best of talent and equipment. On the other hand, early prescription and use of corrective glasses is often all that is required; around 6-7% of blind people in India are that way because they do not use corrective glasses!

Sankara Nethralaya’s business model is a self-sustaining one. Poor, needy patients get free treatment, while the richer ones pay( an important fact being that treatment is of such high quality that even well-to-do patients aspire to get treated here). So, the rich subsidize the poor. The institution accepts donations for capital investments — especially equipment which is costly and has to be imported.

ET reports that this ‘business model’ has enabled Sankara Nethralaya to today employ over 1,200 people, treat 1,500 patients daily, and perform over 125 surgeries a day. About 50% of the consultations and 40% of the surgeries are done free of cost.

Can other hospitals replicate this unique, self-sustaining model, where the poor get affordable treatment and the rich get quality-care, across all aspects of healthcare? Why just healthcare? What about education? Housing?

Remarkable people!

Call it sheer coincidence.
A recent news item in Indian Express described CBSE’s plans to integrate New Delhi’s Rail Museum, and several museums into its curriculum. While CBSE’s plans are, well, still plans, I was recently witness to an innovative experiment in Bhopal, which is now two years old.

Since September’05, OASIS‘ Pradeep and Shibani Ghosh have collaborated with Bhopal’s National Museum of Mankind, The Regional Science Centre, and The Regional Museum of Natural History to run Parvarish, the Museum School. This is a school that does not have a single classroom, nor does it want one. Every afternoon, a bus picks up 70 kids from three slums across the city, and gets them over to one of the museums. The teachers, five educated girls from the same slums and others from the local B.Ed college, teach the kids basic concepts via nature, and the museums.

The kids enter this school when they are between 5 to 10 years old, and will leave when they’ll be ready after vocational training, for self-employment. During their ‘stay’ at this unique school, they move through four stages or classes- ‘Nanha’, ‘Bachpan’, ‘Khelen’, and ‘Yauwan’.

What makes this school tick is its relevance to the realities faced by slum children and other street kids. It is an inescapable fact that these kids are earning members for their families, and tend to stay away from regular schools. By operating 3 pm onwards, the Museum School ensures that it does not impinge on their working hours. By taking the kids away from the slum environment, the school avoids unwanted interruptions by parents.

I chatted with Nasreen, one of the teachers who hails from the slums, and has worked with other schools like ‘Pratham’ in the past, where she says retention of kids is a big challenge. Nasreen believes that the Museum School succeeds in retaining kinds because: (a) its curriculum is non-conventional and engaging; and(b) it takes the kids away from the slum environment for those few hours. 

While credit is naturally due to Shibani, Pradeep and the teachers, what struck me most was the enlightened, non-bureaucratic approach of the museums’ managements. It would have been rather easy for them to refuse co-operation, but they instead chose a route which, literally, takes the museum to the masses. What better way could there be to de-mystify science and knowledge. Hats off to them!

It would be wonderful if the Bhopal team could share their experiences with NGOs in other cities. Most state capitals, if not other towns, have government museums as well as B.Ed colleges. By leveraging on such existing infrastructure, this could well be the way to create a relevant and low-cost model that complements the formal education system.

Remarkable people!

IT professional Pradeep Ghosh’s mind is a vibrant laboratory, constantly churning new ideas. I met him recently, after economist Bibek Debroy suggested that I do so, to understand an experiment in MP’s Betul district, that he is running. If he succeeds, it could have FMCG and other mass-market companies drooling, the UPA government paying attention, and, most important, provide poor villagers the social security net that they have only dreamt of.

The idea germinated in 2001 when Pradeep chucked his MNC job, and set out to discover how social security systems could be made to work for the poor in 3rd world countries. His big question was: how can the rural poor get protection against downsides in health, food, education, livelihood, and old age-related problems without imposing any taxes on citizens?

The model that he has developed is breathtakingly simple, yet complex to execute:

• Existing Self-Help Groups( SHGs) in a cluster of villages are motivated to focus on livelihood generation. 4 to 6 families are trained to set up non-overlapping retail shops( kirana, clothing, cereals, etc), while some others become local manufacturers(papad, pickles, etc).
• The rest of the families become consumers for these shops, and are guaranteed quality goods and fair price. Based on their quantum of purchases, a certain percentage of the shops’ margin is set aside to provide social security to these families. A family ‘Passbook’ actually tracks each family’s entitlement, and gets them insurance for life, accident and disability, health, and old age.

Apart from social security for the poor, this model leads to local livelihood generation, creation of retail distribution, and a self-sustained community. Most important, it relies on local consumption and economic activity, rather than dole-outs, to solve a vital social problem.

This experiment was rolled out in 2006 with assistance from the MP government, and NGO, Pradan.  Government gave land for the shops, while Pradan helped identify 16 SHGs across 3 villages. As we speak, the shops are ready, and villagers are getting trained to get started.

Over the next one year, Pradeep and the other stakeholders will closely track key outcomes like consumption patterns, self-sustainability of the shops, and the quantum of social security provided.

Meanwhile, the villagers are excited about the empowerment that this project brings them. They decide what insurance to buy, how much, and from whom. They see this as a ‘ hamara apna’ social security.

Even as this experiment is in progress, Pradeep is advising a community in Maharashtra’s Solapur district on a similar initiative. To me, the rapid roll-out and scaling-up of this model seems important. The government’s ‘Aam aadmi Bima Yojana’ is still on paper, but if Pradeep’s model can be quickly adopted by rural communities across India, it is likely to be far more deep-rooted, and impactful.