Economic Growth India Project #1900

Empowering Villages in Rural India

by Seva Mandir

Project Report | Jan 27, 2009
Yale Students took up the challenge...

By Deepti Ameta | In Charge Reporting and Communication

January 27, 2009

Dear Friend,

New Year Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Thank you very much for all your support to our programs. I am Deepti and I look after the Reporting and Communication Program in Seva Mandir. I will be staying in touch with you regularly to keep you updated about the program that you have been supporting.

This month, I would like to share with you some interesting developments in this project. Before I begin I would like to give you a brief background of the recent development.

The Yale School of Management Social Entrepreneurs Program chose 5 Non Profit Organizations (including Seva Mandir) across the world last year. The purpose was to provide their students with an opportunity to conduct a small research on the topics give by these 5 Organizations for their semester called Global Social Enterprise.

In the end of September 2008 Seva Madnir made a presentation of Village Development Fund Program (GVK) in Yale University, USA. A group of 4 students opeted for Seva Mandir and began their research on –“Effective Management and Utilization of Village Development Fund (GVK)”. Over a period of 3 months, the students conducted the research by gathering data from us through emails, phone and speaking to our colleagues online regularly. In late December 2008 – early January 2009 these students spent 7 days in villages of Seva Mandir to fine tune their understanding of the problem.

On January 5th 2009 the students made a presentation for representatives from 200 villages of Seva Mandir to share what according to them could be the best solution for “Effective Management and Utilization of Village Development Fund”. The presentation was followed by several queries and comments by villagers. The followings have been the major outcome of the interactive discussion –

1. A Federation is recommended consisting of all Village Development Funds from 550 villages. 2. The Federation will serve a financial platform to utilize the existing village funds to maximize the profit. 3. Majority of villagers shown interest in investing into the Federation for a) asset management and b) local development within the village. 4. All the representatives from the villages agreed upon discussing the idea with their village and think towards it more seriously.

The students from Yale were very enthusiastic of the discussions held on 5th January 2009 after their presentation. One of the students Jessica said - “talking on such a vibrant issue with the people at such a larger level and showing their interest on creating a federation on a larger scale like this is really incredible. I feel people in my country will hardly believe the fact that people from the diverse part of the world are so energetic hopeful on the issue of creating democratic and participatory platform. The gathering of these large numbers of people too, is almost unbelievable.”

Since everyone was positive about creating a Federation currently we are looking at issues like Governance and structure of the Federation, membership criteria, norms etc.

We will keep you updated about the developments in this program. Also, it would be wonderful if you could provide us with your inputs on this. For queries and information, kindly contact me at deepti@sevamandir.org.

I hope you find this feedback useful. A very big Thank you once again to all of you for keeping your faith in us and providing us the opportunity to share with you our great stories. Looking forward to hearing from you on this.

With warm regards,

Deepti Ameta In Charge Reporting and Communications deepti@sevamandir.org

Permalink

Sep 12, 2008
my gratifying experience

By Mr. Yakub Khan | In Charge Village Institution Program

Dear Friend,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

I would like to communicate our heartiest thanks to all our donors, friends and well wishers for supporting our Village Institution Program. Your support and faith in our work is very encouraging.

I have been working in this program for the past fifteen years. My work has allowed me to gain an insight into the development process. The communities we work with are slowly but impressively taking responsibilities of their own development, which has been a very gratifying experience for me. This month I would like to share with you an inspiring story – the story of village Jabla. The Village has recently dealt with the problem of education for their children and the village committee has played an instrumental role in solving the problem.

In Jabla the children were not able to continue their education beyond primary school since there was no Upper Primary School in their village itself. The children either had to walk 13 kms to attend Upper Primary School or discontinue with their education after finishing Primary School. The girl children were the most affected by this. The village committee discussed the issue in many of their village-meetings and finally they all decided to raise the issue in the Panchayat (the local village council) with support of Seva Mandir. The village-committee demanded for an Upper Primary School in their village but the Sarpanch (leader at local council) informed them that he does not have enough legislature power to grant it. He suggested writing to the District Education Officer for this. The committee decided to go ahead with his suggestion and they got him to forward their application to the concerned officer. It took them a number of months including writing several letters to the Education Department. Finally the Department agreed to upgrade the existing Primary School to an Upper Primary School. They also sanctioned another four rooms in the school to meet the demand of growing number of school children. Currently the village is waiting for an approval of a Primary Health Center and construction of a road in their village from the Government.

There are many villages like Jabla where communities have realized the significance of their agency We are grateful to all our donors and friends who are helping communities like Jabla. "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts" - Albert Einstein

Many thanks once again. Kindly contact me at yakub.khan@sevamandir.org in case of any queries and suggestions.

With regards,

Sincerely,

Mohd. Yakub Khan In Charge, Village Institution Program

Permalink

Jun 9, 2008
Women in leadership roles...

By Mr. Yaqub Khan | In Charge Village Development Fund (GVK) Program

‹ 1 ... 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.