Effective CSR: Partnering with Govt.

1. Effective CSR:Partnering with Govt. Vandana Krishna Director General, Rajmata Jijau Mother-Child Health & Nutrition Mission, Govt. of Maharashtra

2. Choices and Decisions for Effective CSR • Are you willing for a long term commitment, not a one-time contribution? • First decide- do you want to put in your time, or money? How much time? • Are you willing to visit a few rural, tehsil places? • Are you willing to talk to many people in govt.- top, middle and lower level officials? • Are you willing to be flexible about ideas, pilots, interventions? Or do you come with fixed ideas?

3. Most Effective Interventions • Think of Empowerment rather than Support. • Developmental issues are interlinked. E.g., providing livelihoods may be more effective in reducing malnutrition in the long run than direct food interventions. • Agricultural productivity, multi-cropping will automatically increase employment, reduce migration and reduce malnutrition. • Water conservation, minor irrigation may be the most effective intervention to reduce malnutrition, and for overall development.

4. Some cautions • Pilots are ok, but may not be scalable. • Option 1: Limited area, concentrated efforts, large inputs of manpower, supervision and monitoring. Gives you the satisfaction of achievement. • Option 2: Partner with govt. Wide area of application, no independent social workers/ manpower. Work to strengthen govt. manpower, resources, monitoring. Large scale impact, but you need to let govt. be in the driver’s seat. • Option 3: Pilot with limited resources, govt. manpower, so that it can be widely replicated.

5. The sky is the limit Think Macro, Think Technology • Use of Mobile technology, Skype to provide medical advice in remote areas. • Set up towers in tribal areas, Melghat for mobile phone connectivity. • Use satellite communications, web-cams for training of field level health functionaries. • Use of Health Phones- mobiles in the hands of mothers to send health messages. • Design IUDs (Cu-T) safe for insertion before the 1st pregnancy.

6. WCD- Suggestions for CSR • Adopt a village/ taluka/ ICDS project • Adopt a malnourished child/ an anganwadi. • Adopt an anganwadi to teach children, mothers. • Adopt a sanstha, children’s home, remand home, women’s shelter home • Adopt a training institution for AWWs etc. • Sabla- Train adolescent girls • Set up mobile creches at construction sites, sugarcane/ brick-kiln workers’ sites.

7. Rural Women Development • For illiterate/ less educated rural women, agro-based value-addition activities are the best. • SHGs can lease private land and cultivate it. Pay rent/ lease amount of land. • Visit websites of govt. depts. Work with MAVIM, NRLM, NREGA, SGSRY, KVIB/ KVIC etc. • Making loan-cum-subsidy projects of SHGs viable, bankable. Providing loan guarantee. • Talk to Dr. Sudhir Goel, Prin. Secy Agri & Coop.

8. Other WCD possibilities • Apply under GOI’s schemes, e.g. Swadhar, Ujjwala, Working women’s hostels, STEP. • Set up counseling centres for women, family counseling centres. • Free but quality legal aid to poor women fighting court cases is needed. • More day care centres needed for working women. • Low cost dharamshalas needed near large hospitals, maternity wards, where women patients and relatives from villages can come and stay for a few days.

9. Provide Vocational Training • Register as VTP (Vocational Training Provider), e.g. in hospitality, English speaking/ personality dev, catering, care of young and elderly, domestic work etc. • Why not train girls in driving, plumbing, electrician, appliance repairs, security guards, gardening/ landscaping… • Set up computer labs in our Children’s Homes. Donate 2nd hand computers. • Set up vocational training classes in our homes, train outsiders for a fee, train our children free.

10. Open Invitation under ICDS • Come and teach children in anganwadis of your choice - English, basic maths concepts, games, songs, Hindi/ Urgu/ other languages. • Sabla- Train adolescent girls in 11 districts- health and nutrition, life skills, field visits. • Train young mothers of under-2’s in the community. Visit and strengthen VHNDs. • Adopt villages in Melghat, Jawahar, Mokhada, Nandurbar, other tribal/ rural areas. • Adopt slums in Mumbai etc. Locate space for constructing anganwadi buildings in slums!!

11. How to Adopt a Village- Remote Control Model • First establish links with a person/ persons- e.g. AW worker, Asha, ANM, ICDS supervisor/ CDPO, gram-sewak, school Headmaster, a community leader, volunteer. (Take help of Rajmata Jijau Mission/ Commr WCD). • Get conceptual clarity on what is needed, what you want to do. But this may be an evolving, dynamic process. Be ready to change your ideas. • Use mobiles, webcams, skype for dialogues with village representatives, monitoring.

12. Adopt a Village to reduce malnutrition, or other objectives • Train young mothers & adolescent girls in child care and feeding, nutrition. Organise monthly mothers’ groups meetings, health camps. • Low cost road repair/ building construction technology, AW buildings needed. • Repairs of AW buildings, Pre-fab technology needed for construction of AWs. • Improving quality of teaching. • Solar fans in AWs, solar lights, power • And a hundred other things…

13. Adopt an Institution of WCD • Do not open more sansthas. Be careful of donating to private/ NGO run sansthas in remote areas, as they could be abusing children, mis-using funds. • About 60 govt. women & children homes in Maharashtra. Need support in infrastructure, facilities, rain-water harvesting, solar power, material and emotional support. • Teach extra-curricular activities, sports, tuitions in difficult subjects, life skills, sex education, cultural activities, computers, English, yoga, value education. Sponsor higher/ technical education by paying fees, travel expenses.

14. Non-material needs of Homes • The homeless and orphans feel very insecure and fearful about their future. Give them hope, faith. • If you are retired, give your time and energy to orphans, the homeless, the destitute. They need someone to talk to. They need a family during Diwali, other vacations. Someone to have fun with, who laughs with them. • Be a mentor/ guide to orphans. They need counseling, guidance. Be their pen friend. • Help them with technology. Teach them how to use mobiles, sms, e-mail, telephone. Teach them social skills; it will later help them to find a job.

15. Where more Homes are really needed • Full-time residential homes for mentally challenged children, women, men- specially orphans and homeless. Know any Missionaries who might be interested? • Homes for those with severe/ multiple disabilities, spastics etc. Can parents come together and set up such homes? The internet can be used to connect such parents. • Old age shelter homes on a no-profit-no-loss basis. Charge differential fees based on capacity to pay.

16. Concerned about Farmers’ Suicides? Reduce dependency on market forces. • Set up small food processing units to SHGs/ individuals (e.g. dal- processing), depending on what are the locally grown crops. • Encourage organic cropping without use of expensive fertilizers and pesticides. • Instead of growing cotton or cash crops, encourage vegetables, local fruit, millets, pulses and oilseeds, dairy and poultry, fish.

17. Useful Hints for donors • Better to give your time than your money. • Better to donate in kind than in cash. • Better to donate grains than cooked food. • Don’t give directly to beggars. Instead, support govt. beggars homes, old age homes, shelter homes, balgruhas, Children’s Aid Society. • Instead of giving in temples, why not upgrade an anganwadi? Repair toilets, provide furniture, drawing books, balls, uniforms…. • Govt. homes are always short of maintenance funds! On Diwali or your birthday, offer to pay their gas or electricity bills!

18. Want to go Deeper? Influence Policies. Get Involved in Governance. • E.g. policy of ‘No sex education please’. Empower women for contraception, avoiding abuse, trafficking. • Policy of segregating govt. schools/ hostels by caste. E.g. Ashram Schools for ST, SC hostels. • Market reforms- Why not allow open purchase of agri land by non-farmers? Invest in agriculture to make it more productive. Companies can invest in irrigation for producing vegetables. Employ SHGs or women as agri labour.

19. Thank You! The govt. is also people like you. Get to know them!