Key Issues - Women's Development, Children, Poverty

1. Water
2. Education
3. Health
4. Agriculture
5. Environment
6. Natural Resources
7. Micro Finance
8. Population
9. Disability
10. Housing
11. Emergency Relief
12. Human Rights
13. Displacement
14. Forest Land Rights and Tribals
15. Child Rights
16. Women Empowerment
17. Right To information
18. Right to food
19. Panchayati Raj
20. Peace
21. Animal Welfare
22. Labour Rights

Issues

1. Employment Generation: capacity Building, implementation, Monitoring, and asset building.
2. Sustainable Livelihoods – Institutional models and approaches to promote sustainable livelihoods for the poor and marginalized.
3. Entrepreneurship development – support through marketing and financial linkages, business and development services.
4. Skill development – Through vocational education and technical writing for unorganized sector and women.
5. Condition of work – improved work condition for unorganized workers and workplace policies for HIV
6. Social protection: provision of social security to unorganized sector workers.
7. Organizing workers in the unorganized sector.

Am sure…after looking at the above scattered points you all may wonder what’s this…but trust me that’s what I have been thinking as a first step to build a strategy towards our AIM…we essentially need to list out the issues that need attention or areas where we can invest our time and services which would eventually bring a change in the standard of living of society. After exploring a bit ...ideally there were lots of issues (listed above)… but according to me there were three primary subjects that intertwined and laid to various problems. POVERTY, WOMEN AND CHILDREN. If you look at it in a broader way, lack of women’s development lead to various problems like lack of awareness, lack of self development, poverty and eventually it impacts the society on the whole. For instance in a family which is below poverty line if the women of the household is educated (to an extent or instilled confidence), groomed she can contribute majorly towards the financial development of the household and can cater to the basic necessities of the family! This would further add on to better raised children who can further go to schools and get the primary education or develop a positive outlook towards an educated sect of the community. So the point is we can create awareness amongst the women or prefer to groom the children who serve to be the future of our nation.

Targeting the meet - 4

What: Targeting the meet - 4
When: Sunday, Feb 10, 9PM - 10 PM (IST)
Where: Skype
Agenda
1. Past meet round-up: Are we drifting? - by Badhri
2. Round-table: Past week(s) updates
3. Discussion: Answerability
5. Next week goals - team and individual
5. Wrap

Minutes of the Meeting - 8th Feb 2008

Participants: Aishwarya, Badhri, Shabnam

Date: 8th Feb 2008

Duration: 30 minutes

Topics discussed:

1. Direction of our activity related to RTI: The fact that children should form a focus of our efforts was reiterated by Badhri. So the understanding is we should search for a subject/area which is related, if not entirely focussed, on children.

2. One of Badhri's wandering thoughts: India has so many NGOs for so many years. Do they have a common platform or an umbrella organization under which they come together, share ideas, ensure that they cover all agendas and do not unnecessarily overlap in some other areas.

3. The idea of a guiding hand to help us channelize our efforts was brought up. A person with experience -pertinent experience - can surely help us channelize our efforts. He will also help us get a sense of direction. We should try and search for such a person.

4. Shabnam said she will prepare a chart of issues that are prevalent in the society and need to be tackled. I am really happy that the list has been published before this MoM :)

Need for answerability !

Badhri has been asking me to write this one for quite some time and finally I am down to writing this post. The very fact that it required constant reminding from him reflects the need for this post.

So here is the thing. We all are a part of this endeavour - "Targeting the Roots". We are also holding meetings regularly, but for one aberration last week. Apologies for that. I compare our thought process towards this venture with the thought process we undergo when we are at our work. Without going into the philosophies of our work dynamics, one thing that I believe is that we are more serious towards our "job" because there is this "clause of answer-ability". If I do not finish my work on time or if the quality of my work does not match expectations, I am answerable to my boss.
He is going to question me. He will embarrass the hell out of me. For many people, genuine motivation works too i.e. they love the job and therefore will go all out to achieve their goals.

The reason I brought this point out was we need to have one or both of the above motivations for our venture to progress i.e 1. All of us are answerable to one another 2. Something inside us should motivate us to think and do - make progress.

I should be discussing about TTR, the same way as I discuss work at home.
I should be browsing for more info the way I do for my career related stuff.
The thought of not progressing should trouble me the same way "Bench" troubles IT professionals.
I should be visiting our TTR blog as frequently as I do my own blog.
I should be writing on our TTR blog as frequently as I do for my blog. (For this again, there has to be a constant churning in our mind about TTR. Where else can we get our questions ideas doubts fire from?)

I am not sure how much of this can be enforced (answer-ability) and how much can be cultivated (motivation). But I have a strong feeling we need both of these in adequate measures to make a success out of this venture.

****Updated by Badhri****

I am totally on board with Aishwarya's point. So, why don't we implement it? Whatever project we take up, will also identify a "boss" to who we are answerable. What say?

For example, Aishwarya and I have taken it up for RTI and Adolescent Bridge Programs. We will have to identify

• our "Boss", a member of the team who is really not working on the project that we are working.
• our deadline, and our stated goal.
• our boss will keep bothering us with uncomfortable questions about our progess all the way till our deadline date.

How does that sound?

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan - A start

I was able to start today, our research on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). The objective, as I see it, is to identify issues with the SSA (especially its implementation) and further narrow down to issues which can be taken up by us. A search on Google, threw up a lot of search results, expectedly. A large part of these search results were government websites - union and state.

This is the home page of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

Here you can find a summary and introduction to the SSA framework.

Quite a few insightful articles can be found at india-together.org. Search for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and/or SSA and you will get some really good articles.

A few points that I noted were:

i. The concept as such is very strong but the lack of implementation takes away its strength.
ii. The parameters to monitor the working of SSA are not adequate, rather they are grossly inadequate. They go by measures such as number of children enrolled. This is misleading because after enrollment a student may not turn up at a school for months together. Also a student is not considered as absent unless he is absent for 3-6 months continuously. If in between he/she turns up for a day, he is not considered a drop out. (Read here).
iii. The quality of education and the availability of resources like stationery, food (as part of mid-day meal scheme) vary from state to state, region to region (within a state) and from school to school (within a region).
iv. An interesting thing that I read was - To calculate the amount funds needed, the price of book considered was higher than the actual cost of the book. So when requesting for funds the books were charged at Rs 150 but they actually cost RS 25- Rs 60. The rest of the amount is allocated but unspent or digested(not sure!).

Something that I heard from my friend, whose father works as an Executive Engineer, overseeing the construction of schools under SSA. As he told me, SSA pays for the construciton of school building and compound. On one occasion, it was found out that the compound and school were built at two different places !

Targeting the Meet - 3

What: Targeting the Meet - 3
When: Sun Jan 13 9pm – Sun Jan 7 10pm IST
Where: Skype
Agenda:
1. New member intro
2. Previous Fortnight goals update
3. Discussion: RTI, fightcorruption, X-factor..any other?
4. Next fortnight goals!
5. Wrap


Minutes of this meeting - and all subsequent meetings can be found at:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d55f4vs_2kxbm2w

Minutes: Targeting the Meet - 2

Attendees: Jagan, Krishnakanth, Shashi, Badhri

Agenda:

1. New member intro

Krishnakanth (KK): Chartered accountant, Pricewaterhousecoopers, UK

2. Have you thought about factors affection Standard of Living?

(KK)

• Concern: Members @ different countries, busy work life, how to sustain initiative?
• On SOL:
  
• SOL is generic term. Need to choose our focus. (eg. under-privileged, children etc)
  
• Western lifestyle at UK, lack of traditional values (like family living) affects quality of living, India getting there. Can work on retaining "non-westernised" living as a preventive measure in India
  

(Badhri)

• KK's concern:
  
  
• Meet on a regular basis, update the groups without fail if
  unavailable for meeting. Feel answerable to the rest of the team, the
  momentum will be automatically maintained
  
  
• On SOL:
  
• Awareness! (again! :) )

(Shashi)

• On SOL:
• Concentrate on children. Changing one generation is all it takes!
• Climate-change, global warming related awareness
• Also endorse Aish's idea of improving youth-related affairs (interview skills, choosing career path etc)
  

(Jagan)

• Interested as much in spreading awareness to literate people

3. Why not start with a social ill?

• Filing RTI:
  
• Members may read up, understand RTI and should discuss when more members are around, take a decision
• Seeking the help of someone experienced:
• (Badhri): May contact owners of http://fightcorruption.wikidot.com/start
• (Jagan) : Hold on. May have to discuss with the larger team. *will send a mail to the group on this*
  

4. Next fortnight goals!

(Badhri)

• Find out issues for which RTI can be filed
• Procedure of filing RTI petition
  

(Shashi, KK)

• Read up more on RTI for next week's discussion

(Jagan)

• Read up more about RTI
• Send mail about contacting/not contacting owners of fightcorruption initiative
  

5. Wrap

Wrap! :)

Targeting the Meet - 2

What: Targeting the Meet - 2
When: Sun Dec 30 9pm – Sun Dec 30 10pm IST
Where: Skype
Agenda:
1. New member intro
2. Have you thought about factors affection Standard of Living?
3. Why not start with a social ill?
4. Next fortnight goals!
5. Wrap

Stuck at X-factor. How to more forward?

We have been talking about Standard of living, searching for factors affecting them, arguing for and against awareness
and a dozen other things. But let us admit to ourselves. Awareness is the only factor that we have at hand so far and we are still looking for the elusive X-factor(s)! That makes me think. Is this the only angle from which we can approach the whole initiative? Let us step back and think about it. How else can we approach? Let us see...now we have started thinking of the X-factor and have hit road block (Cul de sac! At last a usage for the word I learnt recently! :)) How to get past this? The only way is to think NOT in terms of the factors affecting SOL for a while. How about things that we need to know to start working on any initiative irrespective of what the X-factors are?

For example, we are trying to address social ills. And we know about the oft-talked-about Right to Information Act. It is likely that sooner or later we will end up filing an RTI petition. Why not pick up a social ill at random (or for some reason) and file an RTI petition right now? This will give us a feel of what filing RTI petitioning is all about? After all there is no dearth of social-ills! :) May be this will give us some insight into the X-factors too! And this is just an example! There may be other things that we may need to know.

Also, we are all beginners. Honestly to goodness, we have more text book knowledge about the problems we face than field experience. I sometimes wonder if that knowledge is knowledge at all or just some illusion. So, why can't we hire an experienced person's help? (hire for free that is! :) )Some relative, who is a social worker or an employee of an NGO or at least just an entrepreneur who knows the insides of how our social system works.

Hope I am clear and hope this post is in English! :)

Pro of this idea: We can keep moving towards starting to our objective, as against getting stuck at the X-factor
Con of the idea: We may possibly forget about the X-factor (Remember it is still important!)

What say you? Merry Christmas, by the way!!

Why should I do something ?

When I think of changing society or even world without being unrealistic, the first question pops up in my mind is "Why should I even bother about it?"
After all I am happy, my family is happy and life is moving smoothly for me.
So the first question to encounter is why , before we actually get into the details of HOW and WHAT to do.
Why? Take a moment think about it. Do we really need to do anything?
Does it even matter to you how much poverty is there, how is our climate getting affected and how much is crime increasing in our society?
If your answer to these questions is NO!!! You are very normal.
If your answer to these questions is YES, You are literally, normal.

I believe, its about RESPONSIBILITY. If we think it is our responsibility to improve things around us, if we think that a child who sleeps hungry near a railway station is somehow related to the delicious biryani you had last night, if you think that it is an escape from reality when you turn yourself into oblivion, you have a trace of a responsible citizen within you.

And this responsibility is very different than what we usually consider as responsibility or duty. It is not a duty, it is not a charity. It is just a realization that society is integral part of me and I am just an impression of my society.

Only when we have right attitude to serve without the desire of popularity or results, we can move into a community relation.
With a right attitude , ideas automatically keeps flowing in, energy keeps you driving and the feeling of satisfaction and joy surrounds you 24X7.