Sanchayan

By: KANIKA KAKKAR

Sanchayan works in the area of Financial Literacy, Financial Inclusion and Investor Education. It works for enhancing income and enabling qualitative financial inclusion for the youth, urban migrants and rural populations through a gendered approach to savings, financial literacy and micro finance using technology.

It works towards disseminating financial literacy to youth and adults especially from the underprivileged sections, undertaking literacy drives to create awareness about disadvantaged section's financial rights and obligations, facilitating the inclusion of the underprivileged section into the mainstream banking and financial services industry, spreading awareness so that youth and adults are protected from financial risks and are financially secure and working with the government and regulators to provide basic financial products and services for the youth.

Sanchayan works in 3 verticals, school & college youth, urban migrants and rural poor with a focus on livelihoods. It promotes maximum utilization of available financial products and services among the Indian public and complementing the existing academic curriculum in schools and colleges by addition of financial education workshops to create smart future investors.

 

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Biosense Technologies

by Kanika Kakkar

 

Biosense Technologies is a technology and design driven initiative. Their dream is to add value to the lives of people by developing products and product extended services that help improving their ways of life.

Their primary and current focus is in developing the ToucHb platform. Their vision is to enable and empower every health worker as a vital decision maker towards saving lives by providing them with simple, portable & reliable diagnostic tools. With ToucHb, a non-invasive hemoglobin estimation device in the hands of every doorstep health-care worker, they aim to shift the paradigm of anaemia surveillance and drastically reduce the number of deaths occurring due to anaemia that is close to 1 million per year at the moment.

In December 2008, Anaemedia was reincarnated as Biosense Technologies Private Limited.  

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Karm Marg

 - inputs by Kanika Kakkar

Karm Marg, a non-governmental organization, started in 1997 is committed to the cause of supporting disadvantaged children and young adults. Set in the outskirts of New Delhi, Karm Marg runs a home, Karm Gaon, which provides a loving space for such children to live, study, work and play together in.

The focus groups for Karm Marg are disadvantaged children, young adults and economically backward rural women from villages near the campus. The products made by these people are sold under the brand Jugaad. It’s worth noting that most of the Jugaad products utilize as much recycled and reused raw material as possible.

Karm Marg also imparts training in mainstream education, medical care, counseling, health and hygiene advocacy, sports, visual & performing arts besides providing shelter to the needy children. 

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Thar Integrated Social Development Society (TISDS)

Journalist: Ramya Ajay 

TISDS, a Jaisalmer-based non-governmental organisation, has been actively involved in addressing the regional ecological issues since 1994. Interestingly, it was in 1986, that a group of 15 higher secondary school students got together in Jaisalmer to address the environmental issues related to forestry, sacred groove and traditional rainwater harvesting systems and land management. And finally in April 1994 they registered the group as TISDS. Since then they have been constantly addressing issues concerning forest, land and water in the rural areas of Jaisalmer.

TISDS has been largely involved in generating ecological awareness in the rural areas through gram baithaks, reviving Oran (sacred groves) in the region and popularizing traditional rainwater harvesting systems for instance, nadis, paar, tankas etc. Old and dilapidated nadis at Damodara, Dujasar were restored to meet the drinking water requirement of the human and livestock population.

Similarly, TISDS was involved in rejuvenating the paar system at Khadera and Damodara village. In order to provide drinking water to school students, TISDS constructed a tanka at Salkha village. 

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Chavvi Rajawat

Journalist: Srishti Kush

Chavvi Rajawat, a 31 year old, born in Rajasthan is an alumnus of Lady Shri Ram College and holds a management degree. The jeans-clad Rajaway could easily be mistaken for some model or a bollywood actress. But she quit her corporate job and left city life to help develop rural India and serve her village Soda, a village sixty kilometers from Jaipur, Rajasthan as the youngest women sarpanch.

 

She was the chairperson of the 11^th Info-Poverty World Conference held at the United Nations in March 2011. "In three years I will transform my village. I don't want money. I want people and organizations to adopt projects in my village as often projects fail owing to lack of a local connect and that is what I am here to provide by bridging that gap.” says Chavvi.

From a village largely known for its water bodies, Soda was losing them as one after the other water body was drying out. But, after becoming sarpanch, the first task that she took upon herself was to de-silt an old water body. The number of people who joined her in the task voluntarily was another instance of her popularity there. Perhaps the only MBA village head in the country, Chhavi spoke of the necessity to re-think strategies for including new technologies like e-services in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in an era where resources are becoming limited.

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HarVa-Harnessing value of Rural India

About 72 percent of India's billion-plus people live in rural areas. Traditionally, rural economy is characterized by village farming, modern agriculture, handicrafts, and a wide range of support services. HarVa works for improving the lifestyle of rural India.

 

HarVa means Green for the villages and stands for “Harnessing Value” of rural India. HarVa, a rural start up primarily focuses on Skill Development, BPO, Community based farming and Microfinance, aspires for sustainable inclusive growth by creating value in the heart of Rural India which happens to be the Real India. HarVa specializes in finding the right approach to achieving maximum social, economic and environmental sustainability through appropriate development in rural India. 

HarVa believes in collective growth and endeavors to train entire village families and employ them according to their skill which helps in not only building strong relationships but also ensuring that attrition is minimal. It enhances productivity and efficiency by bringing in the feeling of competitiveness. 

Most of the HarVa’s out-of-the-box ideas may seem unconventional yet they prove beneficial in bringing about sustainable rural transformation and redefines present mindset of people. Their biggest asset lies in the fact that every person associated with HarVa is a social entrepreneur with the ability to visualize and articulate new approach of problem solving.

Passion of Ajay Chaturvedi, founder & Chairman, and team to make a positive difference in rural India despite facing significant social, economic and ecological challenges is praiseworthy.

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Villgro

Behind every successful business venture is a dream, a dream to think big and powerful. Something similar happened when Paul Basil, a Mechanical engineer and Management Degree holder from the Indian Institute of Forest Management Bhopal, dreamt of improving the quality of lives of rural poor, empowering villagers with resources and putting a smile into every face in Rural India.

His dream led to the formation of Villgro in the year 2001 to transform lives in Rural India through innovations. Paul having worked at Kerala Horticulture knew exactly the importance of translating ideas into possible actions. 

Villgro with its unique and extremely well organized network of Investors, Technical Experts, Domain Specialists, Mentors and Marketers provides everything needed by an innovator, thus unleashing the best chance of an idea being getting implemented. 

Villgro commercializes rural innovation, thus creating a multitude of micro-enterprises, which in turn generates a veritable cycle of wealth creation on an unimaginable scale. Villgro have so far identified and activated close to 2000 social innovators and impacted more than 360,000 rural lives. 

Recognizing Paul Basil contributions to the field of social entrepreneurship, The Ashoka Foundation conferred him with its prestigious Ashoka Fellowship in the year 2002. 

 

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