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Field workers take the initiative to record activities and impacts
at the grassroots level, in the form of case studies. These are then
documented at the Headquarters, in both English and Hindi. These
wonderful, uplifting and often enlightening stories are then widely
disseminated: they are published in our newsletters, shared with
project partners, other CSO’s, the media and used in training
programmes.
Here are a selection of some of the very vibrant case stories from
the NEED project areas. If you would like to see the complete list
or order a copy of a case study covering a specific thematic area
for your presentation or workshop, please
contact us.
Women Empowerment
Income
Generation
Conservation-Linked Livelihoods
NFEC (Non
Formal Education Centre) Schools
Health
and Sanitation
International Volunteers
To order a copy of ‘She Did It! Stories on How Entrepreneurship
Changed Women's Life" (English) - n anthology of live case studies
profiling poor women participants of NEED's programmes
click here.
If you would like to regularly receive a copy of
Woman for Change,
our quarterly international newsletter, or would like to contribute
to its publication,
click here.
Challenging Cultural
Discrimination: Sakirunnisha’s Story
In the patriarchal communities of rural India, a divorced women is
often ostracised from the community and, without a husband or father
to rely on, becomes destitute. This is the remarkable story or
Sakirunnisha. Divorced by her husband, Sakirunnisha found herself,
at just 28 years old, with little respect and no source of income.
She returned to live with her parents, feeling that she had no
options and grew increasingly despondent.
But today, Sakirunnisha is president of the Ekta SHG of Rahilamau
village in the Sitapur District. Sakirunnisha earns a good living
and has motivated other women into independence. She has earned
great respect in the village for helping improve the lives of many
within her community.
When NEED staff first went to Rahilamau to set up the Self-Help
Group, only Sakirunnisha showed interest in the concept. She went on
to mobilize women of her community to join the group, explaining the
benefits and providing encouragement. To date NEED staff remain very
grateful to her, knowing that without her help it would have been
impossible for them to do their work in Rahilamau. Thanks to her
effort, 17 members joined the group out of which 15 members are from
a minority community. This was a great achievement as people from
minority communities simply close their doors to any outsiders.
By choosing Sakirunnisha as their leader, the women of Rahilamau
challenged the cultural norms and showed their faith in her. As well
as being group leader, she also started learning Chikan and Zardozi
stitching and embroidery work at the Kaluapur Center run by NEED.
With concerted effort, she quickly picked up the embroidery skills
and now trains other women at Kaluapur Training Center.
In her role as president of the group, Sakirunnisha has persuaded
the bank to prepare a Cash Credit Limit for the group. She also
brought a medical team from the government Primary Health Center for
health check-ups for the community. The medical professionals in
this team were so impressed that now they fix a date in advance and
regularly come to the village to provide health check-ups. They have
also issued health cards to each of the villagers.
It probably goes without saying that her association with the group
has also helped Sakirunnisha personally. She was alone when her
husband divorced her, with even her family members treating her as
burden. With the support and friendship of the group members she
doesn’t feel alone any more. “ I feel great pride and a sense of
responsibility towards the group.”
What the future holds
Sakirunnisha plans to increase her customer base. She wants to open
a tailoring shop in partnership with other group members. They have
identified a shop in the main village market but do not yet have the
funds to proceed. Moreover, they have decided that they want to
improve their skills before entering the market. In the meantime,
Sakirunnisha is focussing on identifying potential customer groups
in the village.
What women empowerment means for Sakirunnisha
Sakirunnisha tells us, “ I feel that I have been given the
opportunity to change people’s perception of me. Maybe even I have
helped change what the whole community thinks about divorced women.
I want my story to be a source of inspiration for other women.”
Bakery warms the village economy
This story is an example of how NEED’s work has helped generate
sustainable employment, building on the local village economy
through community mobilisation in 15 villages of the Kakori block.
NEED have been working in the village of Kakori since 1999. During
this time, our workers had the chance to observe many aspects of
village life. One thing that we noticed was the great popularity of
bakery products such as bun, cakes, biscuits etc in the villages.
For generations, this demand had been met by traders from Gaizabad.
The trader had a strong network of intermediaries, selling the
bakery products at a high price by the time they reached the
villages.
We asked the villagers why they bought these products from outside:
would it not be posssible to produce these things in the village
itself? People generally held the belief that such products can only
be produced by the urban entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship develoment lies at the center of our livelihood
promotion activity. We work to develop the entrepreneurial skills in
our group members to find solutions to satisfy existing needs in
their local communities. In this way, NEED supported and facilitated
the Kakori community to establish a fully-fledged bakery unit in
Gorahmau.
Training and Skill Upgradation
A skilled baker was hired as a trainer and provided extensive
training to the women from the Self Help Groups in this area. Skill
upgradation training continued to improve the quality of their work
and to slowly expand the unit by production of more items. The
bakery unit now produces several different kind of snacks - cakes,
biscuits, rusk and bun (paw).
Success of the bakery
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Consumer awareness: villagers
who have stopped purchasing snacks from urban traders, instead they
now buy the products of the bakery which are produced by their own
village women.
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Employment Opportunities: the
unit has altogether provided 40-50 women in 15 villages with the
change work together, to deal with people, create their own
identities and live their lives with pride, dignity and confidence.
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Income Generation: The
establishment of the bakery has ultimately led to the establishment
of many retail shops selling the bakery products earning the women
retailers 700-1,000 Rs per month. The women employed in the main
unit earns 3,000-4,000 Rs per month from the sales.
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Women Empowerment: It has also
given them the opportunity to come out of their houses and deal with
people thus making them more confident.
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Alternative employment in village:
the establishment of the bakery unit has given the village economy
an alternative source of income from agriculture (which has
over-reliance and inherent instabilities)
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A successful, demonstrative example
of livelihood generation: which can be replicated by other
villages. NEED by supporting the women groups to establish the
bakery unit has indeed made a successful attempt by providing and
example before the villagers (SHGs) and other organizations working
for rural poor an example of promoting value driven livelihood.
The bakery now serves as a fine
example of raising development levels in the villages by keeping
incomes circulating in their local economy.
Diversification for customer
satisfaction
Narendra Singh is presently engaged in the production of a wide
variety of farm produce, diversified according to the seasons and
the tastes and preferences of the customers. From an early stage,
Narenda decided to focus his efforts on customer satisfaction -
producing goods in accordance with market demand and supply has been
the key to the success of his unit. He now has his own production
unit, where fruits and vegetables are processed and pickles,
chutney, jam and squashes are prepared.
Narendra Singh is a farmer. He was earlier engaged in the production
of wheat in his fields, but his land was rain fed and a lack of
irrigation meant production was low. Also, Narendra was unaware of
the modern tecnology and equipment available for improving yields.
For these reasons, his wheat farming didn’t fetch sufficient income.
With rising inflation rates, fulfilment of basic necessecities was
becoming difficult.
Under the DASP Project www.theneed.org/ruralasset NEED started
forming SHGs in Narendra’s village and Jai bhole SHG was formed. The
group consists of 11 members and Narendra Singh was one of the
members. After formation of the group saving and interlining
activities began. Also various awareness-generating programmes were
arranged for these people on livelihoods. Iinformation regarding
agriculture and its allied activities were provided to these
members. The programmes motivated Narendra to reconsider his farming
ventures and after discussing with NEED staff and the other group
members, decided to start production of pickles. As this was the
winter season and vegetables were cheap and available in abundance
he decided to produce mixed pickle. After proper training and
guidance the production started.
Every year a mohatsav is held in the village called Bhadau Mohatsav.
His pickle-selling venture was started from this mohatsav. People
liked the pickle and the whole lot was sold. This motivated Narendra
and he started producing other products like Chatni (paste of ginger
and honey), Avola murabba, Mixed fruit jam and Chilli pickle. The
produce was sold all over the village and Narendra earned good
profits.
Narendra further expanded his production and started producing
products according to the season. According to market demand and the
taste of his customers production was further expanded. In summers,
he made squash of the different fruits available, as well as lemon
juice.
The training and awareness programmes helped raise his awareness and
knowledge levels. Now he has started earning sufficient income and
is secure about the future of his family and children. Narendra’s
enterprise is the best example of successful micro-enterprise
establishment in the area. Today, Narendra says, “NEED pointed me in
the right direction - otherwise I would never have broken out of the
vicious circle of poverty and ignorance I was in.” NEED is
continuously working with people like Narendra to provide them a
decent living through formation of SHGs and livelihood promotion. In
this way, we ensure the economic as well as social upliftment of the
poor.
Child earns his right to education
Pradeep Kumar is an eight year old child, living in Madaripur
village in the Mohmadabad block of Sitapur District. He and his
family live in utter poverty.
Pradeep always had a deep desire to go to school, but the nearest
school is situated six kilometres away from his house. Additionally,
contrary to their son’s wishes, his parents were opposed to the idea
of sending him to school. Instead they preferred to employ him in
physical labour, earning them about 25 Rupees a day. They thought
that sending him to school was a sheer waste of time and money.
Another reason for not allowing him to attend, was that in order to
reach the school one had to cross a pond, which is filled with water
for at least six months a year and too deep to cross with ease and
particularly dangerous for children.
Meanwhile, with the help of the Global Fund for Children, the
support of the local women’s Self Help Groups and the community,
NEED were opening a non-formal school exclusively for deprived
children. The NEED team visited the parents of Pradeep and told them
of the advantages of sending children to school. But Pradeep’s
parents were adamant that he should work and forbid his enrollment.
Showing strong will and determination, Pradeep somehow managed to
come to school from time to time without the knowledge of his
parents. Seeing his enthusiasm and commitment for education, the
Self Help Group and the teacher again called a meeting with
Pradeep's parents urging them to release Pradeep from his labour and
enroll him in education on fully-fledged basis. They explained that
if Pradeep continued to labour and is not educated he would not only
remain earning Rs. 25 per day, but his physical growth would also be
affected. Besides which, earning money through a child of eight is a
legal offence. After a flow of debate and argument, Pradeep’s
parents came to understand and internalize the value of education
and the long-term multiplier effects, and agreed to send his child
to the school.
Pradeep now regularly attends classes and has been performing
wonderfully in literacy, numeracy, art and drawing. He says that he
loves coming to school and one day might like to be a teacher
himself.
Project Inputs:
Jan Sawasthya Base Line Survey: The very first step began with
the development of very focused four pages questionnaire. We
discovered that many villagers did not have access to safe drinking
water. Most of the common hand pumps were not functioning and the
well water was polluted and people were drinking this polluted
water.
Out of 2,000 surveyed families only 46 families had toilet
facilities in their houses. In our survey year 14% of pregnant women
miscarried and 6% died due to inadequate medical facilities, or
improper diet and food habits.
Out of 971 families 21% were affected by jaundice, 32% affected by
viral fever, 13% families affected by tuberculosis and 34% affected
by asthma. People of the villages were unaware of the vaccination
benefits for their children. The awareness level of the people in
the villages was very low, also due to inaccessibility and poverty,
people could not avail health facilities.
Jan Sawasthya Sambad: We identified and selected 30 women
from the project villages where selected and given first 6 days
training programmes. 15 of the trained women are appointed as
village health guides for the project.
Awareness raising for cleanliness and Sanitation followed by
distribution of safe drinking kits
Information and promotions regarding health, immunisations, family
planning , girls literacy, social evils etc is being spread through
wall writings (peoples homes, school buildings, village health
centers etc) and poster campaigns.
The base line data also showed the poor sanitation condition of the
villagers. Awareness generating meetings were held for the same. A
rally was organised for cleanliness and sanitation. 40 villagers
consisting of school children, village health guides, SHG women
participated in the rally with banners and posters. The objective of
the rally was to make people aware about sanitation and cleanliness.
We here at NEED are working under
health issues with an objective of Improving the health conditions
and direct delivery services among the deprived women and children
community by way of building a cadre of local women health guides
cum counselors in the form of community cantered service, Ensuring
very timely immunization, vaccination and other associated
preventive interventions followed by nutrition, water and sanitation
and thereby ascertaining the decline in IMR, MMR and malnourishment.
Knowing that women play the major role in our developmental
programmes in the past, we have planned to strengthen the ongoing
Women Owned Self Help Groups who will finally take the leadership in
developmental programmes. But the criteria used in selection of the
beneficiaries is primarily through involving local village based
Self Help Groups, Panchayati Raj Institutions, Community leaders,
Teachers followed by the socio-economic cum cultural deprivation of
the community. This is how,
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Jan Sawasthya Base Line Survey
(Community Health Base Line Survey)
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Jan Sawasthya Sambad (Community Health
Communication) and Safe drinking demonstration and campaign followed
by distribution of safe drinking kits.
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Jan Sawasthya Siksha Kendra i.e. JSSK
(Community Health Education Centre)
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Jan Sawasthya Poshan (Community Health
Nutrition)
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Jan Sawasthya Learning Materials
(Community Health Learning Materials)
Community driven initiatives on the
above core areas of rural health are the principal areas of concern
that organization has intensively been engaged in providing strong
service driven health support.
NEED has also worked
diligently to share our grass roots experiences with a number of
volunteers around the world. We have had a rich tradition of
volunteers from all over the world at premier educational
institutions. In the past three years, we have been very fortunate
to see some of the best international talent volunteer with us in
grass roots organizing. After volunteering for NEED, they have
continued to pursue demanding careers in Academia, the corporate
world, and development organizations. We welcome anyone interested
in learning more to fill out the "contact us" section of this
web-page, and consider volunteering for NEED.
The following great volunteers have already spent many-many days
both at head quarter and fields of NEED, Lucknow
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Susan Stiner, Jena,
Germany
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Rachel Belton, Trickle
Up, New York, USA
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Arun R. Palakurthy, Ex
Student of Dartmouth University, New York, USA
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Katty D. Rudder 103
Concord Place Syracuse, NY, USA 13210 315-474-0656
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Monica Gadkari,
Student George Town University, USA
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Ms. Anamaria
Aristizabal, Environmental Scientist, Colombia
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Nathalie Mercier,
Belgium
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Sherry Conrads, New
York, USA
Although a couple of post volunteer report are given below but in
case you need any one's report, you can always place a demand via
e-mail (need@satyam.net.in
or
info@indianeed.org)
Arun Palakurthy--New York, USA
 Upon completion of my second visit to Lucknow, I was delighted to
see the significant progress and and continued development of the
NEED organization under the leadership of Anil Singh, and the
dedicated hard work of all of the NEED staff. In the short time of
four years, NEED has expanded its outreach throughout rural UP, now
reaching more than 26,000 women. The organization has added new
service programs such as a Child Help Line (CHL), to meet the needs
of abused and homeless children throughout Lucknow, and has moved
into development of eco-friendly and sustainable agriculture
promotion. In addition, Anil has managed to form a strong outreach
to friendly NGOs and individuals throughout the world. I recently
had the opportunity to host Anil in a visit to New York City, where
he met with many friendly NGOs and citizen groups, continuing to
developing a network of partnerships that I believe will provide
NEED with significant organizational leverage to continue its
explosive growth in the years to come.
As a readers of this newsletter, many of you are probably keenly
aware of these many accomplishments, and undoubtedly aware of many
others that I have failed to mention. However, it is valuable to
reflect on these accomplishments in context of the greater
organizational development of the past four years. On one axis, the
development represents much greater depth in the services that were
provided just four years ago. When I made my initial visit, I had
the fortune to visit one of the two Non-Formal Education centers (NFEs).
These schools served mostly children aged three to five in providing
them rudimentary preparation for elementary school education.
Currently these two NFEs have become eight. In addition, NEED has
helped open two formal schools provide education through the eighth
grade to more than 250 girls and boys. During my visit, I had the
opportunity to visit the Gularamau in formal school. As I entered
the school, the first graders were all shouting out the ABC's in
unison, while the upperclassmen were studying biology. In each of
the four teachers, I saw a sincere commitment and dedication to
educating the students. In addition, NEED has not been complacent to
simply continue to develop its existing programs. It has also taken
the initiative to expand the services it provides. The CHL is a
strong example of how NEED has chosen to define its social mandate
in broad terms.
Debbie Stenner, London, UK
 I arrived in Lucknow on January 10th, 2005 - straight from two
years' working at a marketing consultancy in Bath, England. My
interest in development issues, particularly livelihood generation
and fair trade, had been growing over many years. And although I
have enjoyed working and traveling in Asia in the past, I had yet to
visit India. So when I got in contact with NEED through the Ashoka
Foundation, I decided to take a trip.
I was welcomed into the volunteer's quarters at Anil Singh's (the
CEO) family home above the office, and was quickly made to feel one
of the family and one of the NEED team. There was plenty of work to
get involved with straight away in the documentation division -
helping compile case studies, newsletters, proposals and reports.
This gave me a broad insight into the many activities tackled by
NEED and some ideas for how I could fit in and help out.
Before long I got more involved in planning and communication and
was pleased to find my export marketing background to be of huge
benefit to their blossoming fair trade division. After a few months,
(which saw me settle into my own flat in Lucknow and join a local
yoga school,) I was given the responsibility of managing the
planning and roll-out of a social marketing strategy for NEED's fair
trade producer groups. Working with the team, we put together
marketing literature, developed a 12 month plan, devised a fair
trade marketing training programme for producer groups, built a
database of European Fair Trade companies, started to develop a
women's product brand and arranged a product display room. I even
helped design some new products for the European market - a kaftan
style top and a duvet cover set - that was great fun.
Before coming to NEED, I had tried not to build any preconceptions
of what my volunteering experience at an Indian NGO would be like.
But I could hardly have dared hope for a richer, more diverse
experience. From visiting one of the Non-formal Schools in the mango
block of Lucknow (Kakori) to manning reception at a statewide CSO
meeting, to attending a Fair Trade workshop in Delhi, Mr Singh made
sure that I really got involved and learnt loads.
My six months at NEED saw many great events and big changes, the
completion of the Woman centre (inaugurated with 24 hour Ramayan
chanting!), the launch of a fully-fledged microFinance division, the
introduction of handmade paper livelihood training… But I got the
feeling that things are always like that at NEED. Mr Singh is one of
the most proactive people I have ever met. Under his leadership,
NEED is emerging as a most professional, prolific and
multi-functional NGO. I extend my most heartfelt thanks to everyone
at NEED, who helped me understand the complex issues facing India's
rural poor, showed me some city sites and were patient with my
pigeon Hindi.
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