Integrated Model of Development
We envision a self-reliant and sustainable community
For creating permanent positive change, the community has to take the lead and strategize. Thus having community ownership is the essential ingredient. It helps in maintaining and operating the current infrastructure and resources in the village. Ground realities and native wisdom have the power to transform vision and provide solutions to some of the most difficult challenges.
We let them create their own plans, connect them to government schemes, even other non-government organizations (NGOs), and then help them where we can so that they have a stake in the process. They must feel a strong sense of ownership and pride.
A holistic model of development needs to be at the core of sustainable change in rural India. We believe and invest in communities to be change agents which would result in their holistic development as per the standards defined by them and not enforced on to them externally. We facilitate communities to follow 360-degree approach for the village empowerment to make EACH household self-reliant.
What goes into making a dream village, a self-reliant and sustainable community? We do it in a systematic way taking care and involving all actors in the community ecosystem:
This is how we are empowering the community ecosystem:
- Identifying people’s social and economic needs through VDP
- Defining activities that can mobilize the complete community
- Working with local government bodies and institutions for providing health and jobs
- Using resources from current government schemes and development models
- Repairing and renovating existing infrastructure
- Strengthening the Gram Panchayats and people’s collectives
- Providing quality education
Breaking free of socio economic barriers is critical to breaking the cycle of poverty. Our team works with local communities to improve access to education, rehabilitate existing infrastructure, and provide essential educational resources to all. By focusing on integrated child development services and mobilization activities, we encourage parents to send both their sons and daughters to school—eliminating gender inequality—and eradicate caste-class discrimination.
Water & Sanitation development model
Access to clean water is the key to healthy living. If people don’t get clean water and sanitation, they can become vulnerable to malnutrition and waterborne diseases. To tackle these issues, we take an integrated approach to development of constructing and rehabilitating clean water systems. We fix hand pumps, restrooms, and hand-washing washing stations. We also organize educational health workshops to make people aware of staying healthy with clean water.
Healthy living: a sustainable development model
When communities are healthy, they can break free from their socio economic barriers. To make health services accessible to people in rural areas in India, we are working with anganwadis and government-run health centers that specifically support mothers and children.
Mothers are fundamental to ensure the health and quality of life of children as they are the main providers of care such as nutrition, hygiene and psychological health. The children grow up to be healthy, responsible and contributing citizens in the future. Thus we work backwards to ensure good health of girls and women to build healthy communities. Through awareness programs we encourage pregnant and lactating mothers to access supplementary nutrition, immunization and health check-ups under National Rural Health Mission of GoI. We are also linking communities with Government schemes like ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) for food, preschool education, and primary healthcare to children under 6 years of age and their mothers.
Food security for integrated development
India is an agricultural country. In some rural areas, droughts devastate the land and cause soil erosion, leading to various issues. Our efforts aim towards providing for school gardens, agricultural training, pasture development, provision of tools and resources, tree planting, and crop irrigation. With these efforts, we make sure our communities learn to solve their agri-based issues.
Livelihood opportunity with integrated rural development
When families have enough income, they can invest in the betterment of their children. We are working with marginalized families and communities, and empowering them via capacity-building workshops and income-generating activities. We believe in employing locally but with rising incomes and higher productivity. Generating means of livelihood to eradicate poverty and provide jobs with minimum guaranteed wages. The positive economic growth also influences community’s life and amounts out better lives for women, children and elderly.
Providing better quality of life to small farmers families by helping them build sustainable and economical agricultural systems. We are also working to highlight the important role of women farmers and SHGs in contributing to the economic model of the community. We also believe in driving development through entrepreneurship and building young rural leaders for nation building.
Local Leadership Development for Informed Dialogue and Rights
We believe in creating leaders who are informed and empowered to continue development efforts without or with only minimal support.
For creating self-sustaining communities, empowered to transform their own lives, strong community driven institutions are a must. We develop and work with People’s Collectives with equal representation of men, women and youth in the community who help in ensuring that all community efforts have synergy.
