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SBI Youth for India Fellowship
The SBI Youth for India Fellowship works with 13 eminent NGOs as our partners. These NGOs work in diverse program areas across India and have a strong reach in rural communities.
Action for Social Advancement (ASA)
Action for Social Advancement (ASA), is a nonprofit development organization registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and the Bombay Public Trust Act. 1950. It was established in 1996 with the objective of working alongside the tribal community of India to implement the promotion of farm-based livelihoods of small and marginal farmers. The team is led by professionals who have long-term experience at the grassroots level working for the development of natural resources. ASA works on the three intrinsically connected pivots of natural resource development that island, water, and agriculture contributing to 60 percent of the Indian population for both employment and livelihood. Their participatory work on these pointers has enabled them to achieve effective preservation and management of natural resources thereby making the community at the center of their overall development.
ASA has broadened the horizon of their work in three strands, which are natural resources augmentation, promotion of sustainable agricultural practices for intensification and diversifying the products, and creating suitable market linkages through credit, insurance and value chain, etc. ASA places Community Based Organizations (CBOs) like Self Help Groups (SHGs) and Farmer Producer Organizations as the bedrock of all the programs. In this model, women and the rural poor play the most important role in bringing about development in the community whereby 98 percent of the SHGs promoted by ASA are women.
ACCORD
ACCORD (1986) was formed to tackle the historical injustices, exploitation and exclusion faced by the adivasis of the Gudalur valley of the Nilgiri Hills. The Govt. of India has classified them as Particularly Vulnerable Tribes. The organisation is driven, led and run by the community.
The vision is to ensure social justice in all aspects of life – economic, health, education and cultural identity. ACCORD’s mission is to ensure that the adivasis participate in mainstream society on their own terms with dignity and pride.
The key areas of interventions include social justice, economic development, education, health and rights & entitlements.
AKRSP (I)
Established by His Highness the Aga Khan in 1983, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme in India Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India) is a non-denominational, non-government development organization. AKRSP(I) works as a catalyst for the betterment of rural communities by providing direct support to local communities. AKRSP(I) is active in over 2400 villages of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. It has impacted lives of over 1.5 million people from marginalised sections of society. Over 80% of the households impacted by AKRSP(I)’s work belong to marginalised communities like tribals, dalits, and minorities. Over 60% of beneficiaries are women who form a core group for program interventions.
The backbone of AKRSP(I)’s work is the empowerment of rural communities, particularly in underprivileged communities and for women – through collectivization as well as promotion of individual enterprises. Building self-reliant people’s institutions for financial inclusion, livelihoods enhancement and improved rural governance is the heart of the organization’s approach.
BAIF DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH FOUNDATION
In 1967, Dr. Manibhai Desai, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi established BAIF Development Research Foundation (formerly registered as Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation) with an aim to promote sustainable livelihood in Rural India.
BAIF has evolved innovative models of micro-enterprises to ensure inclusive development through dairy husbandry, goat rearing, agri-horti-forestry and sustainable agricultural production for food security and poverty alleviation. BAIF today serves over 1 lakh villages in backward regions of 16 states in India. The increased value of the produce generated through BAIF’s activities contributes over Rs.5000 crores to the National GDP each year. Most of these programmes are serving as result demonstrations for wider replication across the country.
BAREFOOT COLLEGE
The Barefoot College registered as the Social Work Research Centre (SWRC) has been working in partnership with rural communities in India to improve the quality of life of the rural poor. The life of families who subsist on daily income have basic needs which still need to be addressed: food, hunger, water, health, education, waste management & environment, women’s empowerment, and employment.
SWRC has also engaged with major campaigns in Rajasthan on all issues of concern, including governance. Established in 1972, the SWRC – Barefoot College is a community-based organization that has been providing basic services and solutions to problems in rural communities, with the objective of making them self-sufficient and sustainable. These ‘Barefoot solutions’ can be broadly categorized into solar energy, water, education, health care, rural handicrafts, people’s action, communication, women’s empowerment, and wasteland development.
CHIRAG
CHIRAG is a rural development organization based in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand in India. Founded in 1986 by Late Shri Kanai Lall, our goal is to improve the quality of life of the families residing in the Central Himalayan region with special emphasis on women, children and the disadvantaged. Given the extent of dependency on local resources, our approach is to connect our various interventions so that the community can develop and progress in a holistic fashion. Consequently, our activities are diverse. We work on issues related to education, health, natural resource management, and livelihood programs.
DHAN FOUNDATION
With a mission to build people and institutions for developmental innovations, Development of Humane Action (DHAN) Foundation was founded on October 2, 1997. Its aim is not to serve the poor but to enable them. DHAN works towards reducing poverty through making the communities self-reliant. DHAN facilitates innovation and development of intellectual capabilities by bringing highly motivated, educated young women and men to the development sector. DHAN Foundation runs various programmes for the development of rural sector that covers livelihood, water for irrigation, bridging urban-rural divide through Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Coastal Conservation and Livelihood Programme (Initiated to carry on relief work after 2004 tsunami), making rain fed farming viable and developing tourism for development.
Building women’s self-help groups and their federations and enabling them for community ownership and sustainability are key elements of the approach. Over 40,618 primary groups at village/slum level covering more than 609,139 families have been promoted across India and the groups have been networked into more than 209 federations.
GRAM VIKAS
In 1970, when student volunteers with the Young Students’ Movement for Development came to Orissa to serve victims of a devastating cyclone, they didn’t know that transforming lives will become their way of life. Gram Vikas was founded in 1979 under the inspirational leadership of Joe Madiath.
Gram Vikas partners with rural communities to address their critical needs for safe drinking water, sanitation, health, education, livelihoods and alternate energy in a manner that is sustainable, socially inclusive, gender equitable and empowering. Gram Vikas is credited with impacting 70,000 families in 1200 villages (between the period of 1992 to 2016). Since 2004, Gram Vikas strategized it’s approach – MANTRA (Movement and Action Network for Transformation of Rural Areas), which defines the strategic orientation that Gram Vikas has chosen to adopt, seeking to unify the parallel approaches being followed in the Integrated Tribal Development Programme (ITDP) and the Rural Health and Environment Programme (RHEP). It is an approach towards holistic and integrated rural development in different states across India and a few countries in Africa.
Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS)
Samaj Pragati Sahayog (SPS), is an organization registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. As per the act, the Executive Committee (EC), is the highest decision-making body and the executive powers are vested in the secretary. SPS over the last three decades has emerged as India’s largest grassroots organization working in the domain areas of water and livelihood security. The organization takes immense inspiration from the life and works of Baba Amte (the organization’s Pramukh Sahayogi), who during his time rejected charity and successfully empowered the rural poor. SPS has its headquarters in the drought-prone, tribal belt of the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh. The organization rests its trust on the concept of an alternative development model based on the principles of equity, sustainability, and people’s empowerment by finding ways to improve economic growth. The area of focus being agriculture, and the organization has been trying to address the crisis in agriculture by evolving an alternative low-risk and low-cost approach, reducing dependence on chemical inputs. They are also trying to work on alternative livelihood means to reduce the dependence of the people on agriculture. Women play a key role in every initiative and hold strong institutional positions.
SEWA BHARAT
SEWA Bharat is part of the national SEWA movement. Established in 1984, it is a national federation of SEWA organizations of women working in the informal economy. SEWA Bharat emerged out of the need to address the SEWA movement’s challenges with geographical expansion and coordination. SEWA Bharat is comprised of a family of SEWA organizations to further informal women workers’ rights, livelihoods, financial independence, education, health and social security.
SEVA MANDIR
Seva Mandir was founded by Dr. M.S. Mehta in 1966 with a mission to make real the idea of a society consisting of free and equal citizens who are able to come together to solve the problems that affect them in their particular contexts. It currently works with over 3,60,000 people across 700 villages of southern Rajasthan. For over 45 years, Seva Mandir has worked in partnership with the village residents not only to improve their material well-being, but to build stronger and more ethical communities. Through its programs on governance, health, education, sustainable use of natural resources, women’s empowerment, youth development, child care and social enterprise, Seva Mandir makes a tangible and transformative impact.
THE ANT
The Ant was started on 13th October 2000 by Sunil Kaul and Jennifer Liang. Sunil Kaul had been a medical doctor in the army, who later left to work in villages first in Rajasthan and since 1996 in Assam. Jennifer Liang on the other hand, was a trained social worker from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, who also came to the northeast in 1996. Both of them were supported by (Late) Sh. Ravindranath Upadhyay, a reputed Gandhian of the Sarvodaya Movement who had worked in remote villages of Assam for over 40 years. They came together to start The Ant, where the main goal was to work for the development of the northeast region through voluntary action. The Ant works in the areas of women empowerment, children’s development and protection, community health, handloom, and much more.
URMUL
The URMUL Rural Health, Research and Development Trust, Bikaner was initiated by URMUL Dairy (Uttari Rajasthan Cooperative Milk Union Ltd.), Bikaner in 1983. URMUL Trust represents a family of organizations working towards social and economic change in the lives of the people in the harsh, inhospitable and interior regions of western Rajasthan. What keeps the organisations and Trust together are a set of shared feelings, values and commitment about work and processes of development. The care of the development premise of the URMUL TRUST is an intrinsic faith in the capacity of rural people to devise, manage and sustain development programmes. Since its inception there has been an unflinching commitment towards strengthening the processes of local initiative and leadership both within the organisation as well as at the village level. Most of the members of the Urmul Trust are natives of the Thar, and others represent various institutes and cadres of repute. Urmul’s work is focused on vulnerable sections of the society, women and children.