Making the world a better place

Every morning I get up and find that humanity faces more challenges with respect to water,energy,pollution,air quality,gap between rich and poor.

I also see tremendous progress in terms of solutions via discovery in science and technology.

In general human race is becoming more literate and in some ways more knowledegeable.

However I still find very strong missing links in terms use of knowledge and imagination.

I also find missing links in terms of application of resources.

We have started an experiment in 500 villages in Mewat region in North India where we are working in collaboration and co-creating an eco system with villagers,private companies,voluntary action,Govt departments and International organisations to create a Sustainable future for all.

Fundamentals are:

Villages are seen a source of growth
Unlocking women power
Using power of Networks

We have set a trust to act as catalyst and provide base.
The Trustee stay away from three areas controversial areas

They do not participate in local politics
They do not preach any religion
They do not benefit financially from any of these efforts.

We did a base survey ,followed by a Stakeholder meet.

In base survey of December 2004 the statistics were alarming:

Literacy was only 23% and for female it was just 2%.Household size was 9 people perfamily with land holding of just 2 acres per family.

We started with basic step of education with Pratham methodoly and used unpaid volunteers.
The community response indicated keen interest in education and unpaid volunteers were great source of talent for teaching jobs.
With bit of Networking,we were able to get more teachers and get the 6-14 year kids to school.
In january 2008,we found that 85% of children in this age range are going to school and learning well.The Govt who were in denial abou community interest in education had to appoint 5000 teachers to bring a ratio of 1 teacher for every 40 students.
Good beginning for this effort in less then 3 years.

Then we had to work with unemployed youth.
Private sector companies are looking for business opportunities in rural areas.
Connecting these unemployed youth to the private sector companies was good way to create win -win for all.
Out of 5 companies who started during last three years over 100 youth have been given work opportunities.
In April 2007,we started special classes for 14-19 year old girls.The were fast learners and quickly demanded sewing machines to learn sewing and to become entrepreneurs.This was very rapid and in six months some of these girls not only learnt reading and writing,they became entrepreneurs and started earning as much as 100$ a month.

In July 2008 we started a computer centre and 31 youth joined a learn computers and now we have started English teaching with computers.These are early days but we see this as great source of developing talent for BPO industry which is running short of talent.

To tackle health and hygiene we have taken two actions:
Like all human beings eyesights deteriorate when people cross 40.Rural areas are do different.Infact it is more in rural areas due to dust.
It is quite sad to see some people loosing eyesights early and then their life getting in to degradation.
We have organised eye camps and helped in cost effective eye restoration for over 2000 people.Some of the villages are now free from any eye problems.Of course work still goes on.

We also organised special lectures for girls in the age range of 14-19 on reproductive health to prepare them to be responsible women when they get married.

All of these are modest examples of what is possible when community is mobilised as stakeholders and when networks are utilised to tap in to expertise and resources.

The challenge of sustainable water is still unresolved.

My hope is that when humanity starts applying knoweldge and imagination in a creative way all these issues can be tackled.