Holiday Donations

Hi all,
     I hope this December finds you in a good state as the holiday season is among us. I know there is a lot of pressures associated with the time of year and I certainly do not want to add to that. However, I would like to suggest, if you interested, that you consider giving some small donation to our organization, either as a gift to someone (in which case I could email you a brochure that explains our work to give to the person) or just as a bit of holiday giving. You can give by sending a check to our US office:

Friends of Lok Sahbhagi Sanstha

2541 Dana St. #2

Berkeley, CA 94704, United States

The check can be made out to Friends of Lok Sahbhagi Sanstha. 

Consider supporting our work in microcredit and youth technology education. The loans provides vital help in bringing in agricultural income. Technology access is sparse in the rural areas and we are working on changing that.


    There are many deserving causes out there and I (Derek) encourage giving to charity for the holidays, since it feels good and helps people out. As for LSS, every dollar given to us really counts, whether it goes towards having training meetings for new women's microfinance groups, or towards needed computer equipment for our programs geared towards expanding access in rural India to computers, or towards the salaries of our dedicated and hard-working field staff, Rohitash, Shyam and Gopal. Please consider us for a donation during this holiday season!

    As I've mentioned in past posts, during the first three years of any NGO's existence in India it has to have an oversight organization monitoring its activities. For LSS, this organization is Naman Sewa Samiti. For this service, they charge a 17.5% fee. This fee does not directly go towards our work and I feel responsible to report this to you if you are considering donating. There is also an unavoidable fee of about 1-2% when you do money transfers overseas. With that said, I hope you will consider us for a donation. I hope everyone has a very happy holiday season and that I see some of you soon!

Strategy for next year for computer programs

 An overarching question of this post is how to get these students practicing on the computers during the school year. See below for our ideas.

Hi all,
    Another update on the progress of LSS. The field workers and I have been having good conversations about our strategy for the upcoming year, especially about how to measure progress and how to overcome hurdles that have already been encountered in setting up the youth leadership and technology groups (YLTGs). 

   First, let's talk about the hurdles we've encountered with the YLTGs. The main issue is that during the school year parents want their children, understandably, to focus on their studies. So, this leads them to not let their children to come to work on the computer. Exacerbating factors are the long distance that many of the students live from the center, even if they're in the same village (things are spread out in rural areas, obviously) and the intermittent electricity in the village area. Our solution: have an intensive period during April-July when the students tend to have less school (because it's so hot in India, the students get out at 1 pm or so) and use that to build the students' skills. Also, we will work to get them engaged during their other school breaks. Our hope is that once the parents see the skills their children are learning on the computer, they will allow us to have them out once a week for a couple hours to continue the learning. This is one example of adapting to the local culture and conditions to get community buy in. This is essential in any NGO's work.

A picture of one of our YLTGs from the summer. We will have a similar program next summer and will work to get somewhat less frequent meeting during the school year.

   So, we will work to be ready for that intensive period in April-July, when we plan to teach the students word and excel. We will come up with a timeline and curriculum for what they will be learning in the coming months. On a shorter timescale, we will get the groups together during the students' winter break and get them working on the computer again. Pictures to come from that!

 Discussion with the members of SEGs about our programs is one of the crucial ways that we receive input about and improve our work. That is one of their critical functions. This was shown in our computer work. See paragraph below.


   A few more notes along this line. First of all, the process that led to our solution for obstacles encountered by the YLTGs embodies our approach and shows the importance of the women's microfinance groups (SEGs) outside of the strictly economic benefits they provide(which are large as well). So, we knew about the problem with lower attendance starting in August, with only a handful of students showing up, generally those that lived nearby. We discussed the issue amongst ourselves and tried to figure out how we could improve the situation. Additionally, the workers discussed the issue with the women in the SEGs and got their input on how to improve community buy in and how to make it easier for the students to attend the groups. The genesis of these discussions was the plan I have given above, with an intensive period in April-July to build skills rapidly, and then further work, less frequently, during the heart of the school year, to maintain skills. This shows how our organization is cooperative within itself, with all of us discussing matters and coming up with a solution. Additionally, we are always soliciting input from the communities in which we work, especially from the women in the SEGs. In this way, our work is very informed by local conditions and can improve to fit the contours of the situation. It is a model we believe in dearly, and we think it is a cornerstone of our success. Finally, I would like to mention that we hope to get the students the needed skills and comfort with computers so that the high schools that have computers will allow the students to use them. The teachers don't currently let the students use the computers because they think they will break them. We hope our work will allow the teachers to trust the students to use the computers, thus further advancing technological literacy in the village areas. This is more of a medium-term goal, but one we will keep our eye on.

  We will be starting a village information center in April to widely disseminate information on government programs and policy and agriculture. We will also allow access to computers for, e.g. job applications. See below. 

   Onto another topic: we are going to start a pilot community information center in the village of Kukrella in April of next year. The purpose of this center will be to provide a center for various types of literature on agriculture, government policy, etc.; to provide newspapers for people to read; and to allow for better usage of the computers we currently have for the YLTGs when the students are in school. The idea for this latter point is that the computers will be available for the wider village to use for job applications, school applications, looking up information, or whatever use for which they need it (that will surely develop with time!). Larger towns in the area have such centers, but thus far the villages where we work do not have them and that puts the villagers at a disadvantage in terms of jobs and educational prospects, as well as information needed for their livelihood. We will be working to expand access to information through technology and traditional means. This combines one of our core missions of spreading technological literacy in village areas with the key goal of equalizing access to information and resources for villagers. We will continue to refine this idea and I will keep you updated as this progresses.

  As an overarching feature of all of this computer work, we will be developing metric to measure our progress during the coming year. We will most likely develop a survey that probes how much various people in the village, especially the youth, have learned and benefited from the presence of our computers and programs. From this information, we will further refine our programs. When this survey is available, you will be the first to see it!

We will be developing a survey to gauge the success of our computer work (see above paragraph). Additionally, we have carried out surveying of the area in which we work to gauge educational and socioeconomic factors and the analysis of this data will be available in December (see paragraph below).
 
    I know this post has been a bit long, but I've got just a couple more very short points to add. One is that we have undertaken surveying work in the area in which we work, to figure out the educational and socioeconomic status of the population. This is a VERY complex subject that deserves it's own blog post, so that will have to come later. The bottom line is that we want to target our programs and work to the needs of the community. To do this, we need to know what the conditions of the population and sub-communities of the population are. Issues we will look to address are education, gender, below poverty line families, and caste-related issue. Again, all very complicated, but I will discuss it in due time. At the beginning of my holiday break I will be analyzing the data and putting it into reports. I will post them here for you to read.

Shyam Singh sitting at left at an SEG meeting in Barwara. He is a new staff member of LSS.

 Finally, we have taken on another worker at half-time. His name is Shyam Singh and we have worked with him in the past. He will come on full time as funds are available, most likely in 2013 when we have our registration to receive foreign funds without having to put them through an oversight agency that takes 17.5% off the top. That will free up the funds needed to hire Shyam full time. He is every bit as experienced as Rohitash and Gopal, he is also local to the area, and he also has a very nuanced understanding of the needs of the local community. He will be a tremendous asset to LSS going forward and we are most happy to have him.

Organization Bank Account and Website

Hi all,
     So it's been a bit since I last posted, but progress has been going steadily. Most excitingly, we have developed a formal webpage to tell our organization's story and to raise funds. Please do visit it and give feedback:

https://sites.google.com/site/loksahbhagisanstha/home
 
     The site is still under development, but is an important step for us as an organization. To couple with the new website, our sister American organization, Friends of Lok Sahbhagi Sanstha, now has an organizational bank account so that we can directly and transparently take donations. This account will be audited regularly and relevant financial information will be posted to the website annually. This makes me feel good because I think it will make people much more comfortable in giving to the organization. I'm very happy about this development. A big thanks to Richard Johnson from our board for driving some of the recent work in establishing this sister organization.


     Other things have also happened since I last posted. An audit of LSS's account for the Indian financial year of April 2010 to March 2011 (our first year of operation) has been carried out, with details to be posted on the webpage soon. Additionally, brochures for our organization are going to be printed shortly for dissemination within India, and we have decided on expanding the number of microfinance groups in the last few months of the year, since that work is going very well and we want to expand our reach. We are marching on with our progress, so that's great.

     A few interesting things of note from the last month as well:

1. There's been a small hiatus in microfinance group meetings because it is time for the millet harvest. Millet is a staple in India, important for both human and animal consumption.

2. I am super excited for the announcement of a $35 table being made in India for the rural poor:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/05/indias-35-tablet-is-here-for-real-called-aakash-costs-60/

We have already talked about this within LSS and will be looking to use these tablets for our work. Stay tuned for developments with this. This could be game-changing and very exciting!


3. Rohitash and Gopal have been collecting data from the field area, which they will send to me for analysis. From this we hope to better understand the population we are working with and target our work to their needs.

4. We will be re-gearing our approach to the youth leadership and technology groups. Since the students are quite busy during the year, with both schoolwork and farmwork, we need to make better use of the computers dedicated to this program. We want them to still be available to the students when they have time to learn about them during the school year, but we are also moving to create Village Information Centers where the whole village can use the computers. The idea would be to use them for online applications, which are becoming ever more common in India, and other such uses where not have a computer seriously handicaps villagers. We will be strategizing about this new model over the next several months, with an aim to implement it starting next year. If you have any ideas for how to make this work better please let us know.

That's all for now. Have a great week!

1st Loan Recipient Photos

I have some exciting things to share today, namely photos of some of the first loan recipients from our microfinance groups (or SEGs). I think these photos really bring home the fact that this work is about the bread and butter of rural people's livelihood and supporting them in their efforts to secure sources of income and economic growth. They really bring a swell of joy to my heart.

A women in Kukrella who has taken a loan to buy a goat. The milk will be used in the family or sold.

A women in Barwara who has taken a loan to buy fertilizer for her millet, or bajra, crops. They have grown nicely. The millet harvest will be in few weeks. Villagers use millet to make bread and as a feed for livestock. It is a crucial crop in rural Rajasthan. Notice in her left hand the pink booklet. It is the booklet where they record their monthly contributions to the group's central fund as well as details about loans they take and pay back.

A women in Barwara, also in her millet field. I'm not sure if she took a loan to buy the seeds themselves or the fertilizer. I will inquire. Notice the pink booklet here as well. Looking good.

We are getting ready to launch the website in the next week, so be on the look out for that. In the future we will post the photos of the women taking the loans with the outcome of their loans in a special "Loan of the Month" section of the website that really highlights this work and its importance. For now, it just brings a smile to my face to see these photos. Truly heart warming. Below are some photos showing a women doing the book-keeping for a group an a women filling out the form to take a loan. The cycle goes on! Look out for more photos of our loan recipients soon. Happy Labor Day!

A group member in Barwara filling out the form to take a loan.

An SEG group member doing the book-keeping for the group, recording who has given their monthly contribution to the central fund and who has taken a loan that month, if anybody.

Non-Profit status obtained, and some more photos

Hi all, just a quick post to give the exciting news that we have obtained non profit status in the state of Colorado. Here access to our public record, including the papers we filed.

This is a very exciting step in the process, as it means we'll be able to have our own bank account and take donations in a more direct and transparent way. It's also the first step to getting 501(3)(c) status, which will allow people to give to the organization and get tax benefits. This will of course help. We're slowing making progress in growing the organization, so that's great.

Also, here's some more photos from the field.


A discussion about issues relevant to the women in one of the self-empowerment groups.


Kukrella group meeting.


A woman from the Kukrella self-empowerment group filling out the form for taking out a loan from the group's central fund.



A few photos of the YTLG in Kukrella. Students taking notes and learning about the computers.

Anyways, we're making steady progress, as this milestone of getting non-profit status shows. We're additionally currently working on a plan to expand the centers where we are housing the computers for the Youth Technology and Leadership groups into village information and computer centers. Stay tuned for information as this plan develops. Thanks for all your support!

Example Rules and Regulations, adjusting to the school year, and progress on the US front

All, it's been a little while since my last post, so I thought I'd give a little update on the organization's work.


The rules and regulations of our microfinance groups can be found below.

First of all, I am happy to report that I have a translation of an example of the Rules and Regulations for our micro-finance groups, or SEGS. I have posted it below. Part of it are missing due to translation issues, but the bulk of it is there. As you can see there is a very clear set of rules by which the groups operate and which determines the interest rates on loans, the period of payback, and so forth. It also establishes dispute arbitration and other necessary aspects of group endeavors. The translation was actually done by an engineer in silicon valley that I met on the plane coming back from CO after the 4th of July. His name his Hitesh Gupta and I owe him a great debt of gratitude. I could've probably done it on my own, but it would've taken a long time and would have eaten into my research time. I greatly appreciate Hitesh's contribution and want to thank him for his help. He is also interested in helping us in the future, so I look forward to having his input in coming times.


Generic picture of Indian students. Not my own.

I also wanted to mention that with the start of the school year in India (on July 1st) we are currently work on adjusting the schedules of our youth leadership and technology groups (YLTGs). Actually, it is a quite busy time for the students both because it is school time and many crops are being harvested, while others are being planted. Hence, we have to adjust the program to make it doable for them. To that end, we are allowing the students to come at their convenience during the week to work on the computers and get practice. We are additionally trying to set up times on Sunday when we can meet with the groups with all the members together so that we can keep the group as a cohesive unit. We will continue to adjust the program to get the right balance in the time to come.

Another exciting bit of news is that we got an offer from one of the Indian organizers of the program through which I originally went to India as a student, the Minnesota Studies in International Development (MSID) program, to host a student in our NGO. This is very heartening news, as I think it indicates that people are seeing our that we have established our organization and program in a sound manner. I hope that when I go to India again next year that I will meet with one of our interns. That would be very cool.


501(3)(c) status, something we're working towards right now.

From the US front, we have our nonprofit incorporation papers all drafted and are in the process of submitting them. I think they should go through without much of a problem and then we'll start looking at 501(3)(c) status. I'm happy at the progress in establishing a sister support organization here in the US. I think shortly we'll have an official organizational bank account and then a little bit after that, tax exempt donation status. We're moving in that direction. We got help on the papers from a lawyer, pro-bono, so we are very grateful for that. Another example of people chipping in a little bit to help this little organization along. Very grateful for that.

Finally, it looks like we'll have an official website with a lot of the information from this blog collated in one-place by the end of this month. I'll probably write a specific post just to announce its functionality. The website has already been purchased and will be lssrj.org. Be on the lookout for that.

Here are the rules and regulations, courtesy of Hitesh's translation:

Self Empowerment Group's Creation and Administration Rules
------------------------------------------

1. Goal of the group : Social and economic development, social upliftment through establishment of bank balance

2. Intent of group: Saving and establishing group's administration, motivating people in the organization to work as a team, development, getting loan to fulfill the collective and related needs of the group, start collective work, deal with the bank, cleanness, study, culture, education, sports etc

3. Group's name and address :

4. Citizenship/Origin : The organization will consist of one village with women of the same educational and economic retardation . The group will have women between the age of 18 to 50 years.

5. Amount of Stipend : Between 50 to 100 rupees including food per month for each member of the organization

6. Election of organization's head: Based on every member's agreement, the head will be chosen for 2 years. This way every one in the the team will get an opportunity to head the organization. However for some reason, the election does not take place, the elected head will continue chairing the organization. There will be two heads. First: Adesh Second: Sanjeev.

7. Group head's duties and obligations :
Adesh : list of responsibilities
Sanjeev: different set of responsibilities

8. Group's meeting day, time, place :- All members of the group will decide to meet once a month. Most of the time, the meeting should take place in the afternoon between 12 to 3pm. The location will be decided based on convenience of the group.

9. Opening a bank account :- The balance will be … stored in the name of self help organization's account. The account will be under the name of the two heads and they will take care of the account.

10. Giving the loan and asking for the loan: Only after the group's account has 5000 Rs will the money be loaned to group members. The interest will be more/less that the normal market price which will be decided by the group. The loan will be obtained only after a letter from the group.

11. Maximum loan given by organization and interest rate:- Every one will decide the amount of loan given, however in the beginning, the amount will be start from a small amount. Depending on the balance left, the loan amount can be increased. Interest will be 1 to 2 rupees monthly per each hundred rupees of the loan.

12. Punishment for non payment of loan :- All members of the organization will decide how much fine will the person late will have to pay. However the amount will be on a daily basis.

13. After how much time is the money paid back and who is responsible to make sure the money is paid back: The group will decide the time limit, but it will not be more than 1 year. From the loan taker's group, 2 people will be chosen and will be responsible to make sure that loan is returned on time.

14. Dispute settlement : Dispute settlement will be done by the entire membership of the group.

15. Punishment on breaking the rules:- If one member breaks a rule, all members will decide on how to punish the person. Whatever the group decides, that member will have to accept. If that member does not accept the decision, the group will have the right to keep that person's entire balance and take away his membership.

16.

17. Way to obtain new membership to the group: Based on agreement of all members, new members will be accepted.

18. Who would keep important records and what will be kept: Adesh and Sanjeev will keep the records. To make sure records are kept correctly, from time to time, it will be audited. The responsibility of this would be on everyone.

19. Punishment for not coming to monthly meeting on time:- It is important to attend punctually the monthly meeting. However if some member has to go out of town, then he has to give his monthly payment to some other member. However if this happens more than 2 times in a year or the member comes late, the group can fine him 5 to 10 rupees. The rule of coming on time is also valid for family members.

20. How will decisions be made by the group: Decisions will be made on a timely manner after all member sit down and discuss.

21. Goal of Lok Sahbhagi Sanstha :

22.

23. Depositing Money To The Bank : After the group does all the transactions during its meeting, and if money is left, then administrative members will deposit money to the bank. Ordinary members cannot deposit money to the bank.

Numbers of group members and so much more

The crack group that was in India at the end of May. Left to right: Gopal Singh, Meg Fowler, Derek Vigil, Rohitash Kumar Meena, Grant Larsen.


Microcredit group activity from the past month.


Students at one of our youth technology and leadership group (YTLG) sites.


Close up of some girls and boys at the meeting of the YLTG

LSSer's, this is a quick post detailing some of the developments in our computer education program and other organizational details.

First of all, I'm excited to post details on the numbers of groups we have running, the numbers of group members, and in the case of the microfinance groups, the amount of saving per month and total savings.

First the youth technology and leadership groups (YTLGs). Here are the numbers:



As you can, see we already have a good number of girls, though more boys than girls. We'll obviously try to get the gender ratio as even as possible, but in such a conservative area, this is already an excellent results. As I've said in the past, I am excited that girls are already being sent to the group and are being allowed to sit in the same group as the boys. I thought achieving this would take a lot of work, but what we are seeing is very heavy community buy-in into this program, with excitement from the students, the parents, and the large community. We'll work to sustain this excitement in the upcoming time. For now we are devising how to best have the students use the computer resources during their school years, which just started July 1st (there is a two month summer vacation in India, starting in May).

Here are the numbers on the microfinance groups:



The first column is the group id, the second column is the group name (basically the village name), the third column is the number of group members, the 4th column is the monthly contribution, and the 5th column is the total saving rate. Note that the 4th column can differ from group to group because the groups decide in their rules and regulations what the monthly contribution should be. We have seven groups operating, with a goal to expand to 10 by the end of the year. We want to keep our expansion at a reasonable rate so that we don't take on more than we can handle. Making sure the five computer groups and 10 microfinance groups are running well will more than occupy us for the rest of the year, and probably next year as well.

As for the US side, we have finished drafting our non-profit incorporation papers and have submitted them to an attorney for review. I am hoping we can have them submitted within a week or two, after which we will wait for approval and start looking at forming a 501(3)(c).

Finally, I would like to mention that we have decided to name the microfinance groups Self-Empowerment Groups (SEGs) because we think this best reflects their larger social purpose. We would like to rename the Youth Leadership and Technology Groups (YLTGs) because the name is not snappy or memorable. Please let me know if you have any ideas for new names.

I would also like to say that I'm very happy with the momentum that is building for the organization. I'm meeting many people who are interested in helping in one way or another, and I think we've done a good job of taking input from many people. I'm proud of how this organization is being built from the ground up, with ideas taken from many places to build as dynamic and productive structure and organization as possible. Thanks to all of you who have supported the organization materially, or through your efforts and ideas. It honestly brings a great swell to my heart and tears to my eyes to see what is becoming of this organization. Thank you so much!

Things are going great. Have a great day.

Work update: more photos and US incorporation

Hi all, I'm just writing to give a quick update on the work in the field and some developments in the US. I'm very excited to have new photos from the youth technology groups.

So, let's start there. We have the 5 groups set up now, for the 5 computers we currently have in our possession (two of which are a special desktop system with two monitors, keyboards and mouses). 3 of the computers are laptops that were donated by James Arnott, my brother Denny, and D. Quan, so I want to thank them so much for their donations. Their computers are already seeing action, as you can see in the photos below. Note that these are fresh photos taken by the field workers. This is another payoff to my visit to India, as I showed the workers how to compress photos so they could send them over their slower internet connection.










The three new groups where the laptops are being employed are in the villages of Pando, Amloda, and Kukrela. The first two groups, employing the dual desktop system, are in Barwara and Mohan Gujar ki Dhani. I don't have numbers for the three new groups, but a few weeks back the numbers for Barwara group were 13 girls and no boys, and for Mohan Gujar ki Dhani it was 18 girls and 13 boys. We are trying to get the girls' groups started first, as perhaps the biggest sub-theme of all of our work is women's empowerment. As I've said in the past, I am exceedingly happy that there has not been much resistance to getting the girls in these youth technology groups, as I was expecting to have to fight for it given the how socially conservative the village area in Rajasthan is. I think this is a testament to the work that Rohitash and Gopal have done in the area, especially with micro-finance groups, as these have brought women out into the open and given them more of a voice. Given the recent report put out by the TrustLaw ranking India as one of the top 5 worst places for women, this is crucial work being undertaken by very experienced workers who were doing this before it was widely recognized as being so important. I'm very happy to have Rohitash and Gopal on the LSS staff.

As for the technology group in general, we have found very positive responses from the students, their parents, and even a school official from a local school that one of the workers talk to. They all see the need for this computer education to give their students a leg up. The parents are sending their boys and girls and are excited for the program. The students are excited to learn about computers and are working hard in the classes. So, we're very happy about the positive feeling to start the program, which is never a given when you introduce something new. We are working on sustaining this positive feeling by developing strategies for how we'll run the classes when the students are in school (it's summer break in India right now as well) and by developing a time line for introducing new programs for the students to learn. The beginning progression will be paint, then word, then excel. After that the program is open and we'll have to think about what we want to do. However, I think the first three programs will be immensely helpful to students, especially those considering going to university. Something else I am look into is typing software like school-age kids in the US to do improve their typing speed. Based on my experience in India many typers are one finger typers, so such training would be useful. We are open to suggestion, so if you've read about something please let us know! The program will evolve over the next couple years as we try to find things that work and then try to apply for some grants or monies from businesses to support the model that emerges. So far, very happy with the results.


Another picture from our visit to Kukrela. This is when the women decided to dress Meg up in traditional Rajasthani clothing. Fun interaction.


Picture from Kukrela. I believe that is Grant Larsen's arm to the left.

Before I get onto US business, I wanted to mention that we have microfinance groups running in the 5 villages in which we have the computer groups and also the village of Berki. Some villages have multiple groups, as we limit the size to 20 members to keep them tractable. We will slowly expand into other villages, as there is a lot of demand already. We want to go slowly so that we operate within our current constraints and only expand as we have the human and capital resources. I think with the two workers we can probably support double, maybe triple the number of groups we have now, perhaps more. Also, I will be posting an example of the rules and regulations created by a specific microfinance group in the coming weeks. I have to translate a 4-page document from Hndi, so it'll take a little while but I think this will be useful for you to see.

Finally, on the US front we are getting some important work done. Meg is working on the website which we think will be up in July, so that'll be exciting. Much of what I've put on this blog will be formalized and put in specific spots on the website so that it'll be easier to access. I think we'll also have a spot for tracking the different loans that are being taken out by MFG members with perhaps accompanying photos.

Another exciting thing is that we have good momentum going on filing for non-profit status in CO, with plans to submit our papers on the weekend of the 4th of July. After this, if we get approval, we will work on getting 501(3)(c) status from the federal government, with hopes to get the paperwork submitted in September. Obviously all of this subject to many bumps along the way, but I'm investing some serious time on looking up the laws and regulations for non-profits and how we can make the transition from an informal organization to non-profit corporation. The process of setting up a transparent, efficient organization will surely be a learning process, but one that I look forward to greatly. I can think of no better use of my time.

That's it for all. I want to again thank all the people who have given to our organization. Your support is invaluable to our functioning (3 out of the 5 youth technology groups are running with donated laptops!) as an organization and I hope you enjoy the photos of your material support in action.

Long-term strategy and organizational mission

Gopal Singh playing with a baby at the same MFG group meeting. This is typical. Interaction with groups members and their kids is an important part of building the relationship between LSS and the village.


Gopal Singh writing in the ledger for the MFG in Kukrela during our most recent visit.


Grant Larsen at Kukrela MFG meeting.


Meg Fowler at Kukrela MFG meeting.

Hi all, I'm writing today to talk about the long-term strategy and focus of our organization, Lok Sahbhagi Sanstha, or Public Participatory Institution. I have mentioned most of it here already in the past, but through conversations while I was in India, we have distilled it into succint statements (which I will expand on below).

Our current mission statement: "Community empowerment through microfinance and technology."

Let's go through what this mission statement entails. Community empowerment means that we are not trying to "help" these people by giving them things from our pockets, but instead we engage them in a process of self-improvement that is driven and sustained by their own conversations and efforts. Through this process they feel empowered. Right now our primary area of work is in microfinance, through the microfinance groups for women that we run, and youth technology education. This explains the mission statement.

I would say this mission statement accurately reflects our current work and in some sense our plans for future expansion, but most likely it will be revised in a couple years. The primary reason for this is that we also plan on working in environmental management, especially water harvesting. For this work we need large block grants, since it typically involves a lot of labor to build the necessary water harvesting structures (dams, ditches, various types of barriers). We will wait until our three-year "trial period" required by the Indian government is over before we try to apply for such capital intensive projects. In a sense this work will involve technology, since we'll often bring in engineers to help design the water harvesting structures. However, most of the work will be manual and will be using earthen structures, so to see it would not bring visions of technology per se. Nonetheless, we believe this is the most appropriate mission statement for the organization at the present.


Grant and Ghalib working on the content of the brochure

Now, directly from the brochure is how we as an organization see our work:

Lok Sahbhagi Sansthan (LSS), or Public Participatory Institution (PPI), is a non-government organization registered under the Rajasthan Society Registration Act, 1958. With its head office based at the village Khora, Shahpura, Jaipur, it has started working primarily in the fields of Technical Education, Microfinance and Natural Resource Management.

The organization enjoys the benefit of several regular and irregular young and highly experienced members.

The members have rich experience with implementing many such programs at the community level and are capable in realizing novel ideas in the field.

LSS aims to sensitize and encourage people, especially youths, to go to schools and provide venues where they can learn how to handle and do work on computers efficiently. The goal is to open up new venues of livelihoods for them and thereby pick up the pace of their developmental process. Different centers for free computer education are being set up in the villages.

The current area selected by LSS lags behind in terms of education, technical education and job venues. The basic facilities for education, health and electricity are also poor in the whole selected area. LSS encourages the villagers to come out of their houses and to work together for their development and actively participate in the ongoing developmental processes.

Programs and Activities

Enabling poor youths to make use of technology and providing some venues to have technical knowledge and skills.

Imparting computer education through opening computer education centers in villages.

Facilitating villagers in the formation of Microfinance Groups (MFGs), in which local women pool resources to provide microfinance for each other.

Sensitizing people regarding natural resource conservation and management.

Conservation of forest, wild life and fauna and flora of the region.

"We become uncomfortable when we see that certain sections of societies are not in a position to keep up the pace of development while others are quite comfortably maintaining the pace. Identifying reasons for this and removing them is our priority."



Rohitash and I discussing our long-term plans and hopes for LSS


Finally, a quick word on our organizational structure. LSS is a development group, of which I am a part. My role is as an advisor on matters technical and with regards to the long-term vision of the organization, coordinator of international outreach, and fund contributor. Rohitash and Gopal run the office in India and run all of the microfinance groups and youth technology groups. For decisions of importance to the running of the organization and its long-term strategy, we three discuss the matter and agree upon a way forward, perhaps with input from others with experience. For day-to-day operations in India, obviously Rohitash and Gopal make the decisions, though if it seems that there is an issue that comes up that needs discussion they of course mention in our frequent phone call and email discussions. I trust these two tremendously and think anyone who has worked with them can vouch for their honesty, passion, toughness, and desire to bring development to the village area, where they and their families reside.

Work update and microcredit groups

Hi all, here is another update from our visit to India, which is basically winding down since we’ll be returning to the US in a few days.



Our work the last week or so has consisted of visiting several microcredit groups and seeing how Rohitash and Gopal facilitate the meetings, as well as talking to the group members (with translation by Rohitash and Gopal) about the groups and their benefits. We have also been working on a brochure for the organization, which means we wrote concisely our mission, working goals, long-term strategy, etc. This has been a very useful and informative process, for which a good friend with vast experience in Indian NGO work, one Syed Ghalib Hussein from Patna has been a tremendous help. Ghalib is very good at getting people talking about the organization and its ultimate purpose or focus. He is also good at distilling what he hears into concise statements that make clear to the outside what is at the heart of an organization. It has been great to have him with us.



So, some details (more to come later):

Microcredit groups: first of all, as James Arnott pointed out to me in the past, what our organization does is not strictly microcredit, but microfinance, as the women can take the money and use it for medicine, school uniforms and other things that will not give an immediate profit that can be used to pay the loan back. Microcredit is where small loans are taken to buy things that could yield profit with which the loan could be paid back, e.g. livestock that will yield milk to be sold, seeds that will yield at the harvest, etc. Our groups do this, but they allow others types of loan, hence we are technically doing microfinance.



A recycled photo from James' visit to the microcredit group in Berki, which we also visited this week.

How the groups work: Rohitash and Gopal will first an initiate a conversation with members of the village in which they want to work. After this they will come back several times to discuss the benefits of such groups, and usually the village decides to allow the start of a group. Once this is done, Rohitash and Gopal meet with the women who come to the group and tell them about the purpose of the groups. Then the women discuss amongst themselves and decide the parameters of the groups: when and for how long the group meets, how much each member contribute to the groups central fund each month, how long the length of loan should be, what the rate of interest should be (more on this below) what the penalty is for late payment, etc. The basic idea of our groups is that women come together monthly and contribute a set amount, say Rs 50, to the central fund of the group. From the central fund the members of the group can take loans for the purposes mentioned above and others. The women who takes a loan has a set amount of time, say 3 months, to pay it back with interest. Interest is charged at some annual rate, say 24%, to grow the groups’ funds. I must emphasize that the interest is not being charged by any bank and is going directly into the groups’ central fund, so it is benefiting the members by expanding the amount of credit they have available.

A penalty is implemented for late payment, say 10 Rs per thousand rupees loaned per day. This is of course to insure timely payment of the funds. Provisions are made for uncontrollable circumstances, such as a poor monsoon that wipes out any gains that might have been made from a purchase of seeds. In such a case the group members decide collectively what should be done. Usually an extension of the loan period is given. Rohitash and Gopal have told me that in their experience it has never happened that someone could not pay back the money some how (I think this is partly because of extensive family networks) and that the groups can always reach a consensus on what to do in such extenuating circumstances. Note how group discussion is at the crux of the group operation.

Besides the economic benefits of these groups, they are vehicles for social change. For the two hours that the group meets, the members discuss issues that face them and are open to discussing these issues with the NGO workers. Discussion can range over topics such as the importance of sending girls to school, to the importance of voting, to the exercising of their rights, e.g. the use of those government programs that are available to them without paying bribes, and so forth. Additionally, the women become more aware of their own power through such discussions, realizing that they have the ability to make certain decisions (e.g. when their daughters get married), the ability to do basic book keeping and hence become economic caretakers of the family (this is surprisingly powerful), and much more.




A picture of a group member writing in the ledger that tracks the groups' monthly contributions and loans taken out. The group has their own ledger and we have our copy as well. Each group member also has their own personal book in which they track their contributions and loans. The goal is to train the women in the workings of the group via the monthly meetings and intensive trips to the NGO office in which the issues of women's empowerment are even more strongly emphasized.. We want to pass off complete control to them within 2-3 years, with the literate women in the group taking care of the ledger.


This is the subtle benefit that is almost impossible to measure but is almost certainly the most important part. I will post photos of the women who take loans and what they took the loans for, as I think it is important to track and see the concrete economic benefit. However, I will also post pictures of the group discussions and I would invite those of you reading this to consider coming to Rajasthan to see them yourselves. To me, my heart is greatly warmed by the sight of these rural, largely sequestered women coming together and thoroughly debating and discussing the issues before them. To me why they work as social vehicle is clear just from watching this. Rohitash and Gopal have seen the social change in their 17-year careers, where at the beginning they had to talk with villages for very long periods of time in order to even be allowed to start the groups. This was because the women were basically never allowed out of the houses and to socialize with people outside the family. Now it is a relatively rapid process to start such a group because the benefits have been seen, and women can much more openly move about and talk with outsiders, both Indian and foreign.

As I'm writing this Gopal has pointed out a few more things to me: all group members from different castes sit together and one space and are equals in the groups. This, in addition to urging of gender equality, creates an environment that nurtures a sense of equality that will help rid this part of India of the great evils of caste and gender inequality. They also help with social justice issues, such as advising group members of where they can take advantage of legal advice for some problem they might have. Great stuff.


I’ll have another post about the brochure and long-term strategy soon. I’ll also try to get some more pictures in this post at some point soon.

Work in the village area

All,
We've been in the village area since Friday May 20th. As I write this it is Wednesday May 25th in the evening in India. It has been a bit of a whirlwind, as always, but it's been fun. I just want to give a quick update. Due to the short nature of the trip and all the work that is to be done, most of the information will be posted here after we get back to the US. Here we go.

We have visited three microcredit groups, or self-help groups (SHGs), in Kukrela, Barwara, and Berki, and have had fun and interesting conversations therein. We have had a chance to see how the groups operate and how the members interact with Rohitash and Gopal, LSS's field workers. For the microcredit groups, we have seen how they set the rules and regulations for their groups, eg how much money is contributed per month per member, the length of the loan, etc. All of this information will be posted on the proper website that should be online this summer.




We have also visited the youth leadership and technology groups (YLTGs) in the two villages in which they are currently set up, Mohan Gujar ki Dani and Barwara. The other three will be set up shortly. At Mohan Gujar ki Dani we were pleasantly surprised that at first the group was set up with boys due to cultural issues, but then the parents sent the girls too, so that now the group is roughly half boys and half girls! This is an unbelievable success in and of itself, as I thought we would have to work quite hard in order to get the parents to allow the girls out to be parts of our group. I think it is a testament to the hunger there is for learning computers, as there is knowledge that the future will lie increasing technical advancement and aptitude is necessary. There really is such opportunity here, as before the group started none of the group members had used a computer at all, a situation that is surely repeated throughout India and the developing world. I know we will have to do a lot of work to make sure this bears fruit, but the first signs are very encouraging.

Below I have posted some photos of what the students have learned to do. Recall that none of them knew anything before this week. After a week or two of instruction and scrupulous notetaking on their part, the students have learned how to find the program they need by first clicking the "start" tab on windows and finding the appropriated program. They have also learned how to open files, save files, undo changes, close programs and files, type a little, and use paint. We started with paint because it is intuitive and fun for the first-time user. We will soon move onto MS Word. Perhaps after that we can do Excel and Powerpoint, and if there is further desire, I would love to see some technical software used. We'll get to that soon enough. I hope this is enough to sate your interest in our work thus far. There's been lots of useful conversation about the philosophy and operation of the NGO that I don't have time to post now, but which will go on a future blog post or website. Suffice it to say, I think the opportunities for positive social change here are enormous and I'm excited to a part of it. All the best from India!



The notebook of one student, where they've written all the parts of the computer. There were thorough notes for about ten pages writing about the different parts of the computer and the different commands that are of immediate use. Impressively detailed.



A female student working on a drawing of a house. She seemed slightly more capable than the male student whose work is shown below. Just a little faster and efficient.



The work of a male student. It is a flagpole with the Indian flag. He also typed some words, such as "Great India". Nice.



The students listening as I explain why I think the work of the group is important and why we have chosen to undertake this activity. We also fielded their questions as to why they thought the group was important. At my right are Gopal Singh, an LSS fieldworker, and the computer teacher for the groups.



A picture showing the group members. Note that there are basically an equal number of males and females, which is a feat and something unexpected. This has been a great boost to start with.