Editorial

I was in Pune yesterday to attend a meeting organised by ASHOKA alongwith a group of NRIs who wanted to test a new concept - Social Development Agents in districts of India.

The presentations made one thing very very clear and I urge people to take a note of it.
Many people, in their youthful energy thought that they can change the world on their own. They believed that they were better than any government in any form at any level.

After years of experience, everyone realised that they must work with the government. If they have any difference of opinion, it was important that it was shared with communities and all stakeholders in a dialogue mode and may be at times in debate mode, but surely not in a mode where they thought they were different and the government was different.

This was indeed heartning and it is important that all the people realise that the best way to deal with situations that can be termed as problems or challanges is through dialogues. And more dialogues. Unending they may seem at times, but that is the only solution.

In the same meeting, I met a couple of outstanding people. Babloo Ganguly of Timbaktu Collective - whom I had interacted earlier on phone and Elango - who I met for the first time.

The open air backdrop at the YASHADA Academy provided the right platform to learn the great work Elango is doing as a Sarpanch of Kuthambakkam village which is just 30 Kms away from Chennai. We will share Elango's detailed interview with you soon. But do visit http://www.modelvillageindia.org.in/

Babloo has been working in Anantpur District for last so many years - 1991 onwards and in the last 17 years they have completely changed the 130 odd villages in and around Timbaktu. We will share the data Babloo and his team of 100 people have collected soon. In the meantime,
Read the interview of Babloo taken in October 2007

While the meeting in Pune was encouraging, somewhere I thought we might not be able to become an ideal developed nation by 2020 and it may happen in 2047. I think that is one challenge we must work on vigorously now because the 27 years gap is too big for a billion of us.

Malnutrition
Against this backdrop of hope, I got a shocking mail from Prakash who said that Khalwa block of Khandwa District in MP is losing children almost everyday because of malnutrition. Just a few days back we had put this information online.

638387.org will now invite people to help Spandan Samaj Seva Samiti directly.

HUL
IndianNGOs.com is working with Hindustan Unilever Ltd on volunteering managment and you will be happy to note that almost a thousand of their employees - right from CEO Nitin Paranjpe are visiting Municipal Schools, talking to children on safe water. And wait. All of them are getting impressed by the smart children in BMC schools. Surely there is hope.

I think
our role is getting wider but surely clearer.
There are thousands of wonderful NGOs working for millions of people and there are other stakeholders who are keen to support the communities through credible NGOs.
How wonderful it would be to promote sustainable partnerships between these and many other stakeholders.

Sanjay Bapat
September 18, 2008

Archieves
August 23, 2008
August 15, 2008
January 26, 2008