ngo project final

Project on NGO (Non Government Organisation)

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION OF NGO

Globalization during the 20th century gave rise to the importance of NGOs. Non-Government

Organizations (NGOs) have become an irresistible global forcetoday. The non-governmental

sector, also known as voluntary sector, is growing in relation to its presence in developmental

activities. Its role in the sphere of human development is now widely recognized and

accepted in most parts of the universe. Basically, an NGO or voluntary organisations are non-

profit making agencies that are constituted with a vision by a group of like minded people,

committed for the uplift of the poor, marginalized, unprivileged, underprivileged,

impoverished, downtrodden and the needy and they are closer and accessible to the target

groups, flexible in administration, quicker in decision making, timely in action and

facilitating the people towards selfreliance ensuring their fullest participation in the whole

process of development. The rapid growth of NGOs has been clearly revealed in a major

multi-nation study conducted recently by Lester Salamon, who finds it as a major economic

and social force. He remarks that the global rise of the non-profit sector may be as important

a development of the latter twentieth century as the development of the nation-state was in

the nineteenth century. A surprisingly large scale of non-profit activity was found in almost

every place the study team looked for the study. The study, covering countries like France,

Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the UK, the US, Brazil, Ghana, India and supports the view

that the sector is undoubtedly making fast strides in many spheres of human activity. The

sector, as the study shows, has turned out to be a big employer offering employment to seven

million people in the US, 1.4 million in Japan, nearly one million in France, Germany and the

UK combined. It forms an average of 3.4 percent of these countries total work forces

employing one in every 11 workers holding service jobs. It is also found that the sector is

spending huge sums varying from 1.2 percent of the GDP in Hungary to6.3 percent in the US

with an average of 3.5 percent. Apparently, the growth of the voluntary sector has been

phenomenal particular during the last two decades. The presence of the NGOs, especially

those engaged in developmental efforts, has been strongly felt during these years. In fact, the

involvement of NGOs in development has become indispensable today.


It is estimated that about 10 percent -$ eight billion-public development aid world-wide is

now being routed through NGOs. The Indian situation has not been, however, different. It the

proliferation of NGOs is of any indication, the sector is expanding day to day. As per one

conservative estimate, the total number of NGOs is over 0.2 million.

This figure excludes organizations like trade unions, schools and hospital but includes only

those registered for certification for receiving foreign assistance. The magnitude of funds the

NGOs in the country handle today is another index to this growth. The annual budgets of

these organizations are now not a party sum but ranges from Rs. 30 million to 5000 million.

Today, the NGOs in the country assume a conspicuous role in multifarious developmental

programmes and activities. The achievements and success of NGOs in various fields and the

excellent work done by them in specific areas is no doubt a tremendous task that has helped

to meet the changing needs of the social system. However, insprite of its achievements in

various fields, NGOs are facing different problems which differ from organization to

organization, region to region.


TYPES OF NGOS

NGO types can be understood by their orientation and level of operation.

NGO type by level of orientation:

Charitable Orientation often involves a top-down paternalistic effort with little

participation by the "beneficiaries". It includes NGOs with activities directed toward

meeting the needs of the poor.

Service Orientation includes NGOs with activities such as the provision of health,

family planning or education services in which the programme is designed by the

NGO and people are expected to participate in its implementation and in receiving the

service.

Participatory Orientation is characterized by self-help projects where local people

are involved particularly in the implementation of a project by contributing cash,

tools, land, materials, labour etc. In the classical community development project,

participation begins with the need definition and continues into the planning and

implementation stages.

Empowering Orientation aims to help poor people develop a clearer understanding

of the social, political and economic factors affecting their lives, and to strengthen

their awareness of their own potential power to control their lives. There is maximum

involvement of the beneficiaries with NGOs acting as facilitators.

NGO type by level of operation:

Community-based Organizations (CBOs) arise out of people's own initiatives. They

can be responsible for raising the consciousness of the urban poor, helping them to

understand their rights in accessing needed services, and providing such services.

Citywide Organizations include organizations such as chambers of commerce and

industry, coalitions of business, ethnic or educational groups, and associations of

community organizations.

National NGOs include national organizations such a professional management , etc.

Some have state and city branches and assist local NGOs.


International NGOs range from secular agencies such as Redda Barna and Save the

Children organizations, OXFAM, CARE, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller

Foundation to religiously motivated groups. They can be responsible for funding local

NGOs, institutions and projects and implementing projects.

Apart from "NGO", there are many alternative or overlapping terms in use, including: third

sector organization (TSO), non-profit organization (NPO), voluntary organization (VO), civil

society organization (CSO), grassroots organization (GO), social movement organization

(SMO), private voluntary organization (PVO), self-help organization (SHO) and non-state

actors (NSAs).

Non-governmental organizations are a heterogeneous group. As a result, a long list of

additional acronyms has developed, including:

BINGO: 'Business-friendly International NGO' or 'Big International NGO'

TANGO: 'Technical Assistance NGO'

TSO: 'Third Sector Organization'

GONGO : 'Government-Operated NGOs' (set up by governments to look like NGOs in

order to qualify for outside aid or promote the interests of government)

DONGO: 'Donor Organized NGO'

INGO : 'International NGO'

QUANGO : 'Quasi-Autonomous NGO,' such as the International Organization for

Standardization (ISO). (The ISO is actually not purely an NGO, since its membership

is by nation, and each nation is represented by what the ISO Council determines to be

the 'most broadly representative' standardization body of a nation. That body might

itself be a nongovernmental organization; for example, the United States is

represented in ISO by the American National Standards Institute, which is

independent of the federal government. However, other countries can be represented

by national governmental agencies; this is the trend in Europe.)

National NGO: A non-governmental organization that exists only in one country. This

term is rare due to the globalization of non-governmental organizations, which causes

an NGO to exist in more than one country.

CSO : 'Civil Society Organization'

ENGO : 'Environmental NGO,' such as Greenpeace and WWF

NNGO: 'Northern NGO'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Fund_for_Nature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpeace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENGO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Standards_Institute

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUANGO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INGO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GONGO


PANGO: 'Party NGO,' set up by parties and disguised as NGOs to serve their political

matters.

SNGO: 'Southern NGO'

SCO: 'Social Change Organization'

TNGO: 'Transnational NGO.' The term emerged during the 1970s due to the increase

of environmental and economic issues in the global community. TNGO includes non-

governmental organizations that are not confined to only one country, but exist in two

or more countries.

GSO: Grassroots Support Organization

MANGO: 'Market Advocacy NGO'

NGDO: 'Non-governmental Development Organization'

USAID refers to NGOs as private voluntary organizations. However, many scholars have

argued that this definition is highly problematic as many NGOs are in fact state and corporate

funded and managed projects with professional staff.

NGOs exist for a variety of reasons, usually to further the political or social goals of their

members or founders. Examples include improving the state of the natural environment,

encouraging the observance of human rights, improving the welfare of the disadvantaged, or

representing a corporate agenda. However, there are a huge number of such organizations and

their goals cover a broad range of political and philosophical positions. This can also easily

be applied to private schools and athletic organizations.

Development, Environment and Human Rights NGOs

NGOs are organizations that work in many different fields, but the term is generally

associated with those seeking social transformation and improvements in quality of life.

Development NGOs are the most highly visible sector, and includes both international and

local organizations, as well as those working in humanitarian emergency sector. Many are

associated with international aid and voluntary donation, but there are also NGOs that choose

not to take funds from donors and try to generate funding in other ways, such as selling

handicrafts or charging for services.

Environmental NGOs are another sub-sector, and sometimes overlap with development

NGOs. An example is Greenpeace. Just like other NGOs networks, transnational

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpeace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_environment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAID

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots_Support_Organization


environmental networks might acquire a variety of benefits in sharing information with other

organizations, campaigning towards an issue, and exchanging contact information. Since

transnational environmental NGOs advocate for different issues like public goods, such as

pollution in the air, deforestation of areas and water issues, it is more difficult for them to

give their campaigns a human face than NGOs campaigning directly for human rights

issues .Some of the earliest forms of transnational environmental NGOs started to appear

after the Second World War with the creation of the International Union for the Conservation

of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). After the UN was formed in 1945, more

environmental NGO started to emerge in order to address more specific environmental

issues. In 1946, the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was

created with the purpose of advocating and representing scientific issues and collaboration

among environmental NGOs. In 1969, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the

Environment (SCOPE) was funded to increase and improve collaboration among

environmentalists. This collaboration was later reinforced and stimulated with the creation of

UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Program in 1971. In 1972, the UN Conference on the

Human Environment in Stockholm, tried to address the issues on Sweden’s plead for

international intervention on trans-boundary pollution from other European industrialized

nations.Transnational environmental NGOs have taken on diverse issues around the globe,

but one of the best-known cases involving the work of environmental NGO’s can be traced

back to Brazil during the 1980s. The United States got involved with deforestation concerns

due to the allegations of environmentalists dictating deforestation to be a global concern, and

after 1977 the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act added an Environmental and Natural Resources

section.

Human rights NGOs may also overlap with those in development, but are another distinct

category. Amnesty International is perhaps one of the best-known.

During the early 1980s the Brazilian government created the Polonoreste developing

program, which the World Bank agreed to finance. The Polonoreste program aimed to

urbanized areas of the Amazon, which were already occupied by local indigenous groups.

Rapid deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon called the attention and intervention of

UNESCO, who utilized its Program on Man and the Biosphere to advocate against the

Polonoreste program, on the grounds of violating the rights of the indigenous groups living in

the Amazon. In the case of deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, the environment NGOs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUCN


were able to put pressure on the World Bank to cancel the loans for the Polonoreste program.

Due to the leverage that the U.S. has over the bank, in 1985 the World Bank suspended the

financial aid to the Polonoreste Program. The work of environmental NGOs in the Brazilian

case was successful because there was a point of leverage that made the targeted actor

vulnerable to international pressure.

Even though NGOs might have common goals relating to development or environment

issues, interests and perspectives are diverse. A distinction can be made between the interests

and goals among those NGOs located in industrialized countries—often referred to as the

states of the North—and NGOs from nations located in developing countries—referred to as

states of the South. There is sometimes tension between them. Southern states blame the

developed nations for over-consumption and pollution resulting from industrialization, and

for sustaining inequalities in the international economic system

There is also a distinction among groups that take on particular and specific socio-economic

issues. The Women’s Environment and Development Organization was created in 1990 with

the purpose to advocate for gender inclusion in work related to the Earth Summit.


ACTIVITIES AND FUNCTIONS OF NGOS

There are also numerous classifications of NGOs. The typology the World Bank uses divides

them into Operational and Advocacy:

NGOs vary in their methods. Some act primarily as lobbyists, while others primarily conduct

programs and activities. For instance, an NGO such as Oxfam, concerned with poverty

alleviation, might provide needy people with the equipment and skills to find food and clean

drinking water, whereas an NGO like the FFDA helps through investigation and

documentation of human rights violations and provides legal assistance to victims of human

rights abuses. Others, such as Afghanistan Information Management Services, provide

specialized technical products and services to support development activities implemented on

the ground by other organizations.

NGOs were intended to fill a gap in government services, but in countries like India and

China, NGOs are slowly gaining a position in decision making. In the interest of

sustainability, most donors require that NGOs demonstrate a relationship with

governments.State Governments themselves are vulnerable because they lacking economic

resources, and potentially strategic planning and vision. They are therefore sometimes tightly

bound by a nexus of NGOs, political bodies, commercial organizations and major

donors/funders, making decisions that have short term outputs but no long term affect. In

India, for instance, NGOs are under regulated, political, and recipients of large government

and international donor funds. NGOs often take up responsibilities outside their skill ambit.

Governments have no access to the number of projects or amount of funding received by

these NGOs. There is a pressing need to regulate this group while not curtailing their unique

role as a supplement to government services.

Operational

Operational NGOs seek to "achieve small-scale change directly through projects." They

mobilize financial resources, materials and volunteers to create localized programs in the

field. They hold large-scale fundraising events, apply to governments and organizations for

grants and contracts in order to raise money for projects. They often operate in a hierarchical

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundraising

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Information_Management_Services

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFDA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxfam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank


structure; with a main headquarters staffed by professionals who plan projects, create

budgets, keep accounts, report, and communicate with operational fieldworkers who work

directly on projects Operational NGOs deal with a wide range of , but are most often

associated with the delivery of services and welfare, emergency relief and environmental

issues. Operational NGOs can be further categorized, one frequently used categorization is

the division into relief-oriented versus development-oriented organizations; they can also be

classified according to whether they stress service delivery or participation; or whether they

are religious or secular; and whether they are more public or private-oriented. Operational

NGOs can be community-based, national or international. The defining activity of

operational NGOs is implementing projects.

Campaigning

Campaigning NGOs seek to "achieve large-scale change promoted indirectly through

influence of the political system."Campaigning NGOs need an efficient and effective group

of professional members who are able to keep supporters informed, and motivated. They

must plan and host demonstrations and events that will keep their cause in the media. They

must maintain a large informed network of supporters who can be mobilized for events to

garner media attention and influence policy changes. The defining activity of campaigning

NGOs is holding demonstrations. Campaigning NGOs often deal with issues relating to

human rights, women's rights, children's rights. The primary purpose of an Advocacy NGO is

to defend or promote a specific cause. As opposed to operational project management, these

organizations typically try to raise awareness, acceptance and knowledge by lobbying, press

work and activist event.

Both operational and campaigning

It is not uncommon for NGOs to make use of both activities. Many times, operational NGOs

will use campaigning techniques if they continually face the same issues in the field that

could be remedied through policy changes. At the same time, Campaigning NGOs, like

human rights organizations often have programs that assist the individual victims they are

trying to help through their advocacy work.

Public relations


Non-governmental organizations need healthy relationships with the public to meet their

goals. Foundations and charities use sophisticated public relations campaigns to raise funds

and employ standard lobbying techniques with governments. Interest groups may be of

political importance because of their ability to influence social and political outcomes. A

code of ethics was established in 2002 by The World Association of Non Governmental

Organizations.

Project management

There is an increasing awareness that management techniques are crucial to project success in

non-governmental organizations.Generally, non-governmental organizations that are private

have either a community or environmental focus. They address varieties of issues such as

religion, emergency aid, or humanitarian affairs. They mobilize public support and voluntary

contributions for aid; they often have strong links with community groups in developing

countries, and they often work in areas where government-to-government aid is not possible.

NGOs are accepted as a part of the international relations landscape, and while they influence

national and multilateral policy-making, increasingly they are more directly involved in local

action.


NGOS IN INDIA

The vibrant history of Indian NGOs in the 60 years since independence has resulted in a more

broad-based sector, but one that still has to contend with problems of autonomy and

independence. While the Indian state does not exert absolute control over the NGO sector, it

is able to keep it in check and away from the national-level political processes, and in effect

set limits on NGOs’ role as empowerment agents. There are two major trends in Indian civil

society that have had an effect on development NGOs in the 2000s: first, the activist groups

of the 1960s and 1970s have abandoned the NGO as an institutional form, preferring informal

networks that are completely separate from the state regulatory frameworks and scrutiny,

seeing the state as inherently oppressive and not to be trusted (Chandhoke and Ghosh 1995;

Murthy and Rao 1997; Seth and Sethi 1991). However, the price they pay is that they remain

small-scale due to the very restricted access to resources (Murthy and Rao 1997). The second

trend is the emergence of fundamentalist movements such as the Hindutva (Hindu nationalist

movement) that are fundamentally undemocratic, opposing rational discourse based on

freedom and equality (Chandhoke 1995). Neither of these two changes help in having NGOs

engage in civil society processes: the total disengagement from the state weakens the process

for holding the state accountable, and the move to an intolerance of diversity of discourse

narrows the parameters in which the state can be engaged. NGOs are affected either way, as

they feel any engagement with the state on policy issues will draw hostile attention from both

social action groups on the one hand and the fundamentalists on the other. Now that social

activists and fundamentalists both occupy the political stage, NGOs feel their role is now in

helping marginalized groups advance their own interests and assert their rights themselves.

There is also a growing vulnerability of NGOs – particularly larger ones that are dependent

on foreign funding – to state scrutiny and the state’s capacity to cut off NGO resources. An

example of this is that the dependent relationship between NGOs and the state has limited the

level of networking among NGOs, due to competition among them for resources from the

state and foreign sources, and a fall in foreign funding sources in the 2000s.


The less supportive environment for NGOs has brought some of their less favourable

characteristics more to the fore: inflexibility, a feudal management style – being dominated

by powerful individuals with little devolution of power, and recruitment very much caste- or

personally based (Reddy 1987). Whether these characteristics are unique to NGOs or are

more or less an inherent style of institutional management in India is another matter. The

other side of this coin is that the decline in foreign funding relative to local funding, together

with deregulated international financial flows, may make it more difficult for NGOs to gain

greater autonomy from the state, especially if they are social change agents with broader

empowerment objectives. The regulatory pressures on NGOs through amendments to the

FCRA have been tightening; for example, in 2001 the Law Commission of India was

commissioned by government to prepare a series of amendments to the FCRA): these were

finally tabled in the Lok Sabha (Parliament) in 2006. Earlier amendments had already

resulted in substantial tightening; for example, all applicants for FCRA approval must obtain

an affidavit from the district administrator explaining the nature of their past and current

activities. The 2006 draft amendment proposed a further a tightening of FCRA including: the

renewing of FCRA registration every five years; stronger restrictions on engaging in religious

conversion activities but with vague definitions of the key terms ‘inducement’, or ‘indirectly

inducing a conversion’; a forward looking clause in which the certifying officer had to make

a judgment on the likelihood of non-compliance and whether a ‘meaningful’ project had been

prepared; a cap on administration expenses but with no supporting definitions; and finally the

provision for the state to dispose of assets purchased through foreign donations, something

that could put schools and hospitals at risk if they had changed hands in any way (Jalali 2008;

Parker 2007). On financial matters, an amendment in 2008 sought to remove the overall tax

exemption, if there are any business activities at all, and these could include any cost

recovery activities such as fees for running trainings and the like (AccountAble 2008). These

changes mirror a broader questioning globally of the purpose (and legitimacy) of NGOs, and

a tightening of NGOs’ administration, marking the relationship of the state to NGOs in the

opening years of the twenty-first century as one of mutual suspicion and a strongly

instrumentalist view of what NGOs are or should do (Jalali 2008; Kilby 2004).

Today, the NGOs in the country assume a conspicuous role in multifarious developmental

programmes and activities. The achievements and success of NGOs in various fields and the


excellent work done by them in specific areas is no doubt a tremendous task that has helped

to meet the changing needs of the social system.

The limits placed by the Indian government on the number of bilateral donors it deals with

saw all but six bilateral aid relationships terminated in 2003 (Times of India 2 June), provided

new opportunities for both the Indian government and international NGOs, at least in the

short term, to pick up the slack. This leads to the question of what makes the NGO sector

such an important sector for donors and government funders alike.

List Of NGO In Ulhasnagar:

Name Registration No. Address

Manav Vikas

Samajik Seva

Sanstha

MH/325-03/Thane

(26-03-1994)

Block No. A 315 / 630, Kurla Camp, Ulhasnagar

421004

Siddhant Samaj

Vikas Sanstha

MH-555-03-Thane

(12-06-2003)

Near municipal marathi school no 14 milind

nagar OT section ulhasnagar 421 004

Shivtirth Shikshan

Sanskrutik Krida

Sanstha

F/13144/Thane (23-

08-2004)

B/66 Kurla Camp, Near Municipal Garden,

Kurla Camp Chowk, Kurla Camp, Ulhasnagar-

421005 Dist Thane: Maharshtra India


Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha

Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha was established as a Public Charitable Trust in 1994 by

the Commissioner of the Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation and several prominent citizens

of the country. Over the years, the network has been expanded to various other cities where

minded people wanted to replicate the Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha experience.

Central to this massive expansion of Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha’s work has been a

whole new way of approaching the education problem in India and a new way of

implementing programs to create a national impact. We outline below the key milestones in

Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha’s journey.

The Initial Years: Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha began its operations by providing

pre-school education to the children in the slums of Mumbai. Contrary to the general mindset

of space being limited, Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha felt that an ideal space should not

be a pre-condition to providing pre-school education. There was enough space within each

community in temples, local offices, people’s houses etc. Thus volunteers were recruited

from within the communities and trained in early childhood education and encouraged to take

classes in any space available in the communities. They were also provided with teaching

learning material. Soon, the Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha Balwadis (Pre-school

classes) multiplied and were replicated in various other locations.

Gradually we came into contact with out-of-school children and in-school children who were

lagging behind academically and also were at the risk of dropping out. Many of these were

first generation learners and therefore lacked the required learning support from their

families. We started providing remedial education to these children through the Balsakhi

program. The Bridge classes conducted in the communities targeted out-of-school children

and aimed at bringing them to a minimum learning level before mainstreaming them into

schools.

Between 1999 and 2001, we expanded our work to cover 19 cities with similar models. In

addition we began working with child labour through our outreach program. In 2000 Manav

Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha was awarded the Global Development Network Award,

sponsored by the World Bank / Government of Japan, where Manav Vikas Samajik Seva

Sanstha was named as one of the top three "most innovative development projects”.


The Birth of the Learn to Read Technique and the shift to the Area Approach

By 2002-03, Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha initiatives in most locations had worked out

strategies on scale for direct delivery of pre-school education, school readiness programs and

remedial education.

In 2002-03 two major changes occurred that had a significant impact on our programs:

The Area Approach: We adopted the area approach for the delivery of our programs in urban

areas. The “area approach” was designed to “turn communities around” so that the first step

for the universalization of elementary education could be firmly taken. In this approach an

entire community or basti is selected for the interventions. This is better than a scattered

approach where it is difficult to track children who drop out from the programs. In the area

approach the only way a child may drop out is if he or she leaves the community and

migrates elsewhere. Low income slum pockets or villages of approximately 250 to 300

households are demarcated. This cluster is called a basti. Often such pockets are contiguous

to each other so that targeted stretches of slums achieve goals of every child going to school

and every child acquiring basic literacy and numeracy skills within a time bound manner.

Today, we are working in 4000 such bastis in 43 cities. Learn to Read: through our

experience with the learning support programs, we learnt that the average period of contact

available with children requiring additional help was not more than 2-3 months. This

necessitated the development of an alternative model/technique where a short term contact

could significantly impact the learning levels of children. There was a thought that “Isn’t

there a magic wand that will help us change the learning status of a child almost overnight?”

Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha’s Learn to Read (L2R) technique was thus born. L2R

was an accelerated learning technique targeted at teaching both in-school and out-of-school

children how to read in 4- 8 weeks. It was conceptualized as a non-linear method where the

children were exposed to multiple stimuli to help improve their learning levels. The first

innovation resulting from these efforts to develop this technique was to abandon the

sequential method of learning. Instead, Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha came up with an

integrated activity as it found that if four types of class activities (“say something; do

something; read something and write something”) are integrated together, learning was rapid.

The technique was based on the principle that when children were engaged in a variety of

activities which have implicit interconnections, they make the interconnections and these

snowball into a larger skill. This was “learning by doing” in action.


The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER):

As Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha progressed in its journey, it found it necessary to

quantify the problems of education in a manner that could lead to focused action. While

government surveys provided enrollment data, there were hardly any surveys providing

information on the quality of education. Also the government data on enrollment was not

independently verified and often not published. Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha felt that

citizens who were being levied a 2% (now 3%) cess on education since 2004 deserved to

know if their money was being used effectively and efficiently. Measuring the ASER (aser

means impact in Hindi) of their money was central to the ASER effort. But the primary

objective was to create awareness and inform citizens of the learning levels of their children.

A massive voluntary effort was thus set up across the country to conduct a household survey

which measured various basic and simple parameters of enrollment, facilities, and learning.

This survey, which covers over 16,000 households and over 700,000 children between

October and November each year in 95% of the rural districts of India, is reported in the

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in the following January .

Read India: ASER 2005 and 2006 findings revealed that in spite of having been in school

for over 2-5 years, a significant percentage of school children could not read, write or do

basic arithmetic. Findings of ASER 2005, revealed for example, that only 15% of children in

Std II and 25% in Std III could read a class 1 text. Likewise, only 17% children in Std II and

32% in Std III could solve subtraction problems. ASER 2006 continued to point to the gaps

in the learning levels of the children. To address this problem in January 2007, Manav Vikas

Samajik Seva Sanstha launched the Read India campaign to help all of India’s children aged

6-14 years learn to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. Instead of relying on governments to

ask for “people’s participation”, this movement talks of “people’s initiative and governments’

participation. The campaign is being implemented in 350 districts (600 in India) across 19

states in the country with the help of thousands of volunteers and the government school

system. It has already reached 21 million children. More than 350,000 volunteers have been

mobilized and 400,000 teachers and government officials have been trained. In most states

where the Read India campaign has been implemented, there has been a significant

improvement in the learning levels of the children.

Today the organization continues to expand both geographically and in terms of the scope of

work it undertakes. Several new programs have been introduced which include the computer

http://pratham.org/Menu-19-3.aspx



aided literacy program, English program, Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha Council for

Vulnerable children and the Skilling Initiative.

Vision & Mission:

Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha’s mission is to ensure “Every Child in School and

Learning Well ”. The organization is founded on the firm belief that education is the

fundamental right of every child and no child should be deprived of this basic right simply

because he/she does not have access to it or does not have the resources to realize his/her

dreams.

The principal focus of our programs is to ensure quantum and visible improvement in the

enrolment and learning levels of the underprivileged children.

The key principles which have guided the evolution of our programs over the years are:

1. Generating a societal mission is a necessary means of achieving the broad goal of

universal pre-school and primary school education.

2. Creating an impact on a large scale is essential to bring about a perceptible change.

3. Creating low cost models is critical to ensure sustainability and replicability of

interventions.

15 years after its formation, the Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha movement has become a

pan-Indian movement reaching millions of children across 19 states. Our programs are

designed to address a gamut of educational problems – pre-school education, learning support

to both in-school and out of school children, mainstreaming of out-of-school children,

computer literacy, vocational training for youth and special programs for vulnerable and

working children.

Aims/Objectives:

Improving the reading, writing and arithmetic levels of the children: Read India

Improving enrollment and learning levels of children in urban areas: Direct programs

Assessment, Survey, Evaluation and Research: ASER Centre

Working with vulnerable children: PCVC

Facilitating the use of IT: CAL

Working with underemployed and unemployed youth: PACE







Working in Early Childhood Care and Education: ECCE centre

Providing books to underprivileged children: Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha

Books

Activities Undertaken by the NGO:

Urban Learning Centres: Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha establishes Learning Centres

in communities where it is possible for us to find space to start one, as well as get children

who can pay a nominal fee. This fee is vital in creating a self-sustaining educational facility

within the given community wherein the program will have continuity in future even without

external funding. Given Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha’s focus on sustainability in

educational development, it is vital that the teachers, students, parents and community

members have an active stake in the program. Therefore, while the fee collected from each

student is minimal, the collection goes towards giving the community ownership of the

program.

Read India: Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha’s flagship program, Read India, helps to

improve the reading, writing and basic arithmetic skills of the children in the age group of 6-

14 years. Even though India has made significant strides in improving the enrollment levels

of the children, a lot still needs to be done as far as the learning levels are concerned.

Findings of ASER 2005 and 2006 revealed that a significant percentage of children could not

read, write and even do basic arithmetic. Read India was therefore launched on a national

scale in 2007 to help achieve the following objectives:

*All Std I children know at least alphabets & numbers.

*All Std II children can read atleast words & do simple sums.

*All Std III-V children can at least read simple texts fluently & confidently solve arithmetic

problems.

ASER: Facilitated by Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha, ASER(meaning impact in Hindi)

is the largest household survey undertaken in India by people outside the government. It


annually measures the enrollment as well as the reading and arithmetic levels of children in

the age group of 6-14 years. ASER is carried out by a local organization or institution in each

rural district in the country, using a common set of tools and a common sampling frame. In

2008, ASER reached over 7,04,000 children in 16,198 villages in 564 rural districts in India.

More than 32,000 volunteers from NGOs, colleges and universities, youth and women groups

participated in this effort.

Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha Council for Vulnerable Children: The

Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha Council for Vulnerable Children (PCVC -

www.pcvc.org) started its outreach program in Mumbai in the year 2001. For almost three

years the focus was on working children in the city of Mumbai, who were mainly found to

have been trafficked from different parts of the country. Facilitation of the task force

formation under the Government of Maharashtra saw the rescue and rehabilitation of almost

25000 working children in the city. It was a felt need to trace the roots of these children and

work in the source sending states from where the children belonged. In this view the work

was expanded to the source states.

Computer Aided Literacy: This is a school based program which caters to school going

children from 6-18 age group with about 40% children in secondary school age.

The objective of this program is

1) To impact children’s basic learning levels using IT and

2) To give them relevant IT knowledge and skills.

Vocational Skills programme:

Pace – the Skills Training Program: This program is targeted at the economically

disadvantaged youth in the 18-30 year age group. India has a large percentage of youth who

have not been able to complete their formal education and also do not have the required

vocational skills to begin fully employed. Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha’s Skills

Training Program tries to.

Early Childhood Care and Education Centre: The ECCE center was set up in 2007 to

leverage and institutionalize the experience Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha has in early

childhood care and education. Over the years, Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha has been


running a successful Balwadi program and in this process worked with and trained thousands

of volunteers and pre-school teachers. The center is an attempt to consolidate and share the

learning in this area through an institutional framework. Trainings in early childhood care and

education is the key activity of the resource centre. Trainings are conducted for government

and private pre-school teachers as well as for volunteers from within the community.

Through the collaboration with the government ICDS to train the Anganwadi workers, the

center seek to strengthen the government pre-school learning program. The center also

promotes entrepreneurial efforts in the field of ECCE. In addition, information on ECCE is

also provided to mothers and urban and rural poor so that they are empowered with

knowledge to improve the education and health of their children. Centers have been

established in Maharashtra, Hyderabad and Allahabad and efforts are underway to set up

additional centers.

Learnings Accumulated:

Clarity of goal:

“Every child in school and learning well” is the Manav Vikas Samajik Seva

Sanstha’s goal and it is toiling hard to achieve it. Every member of Manav Vikas

Samajik Seva Sanstha is properly aware of this goal and is working in line with it.

Clarity of goal is of utmost importance in any area as once you what your aim is then

and then only you can work for it.

Approach towards the achievement of the goal:

What to do is followed by how to do it. Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha is clear

in its goal and very well knows how to do it. Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha is

quiet correct in its approach for achieving its goal of education for all. It started a

concept of “Education for Education” where it provides free computer education to

the children who need it and these children in turn provide the basic education to the

younger ones.

Practical learning of management in rural area.

Manav Vikas Samajik Seva Sanstha helped me learn the management of resources in

rural area. I learned about the condition of education and the thought process of the


people for education in rural India. It helped me adopt a practical approach for

learning and teaching in that segment.

Optimum utilization of resources:

It taught me to manage with the limited number of resources in the best possible

manner. Providing education in an area where there is no educational environment

and in the lack of major resources like electricity has been made possible only

through hard work and clear intention of attaining the common goal.

Good coordination among members.

Hiring of local people.

Building up good relation with local communities and people.

Experience with rural sector.

ngo project final

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