The Covid-19 crisis has once again brought the importance of building our rural communities and empowering them to take control of their own lives. Recently, I was part of a small but very special event to mark our work to reduce our congenital heart disease, hosted by the Swades Foundation which honors parents, children, Doctors, hospitals and district administrators. Dr Manish Chokhandre (Pediatric Cardiologist, Wokhardt Hospital), one of the amazing Doctors in attendance said the importance of the Swades Foundation was a bridge connecting rural communities to the best care available in the country.
It is true, but our dream is much more than that. Our dream is to build a comprehensive rural development model that can lift a million people out of poverty every 5 years and GET OUT. In this regard the work we do at the level is at the heart of our vision. We need to build strong rural communities and get out. It is true, but our dream is much more than that. Our dream is to build a comprehensive rural development model that can lift a million people out of poverty every 5 years and GET OUT. In this regard the work we do at the grassroots level is at the heart of our vision. We need to build strong rural communities and get out.
Since 2000, the Swades have been using various water harvesting programs, indoor toilets and self-help groups in rural Raigad. In 20012 we decided to raise not just money but our time, resources and all the good we had in building the Swades Foundation.
Our perfect model, initially met with great skepticism from many, but today we can say that it is one of our greatest strengths. There is no silver bullet to end poverty and the perfect model is the key we are trapped in: domestic drinking water, home toilets, health, education and livelihoods. ANOTHER DIFFERENCE is that 90% of our 270 full-time employees work directly at the grassroots level, while another 1000 are community volunteers who make it a solid murder base that affects more than 5.5 lac people today in 2500+ cities today.
Our main source of strength outside our team is the 1000 Village Development Committees that we established last year. The VDC participates and is democratic and ensures the representation of men, women and youth. Swades empowers this VDC by making them responsible for formalizing their village development plans and aligning themselves with continuous skills development and holding hands to work on that. With more than 1000 VDCs already created, success is achieved not only by Swades intervention but also by emerging as leaders of their village development.
For example, the Varagavne tribal hamlet (Sudhagad) was without electricity and in the last one year, the VDC with the support of the Swades merged with all spheres of government and in this case closed the area to electricity. The Swades supported the establishment of the necessary communications but made the whole process of communicating with government agencies.
Similarly, Majare (Sudhagad) is a small tribal area of 11 tribes, all of which are home to kaccha. Often overlooked by rural people, and other institutions, they live alone. It took three district development strategies to make the residents and residents of Majare realize that they could consider living in a cement house and post office that the VDC worked hard to get GharkulYojna of GOI and their application was approved. After heavy rains the construction of these 11 houses will begin!
During the epidemic, many empowering stories of community support emerged. Kasaishet, an isolated hill station in Sudhagad, faced many challenges during the closure. Villagers who could not afford to buy one meal a day were challenged as they lost their daily income during the closure. The VDC empowered took on the task of integrating food for the affected families, ensuring all means of prevention and social cohesion. VDC Empowered helped us help communities and worked through the challenges of Covid and Nisarg, we never gave up.
These success stories are an indication of how empowerment at the grassroots level can contribute to the overall development of the village. The 360 - degree model has supported more than 34,000 families with safe drinking water and made the Raigad Open Defecation Free by building more than 23,500 toilets for each household. We have ensured the testing and treatment of nearly half a million people to prevent blindness and to work with more than 1,000 schools to make learning fun and complete or to involve more than 35,000 homes in income-generating activities. The Swades 360-degree model invites us, repeats and analyzes and proves its impact on transforming rural lives.
