Current Projects

Akshara Foundation - Every child in school and learning well

Established in the year 2000, Akshara Foundation focuses on quality child education– that every child in Bangalore is in school and learning well. In 4 years they have touched the lives of over 85,000 children.

Over the years, the initiative has picked up rapid momentum; through its national network “Pratham” – its vision has been carried to over one million children across India.

To know more about Akshara, please visit: http://www.akshara.org

ILID’s involvement

Besides the regular review meetings of the programs and actions initiated, we have been organizing strategic review meet for the critical players of the Foundation’s management team. A specific goals-based strategic planning exercise has been undertaken, resulting in a major decision to transfer the ownership of their nearly 500 “Balwadis” to the community. The implementation is under way.

Janaagraha - The life force of the people

Janaagraha is a citizen's movement based in Bangalore committed to increasing citizen participation in local government: the practice of participatory democracy. It runs three campaigns that engage citizens, government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and corporate institutions, each stakeholders with an interest in a better Bangalore.

For more on Janaagraha , please visit: http://www.janaagraha.org

ILID’s involvement

We consulted to Janaagraha in its extensive strategic planning exercise, including visions, goals, structure, and action plans. We held a workshop on ‘Why-What-How Documents’ in keeping with the new governance and management structure evolved. This set the tone for revision of Why-What-How documents by all the program coordinators who presented their final version within a short timeline. These are serving as blueprints for action.

The three outcomes of the retreat are:

• Ownership of programs
• Focus
• Governance and management structure

Additionally, we have assisted in formation of governance and management structure. It has helped in creating framework for HR & Volunteer management and also for Training and Communication

eGovernments Foundation - Technology for Social Change

eGovernments Foundation is a registered not-for-profit trust whose mission is to provide an eGovernance Software System for use in Corporations and Municipalities all across India - for free. The goal of the eGovernance system is to improve Governance in India, and bring about accountability and transparency through the effective use of IT and Process Re-engineering.
eGovernments Foundation has thus far developed the eGovern Platform and four main software applications for computerization of city corporations, which are:

• Property Tax System
• GIS application
• Birth & Death Registration and
• Public Grievances

eGovernments Software is currently being installed by the Bangalore Mahanagar Pailke, the Directorate of Municipal Corporation, Karnataka for deploying in 57 cities across Karnataka, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Punjab Government, West Bengal government, and other invitations are pouring in.

To know more about eGovernments Foundation, please visit http://www.egovernments.org

ILID’s involvement

We helped the Foundation in its strategic planning sessions; provided review and feedback on its approaches to scalability and replicability missions. A specific insight was the need for expansion of leadership and this has been successfully completed.

Our involvement resulted in eGovernment Foundation inducting a qualified resource person into the top management team. Thus enabling the span of control over the program and monitoring of planned development.

Project Pygmalion

This project aims to teach spoken English to school going children in rural areas, who are deprived from achieving their full potential, find good employment and there by enhance the quality of their lives and families.

We looked for an innovative method for creating a ‘level playing field’ by helping rural poor children to speak English. Today this “ILID method” authored by Soundara Rajan has been introduced in five rural schools with the regular teachers being trained to use this method, – and ten more schools are on the way.

ILID’s involvement

IlLID has been the creator of this project from inception in its “Incubation” role. We have been a partner in every aspect, ranging from funding, to developing the methodology of teaching, to introducing it to five schools (at present). In this environment images substitute text; sounds add rhythm or nuance; visual representation dominates; approach is phonetic; a bi-lingual approach and Kanglish (Kannada + English) replaces immersion methods.

Saathi – Focusing on youth living on the train platforms

This NGO is engaged in rescuing runaway children found on railway platforms and placing them back in their homes. Saathi helps Government homes to trace parents of the children from different states, train their staff, and involve citizens for better management. In Karnataka, the Government runs 28 homes, housing 500 children and repatriates 200 children per year.

Saathi spends Rs. 2000 per child, all costs inclusive. In Maharashtra, Mumbai's two homes have a thousand children.

For more on Saathi, please visit http://www.saathi.org

ILID’s involvement

ILID has undertaken strategic review meetings with Saathi leadership and staff and identified the areas of support Saathi would require, namely:

• volunteer suport for follow-up and counselling
• Parent counseling, de-addiction programs
• Financial assistance for education

Additionally, ILID has been presenting Saathi's work around the world in various forms to seem funding and resources.

Project Prathibha Poshak

Pratibha Poshak is an effort by Vidya Poshak (a society for development of education) and Prerana, an NGO to support meritorious students facing financial difficulty in continuing higher education. It has provided financial assistance to more than 1500 students to the extent of Rs. 5 million.

Timely support has helped:

• Bright students who otherwise would have discontinued their higher education
• Students in choosing the right institution & courses
• Lower operating costs - 85% to student beneficiaries
• Provide entrance exam coaching to ensure better ranks for the students

To know more about this project, visit http://www.vidyaposhak.org/PratibhaPoshak.html

ILID’s involvement

• We have been drafted to provide strategic review support and conduct regular discussions with the various members of the two organizations - Vidya Poshak and Prerana.
• We will hold an additional decisive round of discussions to help Prathibha Poshak scale up with greater organizational resource strength and higher quantum of financial support. We did a Spoken English need identification for Prathibha and we are designing a process for it

Citizen consumer and civic Action Group

Citizen consumer and civic Action Group (CAG) came into existence in 1985, as a non profit, voluntary professional citizens’ group. Its mission is to deal with consumer protection issues, such as:

• Issues affecting citizens such as lack of urban planning and poor governance
• Environmental problems
  

ILID’s involvement

Following several rounds of discussions with the management team of CAG, we conducted a VISTAR workshop for the CAG early this year. We collected the data/views of various players within the CAG on strategic vision, goals and missions. We are engaged in the implementation and monitoring of its plans.

CAG has formed small groups for intense in-house follow up of the agenda set in the retreat organized in March 2005.

New Committees are formed for attending to a) Fund raising; b) recast of existing programs on the basis of their conformity to the revised vision and objectives of CAG; c) Revision of operation-manual to incorporate changes in HR administration, volunteer administration etc.
In the month of August, we will help in conducting a Project management workshop for CAG volunteers/coordinators.

CAG is working on creating new avenues of augmenting financial resources, including taking up projects that are in line with the revised vision/objectives, research; re-establishing contacts with past funding agencies.
Recently, they have launched measures to increase visibility thru contribution of regular column in leading newspapers. They also propose to celebrate their 20th Anniversary in a grand scale, also with a view to raising surplus from a series of events planned for October this year.

Janalakshmi/Sanghamitra

Sanghamithra, a micro-finance institution, was set up with the help of Myrada (an NGO managing rural development programmes) and is currently operating in the micro-credit space in Bangalore. It services the urban poor through self-help group loans. Sanghamithra has been constrained in extending micro-credit to the bottom-end urban poor. However, there exists a sector above the bottom end of urban poor that has no access to formal credit (not fully serviced-NFS sector). JANALAKSHMI, a Financial Institution, is being set up to cater to the needs of this NFS sector.

ILID’s involvement

ILID is one of the partner organizations working with the prime-movers and promoters of this banking project. Our current focus is to help the transition process by creating teams, and defining roles and responsibilities for the groups.

We continue to provide strategic planning support to this organization from its inception stage, and help in implementing the strategies for Organization planning, HR and Training.

We will help Sanghamitra and its 27 partners in understanding their roles and responsibilities better and in enabling the right working relationship with it for scaling up the operations of the bank in the coming years.

We will conduct a workshop for the Partner NGOs and help them effectively contribute to the Janalakshmi financial services.

Children’s Healthcheck and Improvement Program (CHIP)

CHIP, Children’s Healthcheck and Improvement Program, is a pilot program aimed at offering a basic set of preventive health tests for poor school children in rural areas. ILID is conducting this program in collaboration with an NGO called Aniketana Trust. The data collected from the testing of 1400 children would provide the basis for larger scaling up of this service.

ANIKETANA TRUST (Regd.) is run by a group of doctors and other medical professionals. During the last three years, this trust has organized health check-up camps at various schools in and around Bangalore, covering over 10,000 children.

These camps have been largely run with funds from donors, personal contribution by doctors and friends from abroad. The group is keen on making health-care, a viable, on-going activity proposition on a sustainable basis.

ILID’s involvement

• Transforming an informal model of health check-up camps into a full-fledged formal organization
• Assisting in creating the vision, strategy, structure and resources for scaling up operations
• Assisting in developing appropriate action-plans for large scale expansion, including linking with donors/funding agencies
• A rigorous research study for both the medical and the organizational structures and processes is planned for the initial phase, covering 5000 to 10,000 children

ACUMEN Fund (Based in the US)

Acumen Fund is a global non-profit venture fund serving the four billion people living on less than $4 a day. Its aim is to create a blueprint for building financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver affordable, critical goods and services that elevate the lives of the poor. It adheres to a disciplined process in selecting and managing people’s philanthropic investments as well as in measuring the end results.

To know more about the Acumen Fund, please visit http://www.acumenfund.org

ILID’s involvement

• We have assisted in creating a blueprint for country strategy, including Pakistan and India
• Acumen Fund has invited ILID, as a consultant and partner, to contribute to its worldwide conference at Lake Bellagio near Milan, Italy in the last week of July 2005

Grameen Koota

Grameen Koota was visualized in 1997, based on a book ‘Give US Credit’ by Alex Counts, giving an account of the impact of micro-credit on the lives of the poor in Bangladesh and USA. Highly inspirational stories of large numbers of people rising above the poverty line through the use of micro-credit motivated the trustees of T. Muniswamappa Trust to replicate a similar program for the benefit of the poor in the surrounding villages of Avalahalli. Grameen Koota started operations on 30th May 1999, as a Grameen Bank Replication Program, with the help of seed capital funding from Grameen Trust.

Grameen Koota lends to the poorest women in rural and urban areas, without collateral, using peer pressure and peer support. They envision building a Micro Finance Institution, which will eventually be owned, managed and used by poor women.

For more information, visit http://www.grameenkoota.org

ILID’s involvement

• We have conducted strategic planning sessions aimed at professionalizing the working of the organization
• We are involved in an effort to enhance the productivity and competency of the work force, develop HR management policy and systems, especially training for field level personnel in the Micro Finance and Self Help Group activities
• We are also involved in helping Grameen Koota to expand and scale up its activities while dealing with issues related to infusing private capital