Pleased to inform that the Deshpande Fellowship Program is now receiving applications for 12th batch.This is rigorous 8 month residential leadership development program, Through NGOs visits, village studies, entrepreneurial and Leadership activities and also intensive course work, fellows learn 28+ module and gain skills needed to become true leaders in their chosen field.

 

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Village of 60 Millionaries

Village of 60 Millionaires!

Posted By: Ramesh Menon|Dated: March 1, 2013

India is a leadership driven society—it suffices to look at Popatrao Pawar, the village head of Hiware Bazar in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. In the span of twenty years, he transformed his drought-struck poverty-ridden village into one of the best models India has seen. 

Before he took over the reins, the village suffered many problems: there was hardly any agriculture in the village from a lack of water, causing villagers to migrate elsewhere as daily wage labourers; the school was non-functional; domestic violence and village fights punctuated lives as alcoholism was rampant; and the surrounding eco-system was seriously degraded.

So how does one actually make a village rise against such problems?

The first thing Pawar did was get rid of the 22 illicit liquor dens, ban consumption of liquor all together, and ban tobacco and gutka.

Then he inspired the villagers to pitch in to build dams and dig ponds to trap the little rain that came in. This new water management system helped immensely as the wells soon filled, allowing farming to begin anew with fields becoming lush and green.

Not wanting to take change for granted, Pawar got water audits done so that there was a close check on water availability. Water was never wasted, as selfless villagers built 52 earthen bunds, two percolation tanks, 32 stone bunds and nine check dams—All through the use of the same government funds available to any other village.

Before 1995, there were 90 open wells with water at 80-125 feet, whereas today, there are 294 open wells with water at 15-40 feet. To put this into context, other villages in the Ahmednagar district have to drill nearly 200 feet to reach water.

Farming flourished as Pawar got farmers to invest in milch cattle, making milk the new gold of the village. While milk production was only 150 litres per day in 1995, today, it has crossed the 4,000 litre threshold! All this helped reverse migration see over 60 families return with the desire of becoming farmers once again to live life with dignity.

Now there are decent-looking houses all over and villagers look content, glowing with happiness. The monthly per capital income has crossed Rs. 30,000, and in a village of 235 families and 1,250 individuals, there are 60 millionaires!

Today there are only three families who live below the poverty line, but the village is now working to help them improve their income with hopes that in another year, no villager be poor. All this is more amazing when taking into account that in 1995, there were 168 BPL families in the village.

But Pawar has not only tackled the economic needs of the village. With regards to the waning ecosystem, he facilitated the planting of over ten lakh trees to fuel languishing bio-diversity; even Babool trees that were earlier cut for fuel are now cared for, as villagers began harvesting its gum that sells for Rs. 2,000 a kilo.

One would think that these accomplishments already make Pawar one of the great leaders of India, but on top of everything, Hiware Bazar is spotlessly clean—all without sweepers; villagers take pride in keeping their home clean, and defecation or urination in public is unheard of. Best of all, now that cleanliness has overtaken the village there is a crucial benefit for the villagers: widespread disease has become a thing of the past.

In addition, to get children to learn the benefits of good governance, Pawar began a children’s parliament giving them specific roles to work under. The “Education Minister” for example, goes from house to house inquiring if the school is functioning well. Even the teachers themselves learn from their students and respect this monitoring to incorporate the childrens’ advice into their work!

But how did Pawar address caste and communal conflicts that often divide society into sparring aggressive groups? It was very simple: he relentlessly stressed that change could not be brought about without communal amity, and his efforts were so beautifully embodied when the village Hindu community built a mosque for the only Muslim family in the village for them to not have to pray in the open.

And how has Hiware Bazar brought a new respect to women in the face of strong gender inequality in India? First of all, Pawar has got the gram panchayat to take care of the education and marriage expenses of the second daughter of any family, but also, out of the seven-member panchayat, three are now women. In addition, Pawar has stepped down from the village headman’s position (remaining as deputy sarpanch) to allow a woman to replace him.

Finally, to bring in holistic change, Pawar is now motivating villagers to adopt family planning. A lot of stress is being put on health and hygiene as it is crucial for the future of the village. In fact, Hiware Bazar is also the first village in India to persuade couples take an HIV test before marriage.

Interestingly, none of Pawar’s suggestions or schemes are opposed as the village has full confidence in him as he goes about trying to better their lives.

Hiware Bazar has shown that stimulating change is easy.  All it requires is good leadership and the political will to empower others in rising to a better future.

http://rise.mahindra.com/village-of-60-millionaires/

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Eco Tourism Experience 15-02-2013

Eco-Tourism

I’m very happy to share about the Eco-Tourism, Hideout in Mumbai. It was excellent journey for me. This Eco-Tourism was totally related to Eco only. We stayed three days in Mumbai forest. It was beautiful place to learn unknown things. 

At this place we visited waterfalls, tribal homes, Agriculture Field. I have seen so many new birds in forest. Birds are like tackles (Indian smallest Bird), Yellow throughted sparrow, Minas, Black Drangow, Kotwal and many more birds. The Anand was explained about all the birds. It was a surprised to me, because of he found different types birds by hearing voice by them. The Anand was also shared about the whole Hide-out forest. 

I have seen different types of trees like cuckoos, Bullbull, teek, Jamoonu, Redsilkcotton, Gull mohair, Behad, Casio, Grows tree, Bhismash, Crocodile ain, Amarvell, Palash (use for Holy), sailor, Palm oil tree, Euphorbia, Neerguli tree, Rain tree, Kadamb tree and many more. We had session by Anand about the importance of the all types of trees and which tree was very important to grow and which help to get benefit and how all the trees helps to make natural medicines. 

The Hide-Out provides food to the tourist people totally different. They are preparing food without oil and naturally and provides herbal and lemon tea. This food was good for health and to increase our memory power.  The Hemant was took session about health and food. Really it was a good learning us to understand the importance of the food. Hemant shared how to prepare the natural food and Sangeeta shared about the how to prepare oil less food with practically. Here food was totally different from Karnataka and other states (Oil less Food) this was an amazing experience for us.

The Hemant and Anand guided us to understand the whole Eco-Tourism importance and why Eco-Tourism need to people and how it brings change by people. We also visited Gateway of India in Mumbai, Taj Hotel, Wankede stadium, Juha Beach and many more places. I enjoyed with my friends and I learnt so any things by the Eco-Tourism and we did fire camp in Hide-Out at Night. s

 

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Development Dialogue Experience

Development Dialogue-2013

I am very glad to share about Development Dialouge-2013. It was an amazing program for me. The Development Dialogue’s preparation was started before 15 days. Before staring DD everybody has waited for program. Personally I would like to share my experience about the Development Dialogue 2013. It was an excellent learning for me, because of Development Dialogue program has given well teaches me to get more knowledge about the social sector, social Entrepreneurship and build network with different organization and people those who have came to the DD across India.

At the time of DD KICK OFF we have shown about the Deshpande Fellowship Program in front of Ratan TATA and Narayanmurthy. We have shown about the DFP through the skit, from this skit we shown what is DFP and how helped to Fellows to achieve their goal within a short time and what DFP Alumni’s are doing and what they archived  after graduated by Deshpande Fellowship Program.

In Development Dialogue Program, I have worked as a voluntarily in Panelist Committee and at the same time I have worked kick off committee. The panelist committee work is, take care about all the panel speakers, the panel speakers like, Deelip shanai, Sitaramchandra(The World Bank), Ajit Kanitkar(Program officer of Ford Foundation, New Delhi), Shalini Gambir(Program Head of Community Service Department of Bangalore, New Delhi), Ram N.K(Founder of Rand De), Rangan Vardan(CEO of Microgram), Sourabh Sharm(Director of Milaap), Ravi Raj(Founder of Authentica), Narendranath(Program Director of Pradhan) and many more. My responsibility was take care about them from beginning to until end of the DD, and also I have done this work very carefully and successfully. During program I have built my relation and Network with those who came to the Development Dialogue.

During the so many sessions have happened, at the time of Different sessions I have taken care about the sessions for arranging what the things need for session without get are any problem. When program was going, I have done two works i.e. arranging the program and attending the session by great keynote speakers. Especially I had session by Sudhmurthy with many more questions, personally I have interacted with Sudhmurthy by asking questions and I have got answer what I expected from Sudhmurthy.  I have remembered one statement from her “when you do not do anything, People will talk anything”. This statement has made for me think in a bigger way, I have attended all the sessions, and because of I have worked in the Panelist Committee.

The Development Dialogue2013’s second day Ratan Tata has came to the program for share about his experience and speaking about the entrepreneurship. It was a great opportunity me to attend his session. Because of he is a king of the world in Industrial sector. He came first time to the Hubli city. At this time more than 2500 people were gathered at Deshpande Foundation Campus for listen his words. He spoke two times about the social entrepreneurships and he interacted with the Hubli people and others those who came to program from across India. Narayanmurthy also has come to the Development Dialogue who was achieving day by day in software Technology. Narayanmurthy also addressed to the program. I would like to say about very important person and heart of the Deshpande Foundation “Gururaj Desh Deshpande and Naveen Jha” two people were contributed their lots of effort for success Development Dialogue 2013. s

 Lastly, I’m very pleasure about the Development Dialogue2013, because it was my first DD. I have inspired by the Desh and Naveen Jha. Because of they conducted International Program and they have done a remarkable achievement in the Development Dialogue. I learnt by this DD, event organizes in a bigger way. I got how to manage all the things with lots of pressure. Naveen Jha has told “doing hard work and feeling happy” that is very important for us, still I have remembered what Naveen Jha told. I met many more key persons during the Development Dialogue. The Ratan TATA, Mashilkar, Narayanmurthy, Gururaj Desh Deshpande, Sudhmurthy and Jaishrees are keynote speaker of the Development Dialogue, we got appreciation by the all the Delegates, Keynote speakers, Ratan TATA, Narayanmurthy, Deshpande Foundation staff and Naveen Jha.

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