Enhance Access to Water for 750 families in India

Dear Friends,

In the last report which was posted on January 3, 2014 we shared with you an account of how residents of a particular village had unitedly taken on their local government  to make sure that government does the bare minimum to ensure the availability of drinking water in their village of Belpali, 80 Kms from City of Nasik in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.

In this report, we further talk about how the project 'Enhance Access to Water for 750 families in india' has drawn the attention of even the Maharashtra State level Rural Development Department. Secondly, it also discusses the participation of SNS Foundation in the marathon organized by Nasik Run Charitable Trust. Both these events at the local and state levels took place in January 2014.

PARTICIPATION IN NASIK RUN MARATHON : The Nasik Run Charitable Trust is a CSR expression of two well reputed MNCs - BOSCH & TDK EPCOS. Every year in the month of January the trust organizes a marathon, very well attended by residents of the city. This year the turnout for the marathon on January 12th, was close to 21000 visitors! The proceeds of the marathon which is usually the revenue generated from the sell of customized T-shirts, is then donated to different NGOs to support various social causes. In addition to Global Giving donations, the donations of Nasik Run Charitable Trust since April 2011 have also furthered the aim of the project, ''Enhance Access to Water for 750 families in india'. Hence like other donee agencies, SNS Foundation too puts up a kiosk at the marathon to talk about the progress of the project. Attached are photographs of SNS Foundation's participation. The communication matter on display carried the logo of Global Giving as a partner.

RECOGNITION BY MAHARASHTRA STATE RURAL LIVELIHOODS INNOVATION FORUM: In 2009, the Indian Government launched the National Rural Livelihood Mission. In sync with this mandate, every Indian state launched a state level counterpart to eradicate rural poverty in its specific geographies. Last year in May 2013, Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission launched a competition to identify NGOs who had undertaken innovative measures to minimise rural poverty.

SNS Foundation's application outlined its engagement of women self help groups as labour contractors to carry out civil works of construction of check dams, deepening of wells and ponds etc. under the project in discussion. This practice is an innovative one as normally commercial contractors are engaged for such works who not only compromise on the quality of work but exploit the villagers in many ways for example staying over at their expense during the duration on the work. In this case the women groups themselves negotiated with the vendors, directly made necessary purchases of raw materials and also made wage payments. SNS Foundation transferred the funds to the accounts of women groups in respective groups. The groups were paid an additional 2% of total wage payments as their monitoring fee.

SNS Foundation in its application further outlined that its vision is to make all its 450 women self groups channels for implementation of government schemes for rural and tribal development such that exploitation at the hands of middlemen is largely negated and Power is in the Hands of the People.

Of the 350+ applications received by the Forum, 38 were selected to the final round in January 2014. SNS Foundation was one of these 38 finalists. On January 27th, in the capital of Maharashtra state, Mumbai all 38 finalist NGOs displayed their work, of which 9 were awarded. Attached are photographs of SNS Foundation's kiosk at this state level event. Though 9 have been awarded, Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission would partner with all 38 finalist organizations to further the respective visions of minimising rural poverty.