Dear Friend,

I very much hope that you are enjoying the holiday season. From all of us here at Seva Mandir, a very Happy and Prosperous New Year to you. May 2012 brings peace and success to you and to your family. We thank you for your kindness that you gift us always. With this letter, we love to share some key highlights of year 2011.

For Seva Mandir, the year 2011 has been a year of changes and success. Ms. Neelima Khetan stepped down after 12 years of her excellent leadership (total 25 years of association with Seva Mandir) in March. Ms. Priyanka Singh became our new Chief Executive in April 2011. Seva Mandir is ready to see many more years of its successful engagement with rural communities in Southern Rajasthan in her leadership.

In October, Seva Mandir became the implementing agency for the MNREGA projects for 32 sites in rural Udaipur. It is a significant achievement as well as an indicator of the faith of the 74 Panchayats in Seva Mandir’s work. These Panchayats have endorsed us to be their implementing agency for MNREGA. Of these 32 sites that were sanctioned, the work has begun on the 22 sites. Most of these sites of pastureland development and currently the building of boundary wall is going on.

In 2011, Seva Mandir has been included in two working (sub) groups –  {i) Child Survival & Development and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and ii) Girl Child} constituted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to review the existing priorities, policies, strategies, programs and their implementation for fulfilling the rights of children to survival, development (including early childhood care, early learning, elementary education). Also, to highlight emerging issues and recommendations, resources allocation and utilization for Twelfth Five Year Plan of Government of India.

Several of Seva Mandir's programs have seen a maturing in the last years. For example, in the villages where Seva Mandir organized regular immunization camps, the complete immunization of children is 60%, while in comparison villages it is only 35%.

Similarly, the work on Natural Resources is yielding a lot of benefits to the poor. Every year grass worth Rs. 52 lacs (5.2 million rupees) is being harvested from the common lands developed under this program.

In April 2011, Champa Devi from Vassela village was awarded the "Woman Exemplar Award 2011". It is another reason to look back and feel joyous to see that a community member of Seva Mandir was being recognized by rest of the society for her selfless services.

We are privileged to experience exciting stories of women like Champa Devi. A big credit goes to friends like you for this. Your support has always been the source of our emotional strength. It helps us keep going with our work. It is gratifying that with your support we have been able to create spaces where ordinary people can exercise truth force to bring about social and political transformation.

We hope you will continue to be with us in future too. Your faith and untiring support is very critical to us at the moment. Especially, when national and international scenario is changing rapidly for civil societies and the definitions of ‘development’ are being re-explored.

We believe that the full and deep impact of Seva Mandir's work lies not so much in the tangible development activities that it promotes, but more in bringing the poor and rich together and enabling them to  work for the commons of building more just  and oppression free communities.

We look forward to your continuing contribution in the year 2012 too. Wish you a very bright and successful New Year.

With warm regards,

Deepti

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Hope you are well. Thank you for supporting many rural communities of Udaipur, India. As you may know that your support towards this project strengthens their efforts.

With this letter, I would like to share with you a brief note that my colleagues have put together of various activities they have been doing in this program with your support. Such as –

1)    25 women were trained for women’s participation in village meetings, raising their concerns and getting involved in decision making.

2)    250 village development committee members took part in workshops in order to build their capacities of supporting village development projects.

3)    200 villages were graded as per their capability of supporting local development projects.

4)    620 villages have access to over USD 750,000 in their village development fund now.

Please have a look at the report enclosed to have a full picture of the progress.

All this progress is very exciting for the villagers also as much as these to us. On top of it, the program you are supporting is very important to build social solidarity. The core idea of this program is to bring communities together and allow them to create a democratic environment to deliberate on issues they care about. This is not an easy program and requires much effort and patience. We are fortunate to have donors like you and our brilliant people to work with us on these programs.

So thank you again, for standing by us. It is not easy for anyone to support a difficult idea such as this project. We really are grateful to you for your regular support and hope that you will consider telling about this project to your other friends too.  Incidentally, 19th October Global Giving will match any donation made to us. It is an opportunity to strengthen your support further. We hope you will be able to use this opportunity.

Also to share with you,  that the monsoon was wonderful this year. It rained a lot every where in Udaipur and the lakes filled up pretty quickly. As you know Udaipur is the most famous tourist attraction of Asia. Therefore, good rains assures a good tourist year too.

On the other hand, the rains may have not assured a good crop for “Maize (the corn)” because it rained a bit too much in some places. The corn is the major staple diet in this region. However, the positive side of the rains is that increased moisture of the ground will ensure good crops for winters. Though not most farmers are able to grow wheat and gram in winters, the overall availability of water has definitely increased due to good rains.

Thanks once again for your generous support. We hope to hear from you on this feedback. Happy Diwali to you in advance from all of us here.

With warm regards,

Deepti

Links:

• More Stories of village communities on Seva Mandir website

• Annual Report - for the project you support (DOC)

Dear friends,

Hope you are well. Thank you for your continuing support. We are very grateful to you donations and inputs .

Every time with our letter to you, we wish to acquaint you with Seva Mandir a bit more. In this letter, you will get to know about the process of our business planning.

Seva Mandir focuses on communities rather than on individual/s. The belief is that in order to bring about the durable changes in the society; the constructive work involving all the community members is important because social problems are complex. It therefore, takes longer but the outcomes are more sustainable and long lived. Therefore, Seva Mandir has a three pronged strategy –

1)      To create and strengthen institutions for development (at the village, organization and society levels)

2)      To enhance people’s capabilities for self-development (both at individual and community level); and

3)      To create sustainable improvements in the livelihoods base.

Our bottom-up approach allows creating stakes for every section of society to participate in their own development. We very much hope that you will enjoy knowing about our business planning phase that we are going through right now.

It has been a very hot summer here in Rajasthan this year. We are now all prepared to welcome the monsoon which should be here in the next week and half. Gradually it is getting humid day by day and we are trying not to let the rising temperatures effect us and are currently in the midst of the exciting organization wide planning process to develop our 7^th Comprehensive Plan.

The Comprehensive Plan outlines the strategic direction and action-plans for Seva Mandir over the next three-year plan period (2012-2015). 

Seva Mandir has been preparing Comprehensive Plans since 1990 as a way to systematically review and evolve its near-term strategic priorities across all programmatic areas.  The process of putting together the Comprehensive Plan also serves as an opportunity for Seva Mandir to reflect upon the work we have done, examine the environment we work in and evolve our strategies accordingly, within the context of past lessons learnt and the overall long-term vision of the organization.

The process for creating the 7^th Comprehensive Plan began in late 2010 and includes all levels of Seva Mandir’s tiers viz. - from the villages where we work all the way up to the Chief Executive Officer.  The Comprehensive Plan process is consistent with Seva Mandir’s bottom-up approach, with the kick-off meetings taking place at the village level with the Chief Executive present.  After these initial meetings, the staff members at the zone and block offices had an opportunity to share their thoughts, observations and information.  Using the information gathered from the field, the Programs devised their strategies for the upcoming years.  These were presented to the organization as a whole, where debate, discussion, criticism and suggestions took place.

We are now headed into the final stages of this exciting process.  Programs are incorporating the comments and suggestions into their reports, and putting the final touches in to the operating frameworks. This is an exciting time at Seva Mandir and we are really looking forward to the next few years when we can put these strategies into effect and watch the change they make.

The integrated approach allows all our partners, friends, donors and well wishers to contribute to the holistic development of our communities. Any project/program that you support for Seva Mandir is a part of this comprehensive plan. Thank you so much for regularly supporting our cause and making a difference.

We will soon be providing you with an annual report of our programs you are supporting on Global Giving. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

With warm regards,

Dear Friends,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!!

I have three things to say before we talk about the project you are supporting.

One -we recently participated in a fund raising event on Global Giving UK. The challenge Top 10 wins challenge (1^st to 14^th March) required the participant projects to raise at least of £ 500 with minimum of 25 donors. Seva Mandir participated with its project “Improving Food Security for Tribal Farmers in India”. This project helps 5000 poor, marginalized farmers in rural Udaipur to have better crops and thus earn more money/food. This is done through a variety of programs including – seed bank program, using organic manure prepared with the help of earth worms (vermin-composting), growing cash crops like vegetables (preparing nurseries) for self sustenance and income generation. You would be very happy to note that this project raised £705 from 31 donors in the Top 10 Wins Challenge and therefore it won a bonus prize of £300. It is a perfect gift on this Holi for our farmers.

Secondly, on the 19^th and 20^th March we celebrated our festival Holi (festival of colors in India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi). The festival is also a symbol of celebrating the harvest of winter crop in our region. This festival signifies the end of our winters and beginning of summer. March is also our financial year end and therefore it is wonderful to end our year with lots of support from people like you and having a good harvest at this Holi. And

Finally, this year, at this point of time, Seva Mandir is going through some change. Our ex Chief Executive Ms. Neelima Khetan has stepped down on March 31st. She has spent 25 years with Seva Mandir and the last twelve years as the Chief Executive. The organization excelled during her time and with her leadership marked a number of achievements. Though she has left us due to our constitutional norms, we are very happy to have her as our Trustee on Seva Mandir Board. Her continuing association with Seva Mandir is very assuring for all of us. 

Ms. Priyanka Singh has taken over as Chief Executive of Seva Mandir from April 2011. She has spent over thirteen years with Seva Mandir heading Education and Health program and leading Badgaon Block (a geographical unit for our work). She has a post graduate degree in rural development from the same institute as Ms. Khetan did. She is very capable and a great person to work with. With her deep understanding of issues in rural development and support from all our friends like you, we are very much looking forward to seeing Seva Mandir keep doing its good work in the next years to come. At this point of time, we all look for your continuous support and faith for many more years of working together.

My colleagues have shared with me a note on a village meeting for the project “Building Self Reliant Rural Communities” that you are supporting. I very much hope you will enjoy reading about it.

As you know this project encourages villages to work on various social, political and development issues. One of the strategies is to encourage communities to establishing norms once an issue has been identified. For example – it could be protecting the forests or overcoming the use of alcohol by introducing penalties or ensuring quality education by raising their concerns with the Government or avoiding spending more money on weddings (as a social obligation) etc.

The following incident is one such example where the local communities are attempting to establish norms to ensure ‘good’ for everyone in the society.

The tribal communities in our region are dependent on forest lands for their fodder and fuel wood needs. These forest lands are owned by the Government and therefore the villagers are only allowed to harvest grass and fruits but the felling of trees is strictly prohibited. The forest land also helps maintaining the social solidarity amongst villagers as it is a shared common property resource. Therefore protecting forests is pivotal in this region for all these various reasons.

In Alsigarh zone (big area spread in few km of radius) there has been illegal felling of trees for many years in a patch of forest that has been managed and protected by the villagers in collaboration with the Forest Department (under the Join Forest Management Scheme). The five leaders from village Peepalwas. Kheriya and Undri decided to resolve this issue. Therefore they had a meeting in January this year.

The people from Peepalwas village complained that the forest land is shared by all three villages and therefore it should be a joint responsibility of all these villages to protecting it. Since people from Peepalwas village are working towards protecting the forest but the other two villages are not helping in this process. Peepalwas demanded to resolve this issue as it has been pending since last four months and asked all villagers to follow the rule. The leaders suggested a financial penalty on the offenders after much discussion. They advised for a serious action for recurring offenders. Everyone agreed and decided to further this decision by discussing it with everyone in these villages in the next few weeks.

In addition to the aforementioned issues, the village elders also discussed how a villager’s financial status has been affected by recent high inflation rates. As a result of heavy expenditures on social obligations such as weddings and funerals the people fall into poverty. In weddings people are burdened by the additional expenses of serving alcohol. It does no good to the hosts and the guests. Weddings can be hard on a person’s financial condition because they have to incur such expenses as part of the social compulsions. The alcohol leads to health and social problems.

They also brainstormed on engaging nearby villagers on the same issue, so that this burdening norm could be checked. It was decided to stop serving alcohol during weddings in their villages and later engaging with other villages slowly on the same issue.

This meeting exemplifies changing mindsets of people over the years. It has been possible due to constant capacity building of villagers on various development issues and building awareness. This meeting quantifies the efforts put in by these communities for bringing about the social change.

Thank you so much for supporting this program. With your support these communities are raising concerns and dealing with social problems. These communities are sowing the seeds of ‘better future’ for all of us also by protecting the trees and forests.

We are grateful to your donation and hope to receive a continuous support from you in the future too. We hope that you will be able to visit/write to encourage our new team and leadership.

Happy Holi to you and your family from all of us here.

Warm Regards

Deepti

deepti@sevamandir.org

Wishing you a very happy, prosperous and wonderful 2011. Thank you friends for extending peace, love and support to all of us in 2010. We look forward to another great year with you. Year by year, our association is getting stronger. Thank you very much for adding happiness to our lives.

A small drawing made by Durga Kumari is presented as a token of our wishes to you.

Have an awesome year ahead.

Warm regards,

Deepti

Links:

• December Newsletter 2010

Dear Friends,

Happy Holiday Season!

Hope you are enjoying the holiday season. This year the winter started a little later here but it is pleasantly cold right now. We hope it is also nice weather where you are.

Thank you for supporting the village communities of Rajasthan. Building self reliant rural communities is an essential feature of the Village Institution Program of Seva Mandir. Therefore, the Gram Vikas Kosh (GVK) or the Village Development Fund is an innovative concept of Seva Mandir, which aims to build social solidarities that enable villagers to organize themselves, express their demands and needs, and work towards their fulfilment.

This is done through the creation and management of a village level fund, formed from people’s contributions. Then the Gram Vikas Committees (GVC), democratically elected, non-party and non-religiously affiliated citizen associations are set up in villages. These committees are provided with a number of trainings in good governance, management and community leadership. These committees hold the GVKs.

Currently there are 596 Village Development Funds/corpus (GVKs) with a collective fund of approximately Rs. 3 Crores (Rs. 30 million). The village corpus is kept in both a savings account and a fixed deposit account and the interest generated from these are uttilized by the community to take care of the various developmental issues in their village.

The interest generated from the corpus is also used by the village committees to provide loans to support livelihoods, the purchase of community assets like: utensils, threshers, lift irrigation pumps etc. and the management and protection of village commons like: pasture lands, schools and community centre/hall maintenance.

Some of the committees have been extremely successful in managing their corpus funds and are paying for the services provided by the village volunteers. They are also supporting the costs for some administrative costs solely from the interest earned from their corpus. Therefore these committees are moving towards a more decentralized process of functioning by also beginning to support their own developmental activities, increasing membership of women and children in the decision  making processes.

A detailed report on the progress made in this program during the last six months (April to September 2010) is enclosed for your kind reference.

We are delighted to share the exciting progress these rural communities are making. Thank you for being a consistent partner to us.  Please take a look at the report and let us know if you have any questions. We hope you would love to read this update at this holiday season.

Many thanks once again. Happy Holiday Season to you once again from all of us here.

With warm regards,

Deepti

Links:

• Seva Mandir Annual Report

• Half Yearly Report April-September 2010 (DOC)

Dear Friends,

Thank you very much for your continuing support. You will be very happy to note that the monsoon has turned out very good in Rajasthan this year. It has rained almost every day this monsoon which is unusual to our region. Usually we receive 20 rainy days in the monsoon. One of the most popular lakes in Udaipur city – Fatehsagar has filled up fully with lots of rain water and is currently over flowing. In villages too some of the streams are flowing and everyone is very happy. Hopefully we will have a good harvest of crops this year. The maize is the major crop and is currently growing in all the fields.

Lucie from France is currently volunteering with us in the Village Institution Program. She has spent few days in this program and is learning more about it every day. I would like to share with you few lines that Lucie has written about this program after her first village visit that she attended recently. She is very impressed by the way villagers are practicing democracy in remote rural areas of Southern Rajasthan. You can find her article below my letter.

We hope you enjoyed reading the report we submitted earlier. We would be absolutely thrilled if you share your comments about the program you are supporting or about the feedback reports we submit.

Once again, many thanks for your valuable support. We will keep you posted on the progress.

With warm regards,

Deepti ---------------------------------------------------------------- My very first week at Village Institutions Programme – Lucie, France

What delineates Seva Mandir from other development organizations might be its tireless effort in arguing importance of local democracy in rural development.

In this way, Seva Mandir started up the Village Institutions Programme or Gram Vikas Committees. The aim of these committees composed of elected villagers is to build an institutional base for strengthening villagers community development. GVCs attempt to fulfill the mission by bringing villagers together to participate to local politic life in investing in social projects. Indeed, the structure of a village is composed of three stages : the villagers community called Samuh, the elected committee named GVC and a common fund : GVK. Interaction between these three entities is the key of collective effectiveness. Seva Mandir’s role is to facilitate this interaction, nor to take part in GVCs’ projects, this post of guidance aims at making villagers accountable of their own development, « don’t give a man a fish, but teach him how to fish instead » said the proverb.

Providing guidance is fussier than leading. Making villagers accountable of their own development is more difficult than providing social services. I realized that while attending at a monthly meeting in the farthest block : Kothra. The meeting brought together five GVCs, its purpose was to submit the concept of a Federation and evaluate its feasibility in sharing experiences of different villages in order to find a collective answer. About twenty villages’ leaders gathered on the ochre carpets, only a few answered to the first speakers’ questions and it took a while to get all of them participating. Then, villagers spoke up, they told us absences of the school teacher, corruption of governmental shops, the corporates that have extracted natural resources without paying…

My first month of work will consist in informing of previous trainings, attending to meeting and talking with Seva Mandir Staff. This period of observation is necessary to understand GVCs functioning better. Thanks to this learning, I would be able to work on a villagers questionnaire, this survey aiming to evaluate quality of previous training and awareness of villagers.

Links:

• how a village comes together
• you want to know more about a village meeting

Dear Friends,

First of all, a very big thank you for your continuing support to this program. I am writing to provide you with a brief description of what the Village Development Program is and how it helps achieve these communities their goal of being ‘self reliant’.

I will attempt to give you a short overview of the program and the progress we have made in the program you are supporting. However, a detailed report on the same is enclosed with this update for your reference. A story of one village in detail is also provided with this update so that the process and day-to-day activities in this program can be explained better.

Building self reliant rural communities is an essential feature of the Village Institution Program of Seva Mandir. Therefore, the Gram Vikas Kosh (GVK) or the Village Development Fund is an innovative concept of Seva Mandir, which aims to build social solidarities that enable villagers to organize themselves, express their demands and needs, and work towards their fulfilment.

This is done through the creation and management of a village level fund, formed from people’s contributions. Then the Gram Vikas Committees (GVC), democratically elected, non-party and non-religiously affiliated citizen associations are set up in villages. These committees are provided with a number of trainings in good governance, management and community leadership. These committees hold the GVKs.

Seva Mandir has set up over 587 GVKs. The total funds saved by these community institutions over the years is now close to Rs 33,000,000 ($733,334).

The GVKs have become a locus of community solidarity and autonomy. They are the intersection between economic and social development, with the money collected and generated being used for supporting education, health, etc., in the village. The bulk of the money in these funds has come from individual contributions.

While Seva Mandir has been successful in having such community funds (formed through individual contributions) accepted at the village level, it feels that the potential of leveraging this money for reinforcing solidarity and supporting village development remains underdeveloped.

In fact, today the idea of such Community Foundations has gained so much ground in Seva Mandir’s area that even in its peri-urban work areas, people are integrating this concept into their interventions.

Seva Mandir feels that the economic dimension of these Funds has immense untapped potential. The funds are held in the individual village bank accounts and the largest amount in a village is approximately Rs 900,000 ($20,000). There are about 80 villages with balances greater than Rs 100,000 ($2,223).

Together with village communities Seva Mandir is exploring of federating these GVKs to tap into greater benefits for all. The objective is to take the GVKs to a new level by aggregating them and creating opportunities for more effective use of the capital in order to maximise their social and financial potential. The next step of federating these GVKs has begun. We will keep you abreast of the progress.

The progress so far, would have not been possible without the support received from people like you. We would like to extend our gratitude to your support and faith in this program.

Please have a look at the report enclosed herewith; it will give you a brief idea of the overall program and some more figures. We would be very happy to receive feedback from you in case of any.

Thank you once again for all your significant support. We hope that you would be able to visit us someday.

With warm regards,

Deepti ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Story - Hilary a volunteer from Canada wrote about a village meeting (Kagmandana) she attended. The brief write up she wrote is given below-

“Self-Governance and Self-Confidence: The Women Take Charge – by Hilary (Canada) The GVC (village development committee) of Kharmandala village in Badgaon Block was first established in 1992 and now, in 2010, holds the largest GVK (collective village corpus) overseen by Seva Mandir. The relative success of the Kharmandala GVK can be greatly attributed to the highly equitable operation of its GVC. I observed a meeting of this GVC in December 2009 and it was one of the largest, most energetic groups I had yet seen. Over 25 villagers were in attendance, in addition to the 11 GVC members (of which five were female). It was a pleasant surprise to see that it was the women of Kharmandala who were in control of the entire meeting. The women’s confidence level could be clearly linked to their involvement with the GVC; the committee had provided them with a place and a platform to discuss their issues openly and where they were treated as equals. This was a revelation; in many other villages that I had visited, the women still struggled to have a voice or a position of significance in the GVC. One of the attendees in Kharmandala, Hameri Bai, was the lone female post-holder on the GVC. As Treasurer, she is responsible for administering the GVK and her leadership role has clearly had many positive impacts on how other women in the village participate in the decision-making process. Hameri Bai, a mother of three who has held her post for the past six years, has ensured that all of the female members of the GVC are engaged in the committee activities by putting them in charge of the GVK loan repayment system. Repayments are central to the function of the GVK and it speaks volumes that the women of Kharmandala have been entrusted with this important task. When asked about this responsibility being placed in the hands of the women, Hameri Bai responded that “we are all here to work for our village, the men and the women. We all have a part in this.” As the meeting carried on, I realized that I was witnessing the process of development unfold and in a truly democratic way. Given a proper forum for discussion and repeated trainings in self-governance and women’s empowerment, the 262 households of Kharmandala will surely continue to thrive and will hopefully remain as an excellent example of the benefits of having an all-inclusive GVC.”

The full story of the village Kagmandana is also given with this update as an attachment.

Links:

• Learn more about the self reliant rural communities

• Story of Kagmandana village (DOC)
• Building self reliant communities- Progress Report (DOC)

December 7, 2009

Dear Friend,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Many thanks to all of you for responding to our call of support during ‘Give More and Get More’ Challenge. We did quite well in the challenge and you would be happy to note that we stood third with receiving over $35,000 across various projects.

The funds are always helpful in continuing our work but that we can write to this community of supporters and rally support is very morale boosting. Thank you for your trust in us. We are truly grateful.

With best regards for the Holiday Season,

Sincerely,

Deepti

It’s the season for Thanks and Giving…and we hope very much that you will continue your support to Seva Mandir.

We wanted to let you know about an exciting opportunity that we are participating in through our partners, Global Giving. A donation made to any of our projects, on Global Giving between November 10 and December 1, will be matched.

Total donations up to $2,500 will be matched at 30%. Donations in the range $2,501 - $7,500 will be matched at 40%. Donations above $7501 will be matched at 50%. However, please note that only donation amounts below $500 will be eligible for matching – any donation above $ 500 will come to us, and make us more eligible for bonus awards but without the matching amount. SO GIVE MORE – GET MORE!

And if we raise the most money or get the most donations, we are eligible for bonus awards. First place for both categories will each receive $5,000, second place in each will receive $3,000 and third place in both categories will each receive $1,000.

Seva Mandir’s page at Global Giving lists 7 projects. Please see http://www.globalgiving.com/dy/v2/content/search.html?q=seva+mandir

Matching funds are limited, so we request you to act as quickly as possible. You can give and also persuade friends and family to give. Minimum donation is $10 and donations are tax-deductible!

Would you consider giving and also sharing this email with others?

Thank you for anything that you are able to do to support Seva Mandir.

With Greetings for the season, Friends of Seva Mandir

August 13, 2009

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your continuing support to our programs. I am writing to share with you a bit of news.

Seva Mandir has recently won a Development Marketplace Grant Competition, organized by the Word Bank. The competition was exclusively for grassroots initiatives in South Asia to address the problem of undernutrition.

The Seva Mandir's project on 'Addressing Iron Deficiency Anemia in Rural Rajasthan through Iron Fortification of Flour at Village Level' was one of the 21 projects that won the competition in Development Marketplace.

We are all very excited at this achievement. If you have any queries on this project then please do write to me. We are very happy to share this news with you. Thank you for all your support and contributions. We really appreciate it.

With warm regards,

Deepti deepti@sevamandir.org

May 19, 2009

Dear friends,

First of all, thank you for supporting us ever!

I have some quick news to share. In April end (22nd and 23rd) Margaret and John from Global Giving visited Seva Mandir Projects. We took them around and showed them our work in four villages. We exchanged a lot of ideas and learnt a lot about each other.

During their time here we visited our Pre School Center, Rural School, Immunization Camp, Dal Mill Project (Profit for poor), Village Library and Pastureland Development. They both found these programs very interesting but our meeting with one of the Fellows (Fellowship Project) – Jawan Singh in Barawa village was a special highlight for all of us.

We had lunch with Jawan Singh. It was a very hot day but we all were very happy to be able to wash our feet by a dug-well which still has lots of water. The water in this well is a result of our soil and water conservation work in this village. Margaret and John were very impressed to see our efforts and the strong leadership that has emerged over the years. Jawan Singh is a one such leaders. He is currently a Vikas Mitra Fellow (Fellowship Program). He took us around and showed all the activities that took place over the years. He also explained the caste struggle of his village to Margaret and John.

There were two more striking episodes occurred.

One is – when we visited the village library in Medi village – we met the teacher – Ram Lal who runs the library. He told us that he has 6 kids whose names are after countries like – America, Japan, India, and England etc. We were amused to note that ‘America is married now’.

Another incident – when we were interacting with children in our Rural School in Ushan village, the villagers came to meet the guests. The villagers asked several questions to John and Margaret including – what crops do they grow in America, if they also have a hilly terrain, if the rains are frequent and adequate in their country, what is the mean age of marriage in America etc.

Then, an old man asked if they knew – where the Sun goes in the night and that why sometimes the moon is full and sometimes not???

The people in villages were so happy to have guests. But they were so happy to be able to interact with them. Their innocent questions indicate that they have a desire to learn things and that, they are confident to ask questions.

John and Margaret answered to all these questions very patiently and they both appreciated the fact that they were able to interact with villagers other than development issues.

A very big thank you Margaret and John – it was very nice meeting you and learning all the innovating ways of raising funds, you are trying. We all are very happy meeting you and we appreciate all your support and help that you and your entire team provide us time to time.

I am also taking the opportunity to thank all our friends who have been supporting us through Global Giving. The appreciation we received from Margaret and John for our work is also a result of support from people like you. Thank you once again for all your support.

Do let us know if you like this feedback.

Thank you,

With warm regards,

Deepti

Dear Friend,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Thank you for your continuing support to our programs. I am writing to share with you some good news. On 27th March 2009 Seva Mandir was awarded the first prize ‘The CSO partner’s Outstanding Annual Report Award 2009’ for our Annual Report 07-08 in the category of Large Organizations. The criterion to win the prize was to have transparent accounts, its disclosures in the report and its ability to communicate well (i.e. readable and understandable for readers).

Such awards and appreciation of our work is the result of many people’s contribution towards our work and mission. Therefore, your support and guidance is one of main attributes of this appreciation. You can find more details about this our website www.sevamandir.org and to view our annual report please visit the following link - http://www.sevamandir.org/publications.htm

Many thanks once again for all your support and love. I will be soon in touch with updates on programs you are supporting.

With warm regards,

Deepti

January 27, 2009

Dear Friend,

New Year Greetings from Seva Mandir!

Thank you very much for all your support to our programs. I am Deepti and I look after the Reporting and Communication Program in Seva Mandir. I will be staying in touch with you regularly to keep you updated about the program that you have been supporting.

This month, I would like to share with you some interesting developments in this project. Before I begin I would like to give you a brief background of the recent development.

The Yale School of Management Social Entrepreneurs Program chose 5 Non Profit Organizations (including Seva Mandir) across the world last year. The purpose was to provide their students with an opportunity to conduct a small research on the topics give by these 5 Organizations for their semester called Global Social Enterprise.

In the end of September 2008 Seva Madnir made a presentation of Village Development Fund Program (GVK) in Yale University, USA. A group of 4 students opeted for Seva Mandir and began their research on –“Effective Management and Utilization of Village Development Fund (GVK)”. Over a period of 3 months, the students conducted the research by gathering data from us through emails, phone and speaking to our colleagues online regularly. In late December 2008 – early January 2009 these students spent 7 days in villages of Seva Mandir to fine tune their understanding of the problem.

On January 5th 2009 the students made a presentation for representatives from 200 villages of Seva Mandir to share what according to them could be the best solution for “Effective Management and Utilization of Village Development Fund”. The presentation was followed by several queries and comments by villagers. The followings have been the major outcome of the interactive discussion –

1. A Federation is recommended consisting of all Village Development Funds from 550 villages. 2. The Federation will serve a financial platform to utilize the existing village funds to maximize the profit. 3. Majority of villagers shown interest in investing into the Federation for a) asset management and b) local development within the village. 4. All the representatives from the villages agreed upon discussing the idea with their village and think towards it more seriously.

The students from Yale were very enthusiastic of the discussions held on 5th January 2009 after their presentation. One of the students Jessica said - “talking on such a vibrant issue with the people at such a larger level and showing their interest on creating a federation on a larger scale like this is really incredible. I feel people in my country will hardly believe the fact that people from the diverse part of the world are so energetic hopeful on the issue of creating democratic and participatory platform. The gathering of these large numbers of people too, is almost unbelievable.”

Since everyone was positive about creating a Federation currently we are looking at issues like Governance and structure of the Federation, membership criteria, norms etc.

We will keep you updated about the developments in this program. Also, it would be wonderful if you could provide us with your inputs on this. For queries and information, kindly contact me at deepti@sevamandir.org.

I hope you find this feedback useful. A very big Thank you once again to all of you for keeping your faith in us and providing us the opportunity to share with you our great stories. Looking forward to hearing from you on this.

With warm regards,

Deepti Ameta In Charge Reporting and Communications deepti@sevamandir.org

Dear Friend,

Greetings from Seva Mandir!

I would like to communicate our heartiest thanks to all our donors, friends and well wishers for supporting our Village Institution Program. Your support and faith in our work is very encouraging.

I have been working in this program for the past fifteen years. My work has allowed me to gain an insight into the development process. The communities we work with are slowly but impressively taking responsibilities of their own development, which has been a very gratifying experience for me. This month I would like to share with you an inspiring story – the story of village Jabla. The Village has recently dealt with the problem of education for their children and the village committee has played an instrumental role in solving the problem.

In Jabla the children were not able to continue their education beyond primary school since there was no Upper Primary School in their village itself. The children either had to walk 13 kms to attend Upper Primary School or discontinue with their education after finishing Primary School. The girl children were the most affected by this. The village committee discussed the issue in many of their village-meetings and finally they all decided to raise the issue in the Panchayat (the local village council) with support of Seva Mandir. The village-committee demanded for an Upper Primary School in their village but the Sarpanch (leader at local council) informed them that he does not have enough legislature power to grant it. He suggested writing to the District Education Officer for this. The committee decided to go ahead with his suggestion and they got him to forward their application to the concerned officer. It took them a number of months including writing several letters to the Education Department. Finally the Department agreed to upgrade the existing Primary School to an Upper Primary School. They also sanctioned another four rooms in the school to meet the demand of growing number of school children. Currently the village is waiting for an approval of a Primary Health Center and construction of a road in their village from the Government.

There are many villages like Jabla where communities have realized the significance of their agency We are grateful to all our donors and friends who are helping communities like Jabla. "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts" - Albert Einstein

Many thanks once again. Kindly contact me at yakub.khan@sevamandir.org in case of any queries and suggestions.

With regards,

Sincerely,

Mohd. Yakub Khan In Charge, Village Institution Program

Bhuri is an active member of Gram Vikas Committee (Village Development Committee) of village Dholi Ghati. Close to her village the highway road was being under construction. The contractor of the road-construction project needed water for it and he requested the village. In a Village Meeting it was decided that the contractor could use the water from their wells and that he would have to make payments for the water and the money will go into the Village Development Fund. The contractor agreed on this.

The contractor started using the water from their wells. However, he did not pay any money for using the water. And so, Bhuri went and asked the contractor to pay for the water. He simply denied and said he will keep using the water but would not pay for any costs.

Bhuri spoke to the In Charge that had appointed the contractor for the road-construction of that area. Other people from the village also joined Bhuri and requested him to look into the matter. The In Charge asked the contractor to pay for the water he has used for construction. As a result, the contractor deposited Rs. 4500 into the Village Development Fund as the payment towards the water he had used forms their wells.

The village was very happy and they all appreciated Bhuri’s courageous efforts and her concern for the welfare for her community.

“There are a total of 552 Village Development Funds (GVK) with a total of Rs. 27260386/- ($681509.65).

The Gram Vikas Committees (GVC) or the village development committee of village Ushan has now been able to resolve local conflicts on its own. They even deposited the benefits earned from the fodder of the common pasture land into their GVK...

There was a small piece of common pastureland in village Ushan, which was lying barren and was being used for open grazing. Years ago the Panchayat (the Government local council of village) had built a fence around the land.

Later, a few influential people of the village broke the fence for their cattle’s grazing. Eventually the entire fence was broken all over. The village wanted to put the common pastureland for good use for everyone. People had to buy fodder from outside at expensive prices and so they wanted to restore their pastureland. In several village meetings the issue was discussed. The Gram Vikas Committee (GVC) decided to restore their pastureland with the support from Seva Mandir.

The task of restoration included building the fence (to check the open grazing), planting trees, growing grass but most importantly ‘dealing with the encroachments’. The GVC had several meeting with the influential families of the village. Most of these meetings proved futile and the village could not move ahead. However, the GVC did not give up and explained to these families the common benefit behind their initiative.

Finally when the village got success in removing the encroachments the work began with building the fence. Some local trees were planted and grass seeds were sown. The village has been able to harvest grass worth Rs. 700/- this year.

Suni who is the member of GVC, Ushan says- “It was very difficult to ask the encroachers to withdraw from the land. It took months to our GVC to persuade them to cooperate with us. Since the pastureland is so new the production of fodder has been limited this year. And so we have sold the grass and the money has been deposited to our Gram Vikas Kosh (Village Development Fund). The people are happy in the village. The influential families don’t bother us”.

• Suni says - we earned Rs. 700 this year (PDF)