Indira Kadam’s story is a fine example of how empowering a woman can effect change in an entire village
Forty-two-year-old Indira Kadam is an Anganwadi worker in Munoli village in Belagavi district of Karnataka in southern India. A single woman, she was earning a monthly salary of Rs 8,000, barely enough to make ends meet. Indira also owned half an acre of land, which came to her as part of inheritance, but she never tried farming. Building fortunes from a tiny parcel of land, she thought, would be a herculean task.
That was until Solidaridad stepped in 2018 to help Indira and her village. It conducted training programmes and workshops to teach them about fertiliser scheduling, irrigation management, nutrient management among other things. Indira also attended sessions on cost-benefit analysis of sugarcane farming. She was particularly inspired by the stories of women farmers who were following good agricultural practices and making decent profits.
Indira Kadam
Under the Sustainable Sugarcane Initiatives in Karnataka, Indira learnt about sustainable practices for land preparation, pest management and crop harvesting. Armed with the new knowledge, Indira took the plunge and started cultivating sugarcane in 2020. Now, her farm is a glistening green. Her eyes twinkle when she talks about her farm. “We grow only sugarcane here,” she says.
In the first year, Indira was able to harvest 20 tonnes of sugarcaneon her half-acre land and earned Rs 67,500 by selling the crop. Her input costs were Rs 14,000. End of the season, she made a neat profit of Rs 53,500.
Indira and millions of women like her are the backbone of farming in India – nearly 75 percent full-time workers on Indian farms are women – yet their work is hardly documented, leave alone acknowledged. Few women are land owners, most work on farms owned by men in the family. As per some estimates, less than eight percent women farmers in India own land. Further, the size of their land is usually small, as seen in Indira’s case, and access to resources and technical know-how is limited.
“Indian women have been contributing to agriculture and allied activities since ages. However, identifying their work, offering them a safe workplace and ensuring dignity of work have remained critical and challenging issues. Their limited understanding about financial matters, due to lack of access, makes them more vulnerable. Solidaridad has made specific interventions to help women farmers learn agri-business. We have organised several training programmes to build financial literacy among women,” says Alok Pandey, Senior Programme Manager (Sustainable Sugarcane) at Solidaridad Network.
As part of the programme, Solidaridad developed a documentary in Kannada to help women like Indira learn terminologies important to their work in their native language. To provide a conducive and comfortable environment for learning, training was imparted to women in groups.In these sessions, women farmers discussed their issues and found local and long-lasting solutions,on their own.
A Step towards Prosperity
Indira’s story, however, is not solely about her success in farming.She used her learningto uplift an entire community. Many in her village are small landholders who struggle to make enough to survive. Indira knew she had to help.
“Because I am an Anganwadi worker, I am invested in the overall wellbeing of my community,” she says. Indira encouraged and helped many villagers become members of the Dharmasthala Sangha – a charitable trust that runs self-help groups in Karnataka and provides finance to rural communities through micro credit. “We have procured loans of up to Rs 5 lakh for many smallholders, at minimal interest rates. These loans have helped the community build their lives.” “Some areselling home-made products like papads and other eatables. Some are setting up looms to weave sarees. It is a domino effect, except we help people stand up,” she says with pride.
Financial literacy has allowed Indira to help the farming community in her village explore alternate modes of income generation. Some families are setting up flour mills to build businesses around local crops.“Jowar (sorghum) is commonly milled here and then sold in other markets. Many have entered this business,” she says.
Uplifting a Community
Women are the driving force behind Indian agriculture. Centuries of social conditioning, however, has meant their health concerns are brushed under the carpet – women too are reluctant to discuss them.
As an Anganwadi (health) worker, Indira is a community influencer as well. “We work with women in the farms and educate them about personal hygiene. Menstrual hygiene is a pressing issue, many women do not have access to sanitary pads and use cloth during periods. Poor menstrual hygiene can lead to other health problems,” she says. Anaemia, she says, is another health challenge. “We tell women about local produce which is rich in iron and can be easily added to their diet,” she says.
Armed with safety kits.
“Solidaridad supports women farmers and farm workers, particularly those involved with harvesting and crop transportation, by linking them with health institutions from where they can get sanitary pads etc. We also provide health and safety kits (gloves, masks, goggles, cap, gumboots) to women farmers,” says Alok.
For Indira, the journey has just begun. Pleased with the returns from her half-acre land, Indira now wants to take additional land on lease to grow more sugarcane. She also wants to start dairy farming.
They say when you educate a woman, you educate a family. Indira has used her learning to uplift an entire village. She now hopes more women in her village will become financially independent. For Solidaridad, it will be a proud moment to become a partner in their journey.
Literacy is one of the best social investments, yet has often been neglected in CSR spending.The Covid crisis has greatly damaged our education system – we urgently need to build back better with innovative approaches to literacy which leave no one behind.
By Tom Delaney
When we invest our money in a bank, we are happy to receive a 5% interest rate. Buy shares, and we might be lucky to receive a 10% plus return. But for every rupee spent on literacy, society reaps a 700% return!1
Foundational literacy and numeracy is one of the best social investments. Yet, it has often been neglected in CSR, national, and international funding. The Covid crisis has greatly damaged our education system—we urgently need to build back better with innovative approaches to funding literacy which fill the learning gaps quickly.
The ability to read and write is a crucial determinant of a child’s future, in much the same way the literacy rate of a nation is a vital indicator of its prospects. Children who lack the foundational skills to read, write and do basic arithmetic, may well spend the rest of their lives in poverty. The cost of becoming literate is minimal, yet the cost of remaining illiterate is huge2.
Meanwhile, new pedagogy and technology are enabling low-cost scalable literacy programs. Improved techniques are bringing the cost of making someone literate down. We have no excuse for why hundreds of millions of fellow Indians remain unable to read and write. Just as prevention is much cheaper than cure in medicine, so too avoiding the costs of illiteracy. Investing in literacy is both a social responsibility and a smart move economically.
The costs of illiteracy are large and growing as the world becomes increasingly digitized and information-rich, leaving those who can’t access this information even further behind. Ask a person who is illiterate about their daily life and you’ll soon understand the huge inconveniences and inefficiencies they face—from not being able to read a bus sign to being unable to decipher a medicine label, from getting the wrong change to lacking the confidence to speak up.
The importance of literacy has long been neglected until recently, and indeed India has more people who are illiterate than the next remaining top 10 countries globally added together! Further, the Covid crisis has thrown education systems worldwide into disarray. According to a recent UNESCO report, 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries post-Covid cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 53% pre-Covid3. The scale of education loss is ‘nearly insurmountable’.
In the face of this massive challenge, we need a society-wide mobilization to ensure all children are in school and they are learning well. Governments bear the primary responsibility. However, CSR and philanthropic foundations also have a key role to play. CSR can take greater risks and invest in educational innovations and start-ups in a way that may be difficult for governments to do. Even a relatively small amount invested in the right way can catalyze a huge transformation.
Accelerating Learning for All: A disruptive new pedagogy to make India and the world literate
Accelerating Learning for All (ALfA) enables Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) to be taught in just 90 instructional days (or some 30-50 instructional hours). Contrast this with 5 years of schooling even after which half the children in Grade 5 in pre-Covid India lacked these foundational skills.
Most learners using ALfA can begin to read newspapers within 30 days starting with zero knowledge of the letters. It works through the power of a reverse methodology, peer learning, students making questions for each other, and going from known to the unknown. The short, visual modules enable children and adults alike to learn swiftly, building off existing knowledge of their environment. Pair learning enables children to learn crucial 6Cs of the 21st Century: Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Character and Citizenship.
I can personally testify to the power of this literacy program and its Global Dream Disruptive FLN Toolkits, as I’ve used these myself to teach over 100 children and adults in the slums of Lucknow. Some were child labourers, locked out of the education system by their desperate poverty. Many others were in school, but had been unable to learn even basic literacy there. I’ve witnessed kids learning more in 5 weeks with ALfA than they have in 5 years at school.
It’s not just me who’s been won over by ALfA pedagogy embodied in the Global Dream Toolkits. These innovative literacy materials were first tried by the children of City International and City Montessori Schools, Lucknow; as part of the Each One Teach One Campaign. Between 2014 and 2019, the campaign was adopted by some 500,000 school and college students across several cities in India (working with different language versions of the Global Dream Toolkits). The student volunteers adopted a learner—a maid, a family member, a slum-dweller, a child or an adult—and taught them the foundational skills.
Student voluneers using the free Literacy Now App to teach learners from a slum. Supported by SBI Foundation.
During the Covid period, we decided to develop online tools. Literacy Now app presents further new possibilities at zero cost. We are grateful for the support of SBI Foundation who helped us convert our literacy content into digital format and develop a free-to-use app, Literacy Now (learn.literacynow.app). The app was launched in May 2022 and currently has 30,000 student volunteers. The app needs further support for numeracy and other developments to make it an increasingly more powerful tool to scale-up literacy programs across India and worldwide.
Together with my colleagues and ALfA founder, Dr Sunita Gandhi, a former World Bank Economist who returned to India to help improve the quality of education—we’ve chronicled the story of this remarkable program in Disruptive Literacy: A Roadmap for Urgent Global Action (Bloomsbury, July 2022).
“Dr. Sunita Gandhi’s 30-hour literacy and numeracy model is highly innovative, and highly scalable, that can benefit school children, out of school children and illiterate adults.”
Shri Rajnath Singh, Defense Minister
Accelerating Learning for All in Schools
Most recently, DEVI Sansthan has been asked by the Ministry of Education to help improve the literacy and numeracy levels of primary grades 1 through 5 in two of the ten ‘low-performing districts (LPDs), and to showcase results by the next National Achievement Survey in March 2023. We immediately began to raise funds.
Learning-by-doing in M3M Foundation supported ALfA program in LPD Shamli, UP
We are extremely grateful to Dr. Payal Kanodia, Trustee M3M Foundation for her quick decision to partner with us in LPD Shamli, Uttar Pradesh. This has enabled us to get started instantly, and already realize some extremely encouraging results. In merely 30 instructional days, many children of Shamli as young as Grade 1 are reading with fluency and understanding their own textbooks. Many are reading the difficult language of the newspapers. Children are understanding the numeracy concepts by using locally available materials at zero or near zero costs—exceeding class level expectations in this very short time. You may view the results on www.dignityeducation.org/links.
We are still looking for partners for the other LPD allocated to us—Sambalpur, Odisha. We know we can help turn around these low-performing districts quickly, providing we can raise the crucial funds.
Accelerating Learning for All (ALfA) programs are now available in 25 Indian and International languages with more in the replication process. This is allowing us to begin making impact worldwide. The ALfA program has been adopted for nationwide implementation in the Republic of Maldives, with the World Bank as partner. Many other international partners and countries are now in the pipeline to collaborate towards the SDG 4 of learning for all.
Adult Learners in Hardoi learning from Global Dream Toolkits. DEVI Sansthan as Training and Knowledge Partner for HCL Foundation.
Filling the colossal gap cannot wait another year or years, or we will lose tens of millions more to illiteracy. A disruptive approach that is swift and effective, and that can be easily understood by the volunteers and teachers alike, is the need of the hour. If you would like to review the evidence for the ALfA program, or reach out to us to partner together, please visit www.dignityeducation.org/links and www.dignityeducation.org.
1Literacy Partners, New York
2Watkins, Kevin. 2021. If Education is Such a Great Investment, it Deserves Serious International Backing. The Guardian. https://bit.ly/3nUX4Xj
Tom Delaney (tom@dignityeducation.org) is an Australian citizen but has been living in India many years. He is a volunteer literacy teacher and trainer with DEVI Sansthan.
Smile Train’s vision for Cleft Nutrition Programs is a world where every baby born with a cleft has the opportunity to thrive and grow
Nutrition has taken a center stage with the Prime Minister announcing the month of September as Rashtriya Poshan Maah (National Nutrition Month) which strives to promote nutrition awareness and support for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers to eliminate malnutrition from the country. To ensure community mobilization and bolster grassroots level participation, the government also encourages participation of non-profit organizations to achieve optimum outcomes. Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft-focused NGO, supports 100% free cleft surgeries and comprehensive cleft care services and joins the league to build measures to eliminate malnutrition, more so applying a lens to the specialized nutritional needs for children with clefts.
Although with policy level interventions, India has made remarkable progress in the past few decades, malnutrition continues to be a major developmental challenge in India. As per NFHS 5 findings, in India, 32.1%, 35.5% and 19.3% of children under the age of five are underweight, stunted and wasted respectively. In accordance with data collated from Smile Train Partner Hospitals, 20-30% children born with cleft lip and palate are unable to receive timely surgery due to malnutrition.
Importance of Nutrition in children with clefts
One in 700 children is born with a cleft lip and/or palate in India; annually, this translates to more than 35,000+ live cleft births in the country. Children with cleft lip and palate are uniquely vulnerable to malnutrition and subsequent growth problems, even when food supply is abundant. This is because clefts affect their ability to suckle and often make it very difficult to breast or bottle-feed. Malnutrition among children with clefts increases the risks for infection, illness or morbidity, and delays the life-transforming cleft surgery process. In extreme cases, malnutrition in a child with cleft can also lead to loss of a life. However, with proper knowledge and guidance, this can be prevented, treatment can be provided on time, and all other associated developmental delays can be addressed.
Mobile Nutrition Van.
Smile Train’s Nutrition Program
Smile Train’s vision for Cleft Nutrition Programs is a world where every baby born with a cleft has the opportunity to thrive and grow, without being held back by any feeding challenges related to their cleft.
The Smile Train Nutrition Program serves as a nutrition resource for treatment partner hospitals, cleft teams, and those affected by clefts around the world. The Nutrition Program envisions to act as a safety net to ensure that children with clefts receive timely nutrition care and treatment and are able to combat the reversible condition to grow on par with their peers. The comprehensive programs encompass three levels of support for feeding and nutrition:
Feeding counseling for mothers and families
Nutrition assessment for patients with clefts
Nutrition care before and after surgery
Celebrating Poshan Maah with partner hospitals.
While all cleft teams at treatment partner hospitals across India are equipped to provide feeding counseling for mothers and families, Smile Train India aims to expand their Nutrition Assessment and Care Program across the country so that children can receive their cleft surgery at the optimal age. Smile Train India piloted their nutrition assessment and support program in 2019 and this service has now been extended to 34 treatment partners across 12 states. The project aims to increase nutrition support programs by 35% in the next 12 months. Under this program, Smile Train partner hospitals provide nutrition assessment, counseling and supplementary nutrition support to children with clefts from initial screening, till the period of post-operative care. Smile Train’s sustainable model of empowering and training local healthcare workers fosters long-term relationships between families and cleft teams. This allows Smile Train’s partner hospitals to ensure that the parents of children with clefts receive the right guidance for nutritional well-being from birth to completion of cleft surgery.
Nutrition awareness session in progress.
Ushering in behavior & practice level changes to reduce malnutrition
Mamta Carroll
“Smile Train is uniquely positioned to support the needs of children with clefts and our sustainable model is designed to foster long-term relationships between families and cleft care professionals. The concerns related to malnutrition among children with clefts are consciously included in our program and addressed to yield greater results in improving the nutrition indicators among children with clefts both before and after surgery. Although nutrition remains a core focus area for Smile Train, bringing a sustainable change would require increased community understanding of clefts, government and multi-sectoral awareness and collaborative actions. Poshan Maah, celebrated across the nation, provides one such opportunity and we are determined to leverage that optimally,” says Mamta Carroll, Senior Vice President and Regional Director Asia, Smile Train.
Through the Young Health Program (YHP), Plan India and AstraZeneca are enabling and empowering young people to make healthy choices today for a better tomorrow.
Avantika Vijay Singh
Eleven-year-old Parveen is a petite, docile child at first glance till she speaks with fiery courage and confidence for one so young. Parveen, living in JJ Colony of Bawana in North Delhi, saw her grandfather and father addicted to alcohol in a community where this was more the norm than the exception. They were resistant to any change even though the grandfather had suffered three cardiac arrests. Little Parveen, upon associating with the Youth Health Program (YHP) with Plan India became aware of the dangers of alcohol addiction. Armed with this knowledge, she marched straight to her dadu, the patriarch, and convinced him of the dangers of alcohol to his health, the family finances, and the disruption of their normal life. And, with a little help, both the grandfather and father left alcohol. Where others had failed Parveen struck gold – changing the health and quality of life of her family for the better.
Parveen, a young changemaker.
Parveen’s mother Sabina is proud of her daughter’s achievements and credits YHP for bringing this big change in their lives. Today, she is an active advocate of YHP and volunteers for campaigns and activities that bring change in her “street, community, and country” adding many others to this program.
The Program: Overview & Impact
YHP was started in Bawana, a large resettlement colony, inhabited by mostly daily wagers working in the factories of the Bawana Industrial area, in October 2021. It is a program that has been successfully conducted since 2010 by Plan India and AstraZeneca India in parts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi. The program works by educating youth from the target communities themselves on the ill effects of tobacco and alcohol. Thus, the initiative undertakes a community-based approach to develop the youth into peer educators who in turn shoulder the responsibility of expanding the message to the entire community. In a span of 12 years in India, YHP, in its different phases, has so far positively impacted over 4,60,000 young people and more than 7,800 peer educators.
It is a successful model that has been implemented globally, too, and reached more than 8 million young people in more than 30 countries around the world to date, with 10 million more targeted between 2021 and 2025.
An HIC Facilitator interacts with the community members.
YHP aims to address the risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like cancers, diabetes, heart, and respiratory ailments, tobacco and alcohol addiction, mental and physical ill health, unhealthy diet, and air pollution that are the leading cause of mortality. According to the World Health Organisation, 70% of these are preventable and linked back to risks encountered and behaviours started during adolescence. Thus, YHP aims to focus on enhancing responsive health-seeking behaviour among adolescents and other stakeholders so that they lead a happy and disease-free life. This will also reduce the growing burden of NCDs on the health system.
Due to the availability and accessibility of tobacco and alcohol, and different kinds of illegal drugs in this unauthorized colony, Bawana has a huge scope for awareness creation on risks associated with consumption of tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy diet and benefits of physical activity for young girls and boys so that they may take preventive action against NCD.
Safe Spaces: HICs
The program creates a Health Information Centre (HIC) that acts as a safe space for the children in the area. Across Delhi, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, 21 HICs are now operational. HIC is a hub of activities and sessions conducted by two facilitators (male and female each) or HICF, popularly addressed as ‘didi’ and ‘bhaiya’ by the children, for creating a web of awareness, empowering the stakeholders to take informed decisions, and bringing change in the community. Children associated with the program are so inspired that they become agents of change for themselves, their family, and their community. They conduct sessions and activities in turn, even deciding the schedule and topics, and are known as Peer Educators.
The key drivers of the program are community-based interventions like outreach by YHP staff, peer educators, and Health information centre (HIC) which is a platform where young people learn about risk associated with NCD and take informed decisions about their health.
Peer Power Meet Afreen. A fifteen-year-old girl, who first changed herself with the awareness gained from the sessions and then others. Afreen used to consume junk food easily available from roadside vendors like chowmein every day after school. Afreen says, “I used to feel very tired and sick all the time and my mother used to take me to the doctor quite often. But after the sessions, I learned that this has a bad effect on our health so I stopped eating chowmein. I started doing yoga that didi, bhaiya taught us, and now I eat ‘Tiranga food’. I feel much healthier and don’t get sick now.” She spreads awareness about Tiranga food that includes vegetables (greens), lentils (orange), and whites (rice etc.) and counsels children not to fall prey to unhealthy food. This is just one of the topics that she talks about as she proudly displays the posters that she and her peers made as awareness-generating tools.
The story of Renu is no different. Renu, a class 11th student, too turned from unhygienically prepared roadside junk food to “Tiranga food”. She also gave up video games that she spent all her time on. In a place where space, especially a ‘safe space’ is at a premium, she stepped into a nearby park along with others her age to play football, perhaps enjoying the freedom of running freely for the first time in her youthful life. She enjoys the healthy camaraderie with her peers, no longer missing the world of video games, and even played football in a friendly match on International Youth Day.
Girls in action.
This healthy camaraderie amongst boys and girls and respect for women has been inculcated by the program. One such case in point is seventeen-year-old Sachin who brought conversations about menstruation in the open, understood his sister’s pain, and supported her in her activities at home, often raising his voice against associated social taboos.
YHP has also supported the government machinery of Anganwadi workers and Asha workers providing them with sanitary napkins for distribution and holding sessions for awareness about menstruation in their areas. The lack of knowledge about menstrual hygiene and access to hygienic menstrual products leads to infections amongst women which the program is trying to overcome.
Sachin also talks about substance abuse and alcohol addiction endemic in the area and how as an inspired peer educator he has brought about change. Children his age often like to make reels for social media for ‘tashan’ (style) where they are smoking a hukkah, falling prey to the falsely perpetuated ideas of masculinity. Sachin helped rescue as many as five children from the trap of substance abuse by counseling them and engaging them in activities at the HIC. The Aanganwadi workers also validate the large substance abuse amongst adolescent children in the area like bhang, hukkah, whitener ink, nasha, and alcohol among others. The HICF facilitate intergenerational dialogues between parents and children, bringing taboo subjects like addiction and menstruation into the open and getting family support for children to overcome their challenges.
Addiction often begins at home when parents give money to children to bring tambaku. Recognizing this, volunteers made posters at the HIC in the local language that “baccho ko nasheele cheeze bechana kanooni apradh hai”. As a result, the shopkeepers stopped selling such substances to children. Nukkad natak (street theatre) and campaigns are often held by adolescents and other adult volunteers like Parveen to bring awareness to the larger community.
YHP is thus sowing the seeds of social and behaviour change amongst adolescents and other stakeholders to enhance responsive health-seeking behaviour and enable them to lead a happy and disease-free life. Change is being wrought by empowering young people, mobilizing the community, creating an enabling environment for caregivers, and encouraging advocacy for the changing environment.
With inputs from Plan India. Names have been changed for confidentiality.
Key public schemes should have universal coverage rather than requiring bogus income certificates
Thomas Delaney
Vijay was distraught. He had racked up debts of Rs 30,000 running around various private hospitals, trying to save his wife, who had been reduced to skin and bones by TB meningitis.
Vijay, a mochi (cobbler) who earns less than Rs 200 per day, lives with his family of six in a shack by the side of a railway track. Despite his extreme poverty, he was unable to make an Aayushman card – the government scheme providing health insurance for up to Rs 5 lakh per household. The reason: his name was not on the official Below Poverty Line (BPL) list.
On another occasion I was assisting a senior citizen apply for the Old Age Pension, and had been told an income certificate was required.
“What income do you want to show on the certificate?” the babu asked me.
“I’ll check how much they earn.” I replied, pulling out my phone.
“No, no.” He shook his head, amused by my naivety. “What do you need the income certificate for? If it’s for a cancer card, it should be Rs 36,000 per year, whereas a ration card could be up to Rs 100,000. Just tell me what you need it for, and I’ll make it accordingly.”
A person with disability sits outside his shack. Jawahar Nagar, Lucknow.
Genuinely proving income is very difficult in a nation where some 90% of economic transactions are made in cash. Millions of destitute people are locked out of schemes that ostensibly target the poor because they lack the documentation to prove their poverty, and can’t pay middlemen to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops.
Meanwhile, some of the people who do access these schemes are relatively well off – having made income certificates that aren’t worth the paper they are written on.
Such abuse of schemes targeted to the poor are satirized in the film Hindi Medium, in which a wealthy couple, struggling to get their daughter admitted into an elite school, move into a slum in order to apply for the quota for ‘Economically Weaker Sections’ provided under the Right to Education Act (2009). In real life, the inclusion and exclusion errors of schemes targeted to the poor are no laughing matter.
Take the National Social Assistance Program (NSAP), which provides pensions to widows, senior citizens, and people with disabilities, as well as one-time payments to families whose breadwinners have passed away. NSAP provides valuable relief to some families, but there are mind-boggling levels of exclusion due to inability to provide the necessary documentation. For instance, there are some 55 million widows, of whom around 40 million would meet the economic criteria (annual household income under Rs 2 lakh) to entitle them to a pension – but only 8 million actually receive it.
Such schemes should be universalised. Granting pensions to all widows, senior citizens and people with disabilitieswithouta means test, would not only ensure that the marginalised are included, it would also drastically reduce inefficiency and corruption. The current system reeks of graft: for example, when an official does a house visit to verify the poverty of a widow, he routinely asks for ‘petrol money’. Making these schemes a universal right and streamlining the enrolment process – for instance, using the Aadhaar database to automatically enrol people for the senior citizen pension when they turn 60 – would greatly decrease the opportunity to demand bribes.
NSAP currently has 34 million pensioners and runs on a shoestring budget of Rs 96 billion. Back-of-the-envelope calculations based on Census data show that 80-85% of people with disabilities, senior citizens and widows are not on the pension. If properly universalised, the NSAP budget would need to increase by about Rs 500 billion.
Two teenage sisters use a laptop. Nai Basti, Lucknow.
One common argument against universalising public schemes is that it is too expensive to do so. An extra Rs 500 billion may sound like a lot, but it represents just 0.2% of GDP, and could easily be paid for in any number of ways. For instance, introducing an annual wealth tax of just 1% on India’s 166 dollar billionaires, whose wealth has skyrocketed over the last few years, would comfortably cover the bill.
A negligible sacrifice on the behalf of the wealthiest in Indian society could both drastically reduce inefficiencies and corruption and make a major difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of vulnerable people.
A pension of a few hundred rupees per month sounds like nothing to those of us who have a lot, but it means a lot to those who have nothing. For the widow who can afford a little more nutrition, for the grandfather who can get his glasses made, these small sums can enable a life of greater dignity and hope.
For the sake of millions like Vijay, it’s time to end the tragic irony of the poor being excluded from schemes that ostensibly target them. We need tobuild a more equitable society by providing key services for everyone.
Thomas Delaney is a Lucknow-based literacy program trainer with a non-profit. He has worked for many years to assist people from slums get access to government services.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are the author’s own, and The Good Sight does not necessarily subscribe to them.
Synergy Summit brings together leading educational thinkers and practitioners to forge a path towards universal foundational literacy and numeracy
There is a global literacy and numeracy crisis. An estimated 70% of the world’s 10-year-olds post-COVID cannot read, write or do basic arithmetic – up from 53% pre-pandemic.[1] Functional Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) has been a perennial problem in education, and there seems to be no end in sight.
Education as we know it has failed to provide foundational literacy and numeracy to the vast majority of children.
The National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) was launched in 2021 “to ensure that every child in India gains foundational numeracy and literacy by the end of Grade 3.” 2
We have a long way to go to if we are to achieve these ambitious goals by or before 2026-27. “India’s learning crisis is not news. The National Achievement Survey of 2017 tells us that 1 in 3 students in Grade 3 cannot read small text with comprehension and that 1 in 2 students in Grade 3 cannot use math to solve daily life problems. The findings from the 2018 ASER report are even more stark – only 50% of children in Grade 5 in rural India could read a Grade 2 level text, and only 28% of children in Grade 5 could solve a division problem.”3
If this is the report card on our education after 5 years of schooling before the COVID, how will this change post-COVID? What new directions are we taking? How are we filling the 70% gap that now exists? How fast are we filling this gap? What new efforts since schools re-opened are bridging these gaps most effectively? What can we learn from these efforts? How can we scale up these efforts?
These are some of the questions discussed during the first SYNERGY SUMMIT held at the India International Center in New Delhi on July 11 & 12. The theme of the conference could not have been more appropriate and timely, ‘A Paradigm Shift in FLN: Making India Literate in Months, Not Years’.
Participants at the most strategic summit on FLN that really brought together different stakeholders and educational thinkers on one platform to speak on the literacy crisis
The Synergy Summit in New Delhi saw lively discussions among the stakeholders: government officials, CSR heads, NGO leaders, school and university heads.
The consensus was unanimous. If we are to accelerate towards literacy for all, and bridge the huge literacy gaps exacerbated by the pandemic, we need a paradigm shift. This entails wholesale systemic reform – new leadership and mission-mindedness, new pedagogy & curriculum, new governance & accountability structures. Above all, we need to synergize, bringing together diverse stakeholders to act together in a mass movement for literacy.
The four ACTS of the Synergy Summit
The four ACTS of the Synergy Summit are: A—Act, C—Commit, T—Transform, S—Share.
A—ACT
Act swiftly, before a generation is lost to illiteracy
The government through its highly proactive policies NEP 2020 and NIPUN Bharat, has placed the highest importance of India’s education on Foundational Literacy & Numeracy. Many new and innovative efforts have begun Pan-India as a result. The directions are clear. For the first time, there is new energy in the education sector to speed up providing of FLN skills to all primary aged children.
Yet FLN, a perennial problem, is hard to solve.
We need all minds together, and all hands on the deck. The participants of the Synergy Summit recognized the need for bringing all segments of society to work together in greater synergy. The Synergy Summit also called for urgent action on all fronts: From Policy to Curriculum. It further called for more financial resources to pay for such effective measures as Conditional Cash Transfers and PPP, to boost attendance and to bring in greater innovation and a new accountability. Prevention is much cheaper than cure – it is far better to ensure a child remains in school and becomes literate than to cope with the fallout of illiteracy.
C—COMMIT
Commit to mobilize all stakeholders to take all possible actions for universal FLN
To mobilise all stakeholders for action, we need clear statements of commitment. A key goal of the Synergy Summit was to invite commitments towards the common goal of universal literacy by representatives of key stakeholder groups.
Lighting the Lamp of Learning at the Synergy Summit
Union Defense Minister Shri Rajnath Singh in a moving video message highlighted the importance of greater commitment to ‘find a solution’. (View on QR Code).
Shri Rajnath Singh said: “If India has to grow in terms of knowledge economy and if it wants to create a knowledge society, then foundation literacy will be its first and most necessary step. If we look at the actual situation of our country, even after 75 years of our independence, due to various reasons, we have not been able to reach an ideal position in foundational literacy. There is an urgent need to figure out the problems and find a solution. In this direction, I would like to congratulate Ms. Sunita Gandhi for her Accelerating Learning for All Program.”
The Synergy Summit was inaugurated by the Chief Guest, Dr. Abdulla Rasheed Ahmed, Minister of State for Education, Republic of Maldives. He argued that literacy and numeracy is the foundation not just of education, but also of life itself. He announced his commitment to bring FLN to all children in the Republic of Maldives by signing of an MOU between Ministry of Education, Republic of Maldives, and DEVI Sansthan for the implementation of Global Dream Accelerating Literacy for All (ALfA) program at the level of a nation at all its schools.
Minister of State for Education Maldives, Dr. Abdulla Rasheed Ahmed, travelled all the way from his country to attend the Synergy Summit
There were many country representatives who attended the Summit. These have led to new discussions for the adoption of ALfA in seven other countries. DEVI Sansthan is now working across India and in several countries getting organizations to adopt a 90-Day FLN challenge, or take up system-wide implementation of ALfA—Accelerating Learning for All. This transformative pedagogy is making a huge impact as it is swift, effective, low or zero cost.
DEVI Sansthan and M3M Foundation signed an MOU for the implementation and advancement of FLN in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh. Shamli is one of the ten Low-Performing Districts of India. Follow-on discussions have begun with many corporates to support two LPDs, Shamli in UP, and Sambalpur in Odisha allocated to DEVI Sansthan and slated for turn-around by the office of the Secretary, Ministry of Education, India. Actions which have already begun in these two districts but they still need to be fully funded. Time is not on our side if we are to “transform the monotonous education system into an integrated, enjoyable, all-inclusive and engaging one”.4
Trustee M3M Foundation, Dr Payal Kannodia, during her address on Day 1 of the Synergy Summit
Along with government representatives, numerous NGOs present also offered their commitments towards the cause. These are leading to new partnerships in India and across the world.
T—TRANSFORM
Transform practice
Our education system doesn’t just need a fresh coat of paint, but rather, a complete transformation. Education needs to be rethought afresh – it’s time for a broad-ranging paradigm shift, from policies to pedagogies, from TLMs to training. The Accelerating Literacy for All program harnesses the power of peer learning and student-led classrooms to achieve dramatic gains.5 But its potential can only be truly realized in the context of wholescale systemic reform.
S—SHARE Share successes for wider adoption
To achieve scalable transformation, it is vital to spread innovative ideas and disseminate best practices. Bringing together voices from around the nation and the world, the summit enabled a new synergy of ideas, and sharing of innovative practices for immediate replication.
The summit saw the launch of the book, Disruptive Literacy: A Roadmap for Urgent Global Action, authored by Dr Sunita Gandhi, Tom Delaney, Jon Hakim and Mashhood Alam Bhat. Published by Bloomsbury in July 2022, the book draws from the remarkable movements around the world. It is sprinkled with stories of grassroots educational work and ideas that can immediately be put into action. Disruptive Literacy is an easy-to-read but hard-to-ignore manifesto that will touch your heart and inspire you to action.
The book on disruptive literacy, written by Dr. Sunita Gandhi along with three other co-authors was launched in the presence of the press and public at the 1st Synergy Summit at the India International Center
The book argues for a mass movement for literacy, analyzing notable historical examples such as Cuba (1961) and Ernakulam (1989). By bringing together three key elements – mission-minded government leadership, mobilization of all sectors of society, and materials & methods that accelerate learning – it is possible to achieve tremendous literacy gains.
Some Recommendations from the Synergy Summit
Synergy: Looking at the problem of literacy from a system lens and designing methods which focus on all stakeholders. Government, Society and Market need to come together for betterment of education. Come together, synergize and follow each other’s experiences and replicate.
Scaling Up: India is a minefield of successful pilots and failed scale-ups. Solutions that address the aspects of scalability and sustainability in the long run, need to be focused on. Work on schools with higher enrolment of students and make them model schools for the remaining to follow.
Funding: The corporates can be advised to redirect a certain fixed high percentage of their CSR funds towards Foundational Literacy and Numeracy for one financial year.
Gender: Extensive behavior change awareness needs to be done for solving the gender issue.
Food: A hungry child will not learn or study, which makes nutrition as the first stepping stone towards education.
Academics: Keeping the solution simple and pragmatic. Concept clarity and understanding of the subject should be given high importance and making education enjoyable while practicing. Learning to Read and then Reading to Learn should be followed as a concept, giving practice a higher place on the shelf.
Students: Student involvement through practical application of concepts.
Teachers: Focus on upgradation of the last person in the delivery chain: Teachers
Parents: Responsive caregiving at home, involvement of parents and home encouragement for monitoring and helping the child reach FLN level. Recommend government employees to send their own children to government schools, this may help in enhancing the quality of schools.
Technology: Technology is a very powerful tool which in a very blended manner with the teachers and school system, augment the solution for literacy.
Enrolment: Invest in bridging the learning gap due to covid for grade 3 and below and ensure all of them come back to school, focus on learning being the next step.
Children of Migrants: Children of migrant laborers should be admitted immediately to the school where they relocate on the basis of some common card or document so that his education continues uninterrupted.
Each One Teach One: Every privileged student should teach at least one underprivileged student.
Organizations were felicitated with certificates, gifts and trophies for the FLN work they have been doing in their own domains
Conclusion
The ability to read and write has a powerful effect on a person – building self-confidence, improving health, enhancing productivity. Literacy is a key determinant of a nation’s social, political and economic progress.
The existing education system is failing us. If we want to build a fully literate society, we need a paradigm shift to accelerate learning for all. Together we can.
DEVI Sansthan
The Synergy Summit on A Paradigm Shift in FLN was hosted by innovative NGO DEVI Sansthan, Dignity, Education, Vision International (www.dignityeducation.org, +91 740 840 6000)DEVI Mission is to catalyse transformation of education through sharing and implementation of evidence-based disruptive processes leading to system-wide adoption.DEVI invites all stakeholders to join hands to scale up FLN in any context or geography.
1UNICEF 2022; World Bank 2019 2 NEP 2020 3 ASER 2019 ‘Early Years’
Solidaridad’s intervention is focused on reclaiming sustainability in the medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPS) and herbal medicine sector through an integrated market-based and entrepreneurial approach
The importance of medicinal plants and derivatives is growing rapidly with human progress in pharmaceutical fields. These plants are a potential source of bio-molecules that play a major role in the modern pharmaceutical industry in treating diseases like cancer, diabetes, and hypertension, among others. The demand for medicinal herbs is increasing because of their supposedly fewer or no side effects and rising use globally. They are also considered highly potentially cost-effective means of developing new and breakthrough drugs.
India is a treasure trove of medicinal plants, owing to its rich biodiversity and gold mine of medicinal knowledge. It is the second largest exporter of medicinal plants, next to China, in the world and a host to more than three hundred thousand herbal medicine preparations used in ancient healing systems such as Ayurveda, Unani, and Homeopathy.
In India, a major volume of medicinal herbs comes from wild sources. Unsustainable harvesting practices of medicinal plants from the wild often result in rapid degradation of the natural biodiversity and poor regeneration capacity. This, in turn, affects the production and supply of medicinal plants from forest areas and the quality of the raw materials.
An all-encompassing solution lies in cultivating these plants outside forest areas and as a part of existing farmlands. This would also enable farmers and farming communities to enhance their income and livelihood through crop diversification with the high-value medicinal plant species.
MAPs are identified as promising crop diversification crops
With that in view, as well as integrating circular and regenerative agriculture principles, Solidaridad has started a program to reclaim sustainability in the medicinal plants and herbal medicines sector through the three facets of the sustainability index: (i) power to the people (Inclusivity) (ii) respect for the planet (Producing in balance with nature) and (iii) a fair share for everyone in the chain (Prosperity).
The program ‘Sustainable Medicinal & Aromatic Plants’ is working towards developing a sustainable value chain of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) in selected districts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in India through the extension of new technologies and practical knowledge among the growers. It is based on a strategy toward promoting a diversified agro-ecosystem within central India’s predominant soy-based cropping system.
From low-value crops to high-value market-oriented MAPs
The cultivation of MAPs is also fraught with the perils of substitutes and adulterants traded freely in the market, thus affecting the quality and efficacy of the end product. In addition, issues around accurate identification of species and variation in quality plague the sector. The largely unregulated and non-transparent supply chain contributes to the various constraints restricting the growth of the herbal sector in India. The farmers’ lack of access to technical know-how and advisory support for the cultivation and management of MAPs adds to the issue as they often purchase poor-quality planting materials from various sellers at a very high price.
Solidaridad’s intervention is focused on reclaiming sustainability in the medicinal and aromatic plants and herbal medicine sector through an integrated market-based and entrepreneurial approach. Toeing its multi-annual strategic plan, Solidaridad is working on a four-level intervention area: educating farmers with scientific know-how and good agricultural practices, supporting them in developing a viable business ecosystem, enabling an inclusive policy environment, and creating a market for affordable and sustainable products.
The MAPs are identified as promising crop diversification crops, which can make agriculture more remunerative. Crop diversification also builds farmers’ resilience to changing climate and associated risks of crop failure. Smallholder farmers are the most vulnerable to climate change. Extreme weather events in the last few years have brought losses to traditional crops in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Diversifying farmland for cultivating different crops, therefore, acts as a buffer during these times.
The demand for medicinal plants is growing worldwide and has the potential to fetch good income for the farmers compared to traditional crops. The program is encouraging small farmers to implement a shift of resources in the cultivated area, from cereals and low-value crops to high-value medicinal and aromatic plants. These high-value plants require fewer inputs and hence relate to better income realization for farmers along with facilitating their production in balance with nature.
Rising income and livelihood conditions
The MAP program strategy is proving to be effective in stabilizing and raising farm income and increasing employment opportunities while conserving the natural resource base. Crop diversification with MAPs in the program areas has boosted the income of the smallholder farmers. The farmers who started Ashwagandha cultivation after enrolling with Solidaridad have informed that the profit they earned from 1 bigha (0.63 acres) of Ashwagandha crop is equal to the profit they earned from 4 bighas (2.5 acres) of wheat crop. For an investment of Rs 30,000 per acre in production cost, a farmer earned around Rs 300,000 per acre from Ashwagandha cultivation. Crop diversification and the subsequently increased income is helping the farmers face valiantly the myriad challenges in agriculture along with ensuring food and health security of their households valiantly.
Kalu Singh
Kalu Singh, a farmer from Dewas district, Madhya Pradesh, said,“The profit I earned from 0.5 acres of Ashwagandha crop is equal to the profit I had earned from 2.2 acres of wheat crop. I am also selling Ashwagandha seeds to other farmers. The single most significant change I experienced by associating with this program is the manifold increase in my annual income in the last year.”
The program has been implemented with nearly 800 cultivators/growers of medicinal and aromatic plants in the selected districts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. The MAP crops that require less water and are more profitable have been prioritized, including Ashwagandha (Withania Somnifera), Mentha (Mint), Lemon Grass (Cymbopogan flexosus), Kalmedh (Andrographis Paniculata), Tulsi (Ocimum Sanctum), Akarkara (Anacyclus pyrethrum), Black cumin (Nigella sativa), and Turmeric (Curcuma longa) among others.
Enabling market access and entrepreneurship
The program has also enabled the farmers to become entrepreneurs.
Janki Lal
Janki Lal Jat, a medicinal plant farmer and entrepreneur from Jhalawar district, Rajasthan, said, “Previously, I was a farmer, and now due to this program and support of the Solidaridad team, I am an entrepreneur. In 2021, I attended a training workshop where I learned about good cultivation practices, certification process, primary processing, market opportunities, and the trade of medicinal plants. There, I also sought the guidance of an expert from Solidaridad about the scope of setting up a primary processing unit at the cottage level… Currently, I own a processing unit where I prepare Ashwagandha powder and Nanchang (dried whole plant), bio-pesticides, and bio-fertilizers, along with powders of other medicinal plants like Akarkara, Safed Musli, Shatavari, Aonla, Mulethi, Gokhru. I sell these processed products to medical stores and ayurvedic doctors in Jhalawar and Chittorgarh districts. Right now, my unit is producing about 10-12 kg of processed products daily, and the per quintal income/profit from the Ashwagandha plant has increased by Rs 30,000.”
Towards prosperity, inclusivity, and balanced production
Medicinal plants are in demand, yet many farmers hardly know how to cultivate and harvest them or where to find markets. These plants can provide additional income for farmers if they have the knowledge and resources. Also, the MAP crops have higher adaptability to climate change risks. On the other hand, the rising demand for these plants will further boost industry growth. The increasing demand, if met with appropriate sustainability needs, can make for a prosperous business case for the small farmers with higher income. Solidaridad’s ‘Sustainable MAP’ program is an endeavor in the same direction toward building prosperous and inclusive farming communities through eco-friendly, climate-smart, regenerative, and resource-efficient practices.
Dr Suresh Motwani
“Solidaridad has been a front runner in the promotion and implementation of innovative and market-based solutions for various global commodities in the last five decades. Solidaridad aims to reclaim sustainability in the medicinal plants and herbal medicines sector by producing in balance with nature, promoting fair prosperity and inclusivity for all involved in the supply chain,” says Dr SureshMotwani, General Manager, Solidaridad.
EFICOR’s Musahar Sustainable Development Project is positively impacting 1,500 most vulnerable Musahar families in Bihar’s East Champaran
The Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief (EFICOR) is a National Christian Organisation engaged in Disaster Response, Development and Training. Formed in 1967, it serves the poor and the marginalized communities in situations of poverty, injustice, and disaster in the country. EFICOR has been committed to the empowerment of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs), including the Musahars in Bihar, the Bhils in Rajasthan, the Koyas and the Chenchus in Andhra Pradesh, the Bhois in Odisha etc., through awareness, capacity building, exposure visits, and promotion of diversification of livelihoods, collaboration, and networking with the government.
Children Parliament Training Program
Musahar Sustainable Development Project
EFICOR is implementing the Musahar Sustainable Development Project with a goal to “improve household level food availability, and nutrition.” The initiative is positively impacting 1,500 most vulnerable Musahar families. The project is implemented in 20 Musahar tolas in Motihari block of East Champaran, Bihar. Majority of the families are landless and migrate to nearby towns/states to work as daily wage labourers. The community is poor, illiterate, ignorant and highly ostracized.
Implementation
The objectives of the project are focused on increasing average family income, improving the nutritional status of mothers and children under the age of 2 years, education, developing local leadership, improving community participation in Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), and reduction in distress migration.
To achieve this, the project has engaged in a four-pronged approach including training and capacity building, livelihood enhancement, and access to social security schemes.
The project efforts are concentrated on developing human resources based on local leadership for comprehensive community development. The Gramin Musahar Vikas Samiti (GMVS) formed by the project has a total of 158 members (with 53.8% female representation) who have undergone intensive training and exposure to development concepts. They will serve as key sustainable partners beyond the project timeframe.
EFICOR has created health awareness among the community, especially women and children on nutrition and health-seeking behaviour. This has been done in culture-specific message dissemination.
The project has engaged in several activities to increase the income such as strengthening of SHGs, livelihood support, and facilitating programs to identify cards for social security schemes which have not only bridged the gap between the community and the service providers but also paved a way for sustainable income.
Education awareness program.
School-going children’s parliaments, with a membership of 200, have been formed in 20 villages to develop them into responsible citizens. Thus EFICOR has engaged the community holistically for sustainable development.
Impact
As a result of leadership development among the community, 15 members (male 7 and female 8) have been elected as members of the PRI. This is a great achievement for the Musahar community leadership. Some of the GMVS have been successful in resisting corruption and the participation of the community in Gram Panchayat has increased by 15% after the project intervention.
Around 69.9% of the beneficiaries’ families were able to obtain PDS cards through project support; 80.33% of the beneficiaries have obtained government housing (Indira Awas Yojana) and 91.21% of families have obtained the Below the Poverty Line (BPL) card.
Moreover, over 4,000 individuals have been supported to access social security schemes. A total of
383 people have accessed livelihoods through linkage and direct support and are earning additional income.
Education is improved through awareness and intensive follow-up with parents and child migration has reduced by 35% in the operational area in the past 3 years. Significantly, no child mortality has been reported in the last three years with 95% coverage of regular immunization which has improved health of children below the age of 2.
In the past 6 years, EFICOR has installed 13 high-raised tube wells to provide clean water. Now the community members have enough clean water to drink, wash and bathe which was a struggle especially for women and children a few years ago, especially during floods.
Challenges
The villages receive floods every year due to geographical factors which lead to disruption of normal life, loss of human lives, crops, livestock, and community assets apart from affecting the income source. The discrimination against Musahars continues to impact their livelihood as the community has fewer options and a lower market given their caste status.
COVID-19 has increased the vulnerability of the community beyond the project limits. As a result, migration has drastically increased in the recent past. The education of the children has been hugely impacted due to the closing of schools during the pandemic. The impetus towards education has regressed for which the project had strived hard during the pre-COVID times.
Linkages with SDGs
EFICOR’s activities are directly or indirectly contributing to the SDG 01 -End poverty in all its form everywhere.
Ramesh Babu, ED, EFICOR
“At EFICOR, we strive not only to be the changemakers but also to create changemakers in the communities we serve. We believe in community-led creative actions to bring solutions to the socio-economic problems faced by the socially excluded, making intentional efforts driven by compassion and hinged on collaboration. Thus, we facilitate change leading to better lives with dignity and identity in the society,” says Ramesh Babu, Executive Director, EFICOR
In a bid to bridge the knowledge gap and arrest the impact of climate change on sugarcane, Solidaridad introduced the climate-smart agriculture (CSA) programme in 2018
Global climate change is a reality. And it is well established that climate change and agriculture are intrinsically connected. The impact of each on the other is both extensive and complex. Climate change affects agriculture in several ways, with variations in average temperature resulting in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and excessive rainfall. Besides the excess or lack of water availability that puts agriculture in the tropical regions under tremendous stress, climate change is also responsible for newer types of pests and diseases to invade the crops. The problem works in reverse too as agriculture contributes significantly to the climate problem, generating 19-29 per cent of the total greenhouse gas emissions[i].
Empowering smallholder sugarcane farmers.
Climate change affects everyone, but it affects the poor, especially rural poor, the most. It is the farmers, particularly smallholders, and workers who are the biggest victims of the vagaries of weather. In India, the sugarcane farmers constitute among the most vulnerable to climate-change-induced poor yield and productivity. Extreme temperatures accompanied by humidity and erratic rainfall have affected the sugarcane crop and yields in states like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Haryana and parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Climate change has also triggered new pests and diseases in states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Conventional and inappropriate farming practices, such as excessive use of fertilisers and pesticides or inordinate water use, further escalate the impact, affecting the yield, the land and ultimately the livelihoods of the smallholders. The sheer lack of knowledge on scientific and sustainable means of farming is leading to the catastrophic impact.
In a bid to bridge this knowledge gap and arrest the impact of climate change on sugarcane, Solidaridad introduced the climate-smart agriculture (CSA) programme in 2018. Moving away from unscientific practices, Solidaridad embarked on a journey to educate and enlighten the sugarcane farmers of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh on climate-resilient and sustainable agricultural practices. The programme aimed at encouraging the farmers to embrace scientific and adaptive farming techniques to protect their farmlands and sustain yields.
The programme and its reach
The three-year-long programme was supported by PepsiCo, and Solidaridad implemented it in partnership with OLAM Agro India Limited and International Finance Corporation. As a climate-smart initiative, the programme covered three key aspects of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental – based on specific agro-ecological zone requirements of the regions: Kolhapur and Barwani districts of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh respectively. The primary focus laid on increasing agricultural productivity and income; building resilience to climate change and minimising greenhouse gas emissions.
Practices like furrow irrigation for water-use efficiency and ratoon management for saving on cultivation costs were some of the key areas of intervention. As many as 24,053 farmers received extensive trainings and expert guidance on climate-smart and good agricultural practices during the programme. An additional 23,769 farmers, including women and elderlies, who could not attend the field trainings, were reached out via mobile van theatres (MVTs). The intent was out and clear: minimising risks for sugarcane farmers and businesses and securing their position in the supply chain in a most sustainable fashion.
Billions of litres of water saved!
During the three-year project period, the enrolled farmers managed to avoid the use of nearly 100.6 billion litres of water in sugarcane farming. Given that sugarcane is known to be a ‘water-guzzler’, the results reflected efficient water-use by the farmers, leading towards yield- and cost-efficiency and a growing adaptability to water scarcity in the face of climate change. Following sustainable agriculture, the growers also witnessed an increase in sugarcane yield per hectare in the command areas of both the mills. In Barwani and Rajgoli, the average yield increased from 80 tonnes/ha and 99.3 tonnes/ha to 87 tonnes/ha and 107.2tonnes/ha respectively. The increased yield has a direct impact on income—the sugarcane farmers stand to benefit considerably with every tonne increase in yield per acre per year.
CSA programme also engaged in financial literacy trainings.
Financial empowerment
Besides the climate-resilient measures and yield improvements in sugarcane, the CSA programme also engaged 8,583 farmers (5,503 in Rajgoli and 3,080 in Barwani) in financial literacy trainings. Information on how to access formal credits and make informed decision making were among the many topics discussed in these sessions. ‘Agriculture Technical Service Providers’ or ATSPs were also supported through the project to establish a custom hiring model and bring efficient agricultural services, such as land levellers and ploughing machines for use at the farmers’ doorsteps. The average revenue generated by each ATSP was around INR 600,000 (USD 7,960) per year, with one ATSP serving 37 farmers on average.
“Besides the regular trainings on scientific agricultural practices, the programme also introduced us to financial literacy, equipping us with the knowledge on managing earnings, savings and investments. For example, it allowed us to take informed decisions on investments in agricultural implements and also generate additional income from the same by renting them to other farmers in the vicinity,” says Surekha Patil, one of the ATSPs promoted under the programme.
Paving the road to Regenerative Agriculture
The priorities of the CSA programme also reflected concerns around soil health improvement, use of bio-fertilisers and balanced use of organic manure and other soil treatment interventions—as the harbinger of a transition towards regenerative agriculture.
“We have to promote regenerative agriculture in a holistic manner where community-based local knowledge gels adequately with modern tech-based artificial intelligence. This has been clearly realised under the CSA programme,” says Dr. Alok Pandey, Senior Programme Manager, Sustainable Sugarcane, Solidaridad.
For more than five decades, sustainability has been the keyword for Solidaridad—building partnerships with farmers across the world, helping them adopt good agricultural practices. Optimisation, not productivity, for land, biodiversity and energy is the one-point agenda at Solidaridad. A crucial step towards that is supporting the small-scale farmers to produce in balance with nature through systems like regenerative farming that go beyond sustainable farming to rebuild soil health—a key solution to combating climate change. Both as an adaptation strategy to climate change and variability, Solidaridad is encouraging farmers to invest their time and resources into restoring the land, air and water. In other words, to invest in regenerative farming.
C-SCAPES focuses on coastal and marine biodiversity conservation while also examining sustainable livelihoods based on the coastal and marine ecosystems
Established in 1980, the primary aim of Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development (TCSRD) (The CSR arm of Tata Chemicals) is to initiate and support community development programmes. It encourages this by adopting an integrated approach, and designing region-specific, need-based development initiatives. TCSRD is guided by its vision of Development that enables sustainability and community empowerment. The programmes are closely aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
C-SCAPES (Centre for Sustainable Conservation Action for Protection of Ecosystems of the Seas)
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Tata Group, Tata Chemicals developed C-SCAPES under the TCSRD umbrella, with the goal of it becoming a national centre of excellence. C-SCAPES focuses on coastal and marine biodiversity conservation while also examining sustainable livelihoods based on the coastal and marine ecosystems.
Restoration of Saltpans for conservation of migratory waterbirds in Kanyakumari.
The initiative, which was initiated in 2018, intends to empower marine and coastal conservation actions by convening and leveraging local, regional, and national stakeholders and partnerships, implementing, and demonstrating on-ground solutions, and providing credible knowledge and objective recommendations for policy and practice.
C-SCAPES’s work is organised into six areas: marine biodiversity protection; coastal ecosystem management; coastal community resilience-building; ocean education and communication; climate change mitigation and adaptation and coastal governance.
Projects under C-SCAPES include: Coral Reef Recovery Project in Mithapur (Gujarat); Save the Whale Shark Initiative(Gujarat); Community Conservation of Coral Reefs in the Lakshadweep Archipelago; Plantation of Mangroves in Mithapur (Gujarat) and the Sundarbans (West Bengal); Restoration of Saltpans for Conservation of Migratory Waterbirds in Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu); Conservation and Sustainable Management of Coastal Ecosystems for Increased Resilience to Climate Change Impacts in Cuddalore District (Tamil Nadu)and Nellore District (Andhra Pradesh).
Regeneration of mangroves.
Number of lives impacted
175 men, 175 women and 85 youth trained in ecosystem conservation actions including mangrove and coral reef restoration and management; 50 men and women directly engaged in natural resource governance through village-level institutions;155 families benefiting from strengthened fisheries and coastal agriculture; awareness building for over 800 students.
R Nanda
“One main area that we have been working on as part of our CSR priorities is maintaining and conserving the environment and biodiversity. We are building our long-term resilience by conducting pioneering activities that contribute to a thriving planet, communities, and enterprise, with sustainability at the heart of our approach. To maximise impact, we have matched our sustainability goals with the Responsible Care, CORE, and UN SDGs criteria.”
R Nanda, Hon. Secretary & Trustee
TCSRD (Chief of CSR & HR at Tata Chemicals)
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