SEDS training of rural youths

One of the projects of SEDS’s education programme is the schooling of rural youth. In order to give them employment opportunities outside the agriculture environment we offer them a wide range of activities from which they can choose.

VTC Penukonda
This year we have eight students, for domestic wiring and for mechanics. SEDS provides these courses free of cost but a registration fee Rs. 100 is charged– so that the students (and parents) will feel themselves inclined to complete the whole course instead of walking away in the middle of the semester. The boys sometimes come from far away to the VTC they reside in the SEDS hostel on top of a hill in Penukonda. There they stay the whole week and receive their meals, also free of charge. The courses in Penukonda will take three months to complete. By then the students will be thoroughly educated in electrical wiring and motor mechanics. The students of the motor mechanics classes get educated in fault finding, electrical wiring of the bike, general maintenance, changing components of the bike and repairs. In the Electrical training courses the pupils learn general things. They see how to repair common household appliances, detect faulty wiring and learn how to wire a house.
The students attend class from nine in the morning till five in the afternoon with a lunch break for one hour. This is from Monday to Saturday, Saturday evening they go back to their villages. After class it is time to relax and what is better than a game of volleyball!


Campus Anandapuram
In Anandapuram the computer and tailoring classes have been running non-stop. At this moment Lilani’s production centre is providing tailoring classes for six girls. They begin their education with stitching on brown paper to learn how to use the machines. After that they get taught in how to take measurements, patterns making and cutting and stitching. They make long Indian skirts(called langas), long blouses, sari blouses, churidars and other women’s clothing. Their training lasts about three months and the girls come from the surrounding villages. Girls who are located further away can go to the tailoring centres in their neighbourhood, see http://sedsngo.blogspot.com/2010/03/tailoring-centres.html.
Above the production centre there is the computer class where momentarily a total of eight youngsters receive training. There are three different courses. First there is basics for the ones who do not know anything about a computer. Here they learn how to type and the basics of handling a computer. This course takes three months. Then there is a Diploma in Computer Application (DCA) where the students receive an introduction in MS-DOS, the operating system and learn how to use all the MS office applications. This course also takes three months. Finally we offer them an extra two months course, Post Graduation DCA where they get a deeper understanding of networking and internet usage.
By providing these classes SEDS wants to give the village youth an additional skill. Employment is scarce in the region and each extra skill they posses can help them in their lives. These skills will not only assist them in their future but also dissuade them from anti-social activities. In this way SEDS hopes to contribute in a non-violent way to support the countrywide problem of the government against disruptive forces of youth joining up with anti social elements and political factions.

Exposure and visits from other organisations

In April SEDS received a visit of the Rural Education & Development Society (REDS) in the program of the Empowerment and Entitlement Coalition (E&E coalition) The E&E Coalition comprises of many civil society groups in India. Each group and organisation in the coalition is involved in different activities in order to build a better India that will provide humanly possible equal and dignified space to all her citizens.

http://www.mynews.in/News/Empowerment_and_Entitlement_coalition_call_to_abolish_Untouchability_now_N37586.html

The purpose of the visit was to show the staff of REDS how SEDS is active in its working area. In total 13 people came from all cadres within REDS. The visit lasted three days and the participants got a broad overview of all the activities within SEDS. Because of the nature of the E&E coalition most visits saw our community organisation programs. They attended meetings with our Village Level Volunteers (VLVs) and Village Health Workers (VHWs), saw two of our tailoring centres and the Balwadi centre. In order to see how we work in the villages they went to a Village Organisation (VO) meeting in Thungodu to see the working of our village structures. The last day there was a visit to the VTC, where local youth are trained in electrical wiring and motor mechanics, and the MFC where legal advice is distributed.

Naturally they also saw our natural resource management, the project which constitutes as a major component of all our projects. The development of watersheds in our area is an immensely important aspect of the whole development of our area of work, as without it SEDS believe that sustaianability of programs is not possible without a livelihoods enhancement process.

This was also the reaction of Vibhawari Kamble, consultant with ICCO, who came to visit SEDS from the 20^th till 22^nd of May. On the first day she was taken to Gonipetta. The village is located between the rolling hills east of Penukonda where farming is a precarious occupation. During a meeting with the VO and some farmers the villagers were adamant that the watershed programme, introduced in 2002 with ICCO/EED funding, has brought the village a lot of relief. The water table has risen considerably, the landscape became greener and as a result of SEDS’ operations in the area, a lot of new Community Based Organisations (CBOs) have seen daylight. Vibhawari showed a lot of expertise in the field as her questions highlighted the different problems communities can face. Education, transport, youth development, employment possibilities, domestic violence, healthcare and general problems the community can face. The people themselves responded and gave her an adequate amount of information. Of course delicate subjects as in the cases of domestic violence will not receive a straight forward answer, but the reply of the women that every man who beats up his wife gets a beating himself shows that they are able to deal with this now.

Other places she visited was a tailoring centre, she saw the tank desilting, visited the VTC and attended a night meeting in Konapuram with the VO and SHGs. For our projects on watershed areas we took her to Thungodu and Sanipalli where she witnessed the first stage of such an undertaking and the astounding result that is only visible after thirty years of hard work.

Both visits, although different in nature and undertaking, fulfilled all the needs and wishes of the participants. REDS was highly interested and appreciative in implementing watershed structures and tailoring centres in its working area. The ICCO representative saw many good points in our work and was quite satisfied with our projects.

SEDS in the news.

Dataquest has done a cover story on UID's. As a part of a larger story they have covered Wolf & SED's and their role in Anantpur's UID Journey.

Please click on the picture to enlarge.

SEDS in the news: UIDs Go The SaaS Way In AP Villages

By: Abhishek Raval | May 12, 2010

"All the people in this room have access to everything they want, but there are a large number of people who don't have access to basic services like an ID, birth certificate, something as basic as an address and there are 75 million homeless people in this country. They are not able to get basic public services like opening a bank account, a mobile connection and a ration card." This was Nandan Nilekani, Chairman – UIDAI, speaking at this year's NASSCOM conference on the challenges faced due to the lack of proper identity.

Despite such a situation, there are certain institutions already working towards resolving these issues for people at the bottom of the pyramid, who are deprived of the aforesaid services. Technology is an indispensable component of their service delivery model. One such institution is the Social Education and Development Society (SEDS) in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. The society under its flagship Census Information Management (CIM) programme, is providing unique identities in about 150 villages, via the SaaS model provided by Wolf Frameworks. Through this model, it is managing the information of about 40,000 people with a data size of about 800 mb.

Reasons for building this system include managing villager profiles and measuring the effectiveness of SED programmes. The system covers the chain, right from the donor, SEDS’ business, right up to the beneficiary whose profile is being managed.

SEDS is running its women empowerment programme as well, which tracks the progress of various initiatives taken under it, using SaaS. This in turn passes on the loan request to the potential donor who further takes a call after going through the villager profile.

Why SaaS?

"When working with dynamic data such as population and resources, our needs for capturing, analysing and disseminating this data were not being met with any of the current technology offerings. With SaaS, I foresaw a technology that could bridge this widening gap," said Manil Joshua, CEO - SEDS.Due to the widespread nature of the operations and lack of skilled IT staff, there was no structure to the data gathering in the past. The field staff utilised a mix of spreadsheets, databases and even paper records for capturing this data, which was then brought back to the central office for consolidation.

After the data collection, the staff used manual methods for data analysis, which was both time consuming and highly error prone. Reports and statistics were then snail-mailed or emailed to donors and other interested parties sitting in different parts of the globe.

Moving To SaaS

"All you need is a browser and internet connection," said Sunny Ghosh, CEO - Wolf Frameworks.
SED uses the system in two of its centres in Penukonda, a small town in the Ananthapur district of Andhra Pradesh. The system has been kept simple with only the essential features so that it does not become too heavy to run the application at 113 - 140 Kbps internet speed.

'Census Information Management Solution' (CIMS), is a customised web Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that captures SED data and a specific program processes uniquely and generates analytical reports. CIMS allows SEDS to collect and relate consolidated data into a central repository and automates the process of data analysis, presenting reports and charts on different metrics at the click of a button. It also generates a Unique Identification Number, which helps locate and track individual data. The application imports previous data records of the last 5 years, maintained in Microsoft Access databases and spreadsheets and was built keeping in mind the future growth of SEDS and its operations.

The total cost of the application, including the services to get it up and running was 2 lakhs. The cost also includes monthly payments of the user base.

Security Concerns Mitigated

SaaS has its own concerns on security. The CIMS system has a 128 bit encryption. On the technology side, the data is replicated at multiple databases at the back end.

"There is always a concern on the data being not close to the parent organisation," said Ghosh. In the area of security, Wolf replicates the data with an automated back-up without human intervention, taking place in an automated encrypted fashion. It is backed up in two large cloud centres - one in India and the other in the US. "We also have no clue about what data is sitting in which part of the world," said Ghosh.

In the case of the platform, data can be extracted and downloaded from the back-end. It can be kept in CDs, disk drives, private servers etc. That is a crucial part of our system that keeps our clients rest assured about their data. Wolf also has control over the copy of the data with it.

Looking Beyond

SEDS is very ambitious in its plans and is not willing to restrict itself only to 150 villages. As part of this endeavour, it is looking providing unique identities to more villages in Andhra Pradesh.



http://biztech2.in.com/india/news/cloud-computing/uids-go-the-saas-way-in-ap-villages/81542/0

SEDS facilitating a pump installation

SEDS facilitating a pump installation.

Mallapalli is an average size village in Gorentla Mandal. The population is about 3000 and there are 600 families. It came to the notice of the SEDS staff that there was a problem with the drinking water supply. The village was deprived of drinking water because the only working hand pump could not cope with the demand of the village. People went to nearby M. Kothapalli for their water which is a one kilometer trip. The government was approached but did not come to help.

So SEDS facilitated the VO to address this problem. We gave them instructions where to apply for help and how to make their case. The work started in February 2010 and ended on the 15^th of April. RDT from Anantapur was notified and they drilled a bore well, 460 feet deep, cost Rs. 30,000. The Panchyat President bought the submersible pump and the pipeline for Rs. 20000. The cost for the labour for laying the pipeline to the village and installing 6 taps and a starter for the pump was Rs. 8000. This was paid for by the Village Organisation(VO), Adima Yesoda Lakshmi. In this VO 23 SHGs are present with a total of 230 members.

The new bore well
The hand pump is replaced

Some of the labourers and the VO leaders

After some counseling by SEDS these women were able to do the necessary work themselves. The experience they gained in this process, where to apply, who to consult, how to make their case and how to finance the project, will serve them well in the future and might even be more valuable than the water they got.

This is a case study on empowerment and will be used as an example to other Village organisations.

Sustainable Agriculture: Lead Farmers Training

From 22nd March the till the 3rd of April SEDS held its Farmer Field School. This school is organized for the 25 Lead Farmers of the villages we work in. to learn new practices and teach them to the famers in our working area. Currently we are working with 507 farmers. The farmers belong to the marginal (below 2.47 acres) and small (2.47-4.93 acres) famers. Out of a total of 507 farmers, 64 % belong to scheduled tribe (ST), scheduled caste (SC) and backward caste (BC), these are all down trodden communities. Also there are 102 women farmers participating in the program. We hope to double the farmers we work with by the middle of next year.
The classes of the lead farmers consist of practical and theoretical courses about sustainable agriculture (SA) practices. All these classes are lead by our in-house SA team who has got hands-on experience. The farmers are taught a range of topics. They gain knowledge of the different aspects of topsoil and subsoil, notice the importance of bunding, get to learn composting, find out how to take care of seeds, observe the diseases in plants and how to treat them, become skilled at intercropping and crop rotation, prepare enriched farm yard manure, see how to rear Azolla, and so on, … . As academic teaching can get a little abstract, field visits and concrete experiments form a large part of the course. Out in the fields the farmers quickly can see the real benefits of the SA practices. For example, a simple experiment shows the protection against erosion offered by a green cover and stonebunding.
The field visit to Guddipalli showed them the advantages of System of Rice Intensification (SRI). This system will effortlessly accumulate the rice harvest. The rice is transplanted at least 15 days after germination to avoid trauma to the roots. Instead of randomly planting rice on the field, rice is planted in neat rows each plant 40 cm apart from the other. As expensive planting equipment is not available for the small and marginal farmer we use the simple technique of a rope with a marking at every 40 cm, cheap and just as effective. Finally the ground is kept moist instead of saturated. Throw in some Azolla, a nitrogenous fixing fern that grows in the water and after harvest can be used as cow fodder, and you have the right combination for a good harvest.

Then it was up to a field of groundnuts where the different ailments of the plants were identified and solutions were suggested by our staff.

No SRI

The clear pattern of SRI

Examining the groundnuts

The last stop was in Thungodu where SEDS is building a new watershed. Here the farmers were shown how soilbunding and reforestation will transform a barren landscape. These techniques are important to our farmers as most of them have dry lands. Adding a small orchard to their farm or planting trees as a natural boundary will increase their incomes and biomass production.

Women’s Day 2010 – Celebrating the Identity of Women

On Saturday the 20th of March SEDS celebrated Women’s day. The event took place in Penukonda, Narayanamma Colony. The SEDS staff had arrived early in the morning to prepare the last things as setting up the stalls and putting up the decorations. All the women had organised their means of transportation by themselves. Some came on hired trucks, some by hired tractors and others by taxi or rickshaw.

At 10:00 am everything was ready to welcome our guests, some 7000 women from the five Mandals. At the gate they all were registered before entrance. Once they entered the ground they could wander around the different stalls representing the SEDS projects, NRM / CDM, Sustainable Agriculture, Production Centre, Health, School and MFC / VTC Promotions.
At eleven O’clock things got under way as CEO Mrs. Manil J. Joshua lit the oil lamp. This year the theme was: Celebrating the “Identity of Women”. Women in rural India still lack their own individuality. The social fabric of the society still intertwines them to their husbands and gives them a subservient role in the community. SEDS has already taken many steps to turn this archaic thinking around by focussing their programmes on women. Our aim is to build a strong base for women groups so that they can sustain themselves. We update their knowledge on the available welfare schemes; we motivate them to understand and make use of the women rights; we promote girl child education; we try to strengthen local bodies with women participation; we look to improve women leadership. All of this culminated today in the celebration of the identity of a woman.
The program of the celebration was quite diversified, it contained invigorating speeches on women’s hardships and responsibilities but also some light-hearted cultural programs, one brilliantly preformed by our Hostel children. But central was the handing over of the Unique Identity Cards (UID) SEDS had made. These cards are still a pilot project of SEDS but we hope to stimulate a country wide evolution of the government’s approach to tackle this problem of ID cards for all.
These ID cards will be a ticket to a wide range of possibilities for the women. Carrying information as their name, picture and group, it will open doors of government and other places. Take banks for example. As the acquirement of loans for Self Help Groups (SHGs) has now become a trademark in the larger development plans of the Indian government, there is always the inconvenience that the whole group has to show up to legitimate themselves. Now, with the ID card, it will be possible for a woman to go alone to the bank and request a loan. Also members will gain speedy access to various government schemes such as pension, Indiramma housing or NREGS.
Also the raise in self-esteem that this little plastic card will bring to its holder is a fact that should not go unnoticed. It will raise the awareness of her own identity and it will identify her as an individual within her family and her community. Also she will feel empowered as the ID card stands as a true symbol of being part of something bigger; it gives her a feeling of security, trust and partnership.
“Serving our rural population and under developed community with integrated sustainable development programmes and tracking effectiveness has been our key focus over the last 30 plus years. Today, SEDS still works through an integrated rural development approach with a special emphasis on women’s empowerment. UIDs will go a long way in helping my women friends in establishing their identity. Today it is 10,000 cards; tomorrow SEDS vision is to take this process of a UID card to all members of SHGs which are 5,00,000 members in Anantapur District alone. This is a pilot for a larger vision and mission,” said, Manil Jayasena Joshua, CEO, SEDS.

A number of ID cards were handed out while the rest will be distributed in the villages. The women were very eager to show off their ID cards. A lot of press was present on the site, covering the event and interviewing people from all segments. We were covered in numerous newspapers. The day ended with all the women receiving lunch on behalf of SEDS. In total 7500 meals were served. Never in the history of Penukonda such a gathering had taken place.




http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/22/stories/2010032256120300.htm

http://expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Empowering+rural+women&artid=Qnh4c/83bZo=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==&SEO=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Identification_Authority_of_India