Disha Magazine featuring Grampari

Disha ~ June ‘11 1

DISHA direction DISHA direction DISHA direction DISHA direction DISHA direction DISHA direction

special issue VOL 14 No. 3 APR - JUN ‘11

Grampari

MRA - Initiatives of Change - www.in.iofc.org2

Reflections

Thanks to Joel Kauffmann, the creator of this cartoon, for waiving his copyright fee! See www.pontius.com for more of his work."


Initiatives of Change is a diverse network committed to building relationships of trust across the world’s divides. ‘Initiatives of Change International’, an association of national IofC legal bodies, is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

‘Friends of Moral Re-Armament (India)’ is an educational charitable trust registered under the Bombay Public Trust Act, 1950. Donations are exempt under section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. The auditors of the trust are Deloitte Haskins and Sells. Asia Plateau at Panchgani, in the Western Ghats, 100 km from Pune is a training and conference centre for IofC.

disha teamEditor: Ravindra RaoAsst. Editor & Publisher: Ishika MukherjeeGraphics & Layout: Saurabh GuptaGuest Editor: Sowmya Somnath

IofC in BRIEF Contents

Disha is published quarterly. ‘Disha’ in most Indian languages means direction –something IofC essentially seeks to offer.Views expressed in Disha are those of the respective authors and are not necessarily held by Disha or by IofC.More information and news of IofC can be found on our website: www.in.iofc.org email: [email protected]

Editorial: a new initiative 4

The birth of Grampari 5

What we do 6

Why do you do what you do 7

Community-led development 12

From airports to toilets 14

Grampari - a timeline 17

Tippy-tap hand washing school programme 18

In the field: helping a community secure their water supply 20

Working with Grampari 22

Voices from the village 24

What’s next 29

Assam honours Naga leader 30

Awards for two IofC activists 30

Farmers’ dialogue in Rwanda 31

Being the change you want to see in the world 32

How you can help 33

Build your own Tippy-tap 36

cover: Andrew Hinton


A New Initiative

Editorial

Grampari serves the young... ... and the young at heart.

The initiator Frank Buchman reached very part of the world in his lifetime, brought together significant world leaders, healed conflicts that had divided several nations. Deep transforma-tions came to countless people with far reaching changes lighting up lives with the hope of a new world order.

Convinced of India’s greatness and her future role in the world, Buchman brought a group of 200 people from across the world to introduce IofC (then, ‘MRA’) to the country in 1952. However, a march across India in 1963 led by Rajmohan Gandhi could be counted as the launching of IofC in the country. Thousands, mostly youth, re-sponded to his call for a ‘clean, strong and untied India’ starting with oneself. They were trained in youth camps where they not only straightened out their own lives but learnt the art and skill of conveying the message through whatever media at hand to inspire others. While many from the villages too were reached, it has remained active mostly in the cities. In the last almost half a cen-tury a sizeable number of people imbued with the spirit of IofC have spread into all spheres. They are proud of India’s emerging economic power; but are keener to empower the weakest in the land, as was Gandhiji’s dream.

One such gave expression to what many had felt and decided that time had come to make a delib-erate thrust into rural India, still the heart of this land. So ‘Grampari’ (Grameen and Pariyavaran Kendra, the IofC Rural and Environment Centre) was born three years ago in the old farm buildings lying unused on the lands of the IofC Centre, Asia Plateau.

There was little experience of working in villages. But the passion to give the villages their rightful place and the belief in their strength and wisdom, largely not acknowledged, was strong. The learn-ing for the Grampari team started.

Swami Vivekananda said, “Don’t preach philoso-phy to a hungry stomach. Give it food.” The ideas of IofC had to ride on the back of ‘seva’ (service) to empower them to meet their own dire physi-cal needs. While their simple and straight forward honesty was touching it was obvious that they too had their share of selfishness, corruption and divi-sions which crippled development and rendered many government schemes ineffective.

The following pages record the team’s journey and the lessons being learnt. The experience is hugely encouraging and fulfilling, though not without pain.


Grampari was born while reading the paper one morning!

Three years ago in Banga-lore, I read a short news-paper article about a woman sarpanch (village leader) in Bihar who had transformed her village with the effective use of government schemes. I felt a great urge to do something for rural In-dia. I thought that this

seemed like a simple enough thing for an urban person to do. So I recruited my Inner Wheel la-dies club members to join me and we decided that we would try to help rural communities close to Bangalore by providing them information about government schemes.

As there was some thought about doing something for rural India at Asia Plateau, I felt I should take it on. My husband and I had worked for nearly 10 years earlier as volunteers here. We took the deci-sion to give up our professions and packed up our lives of 30 years in Bangalore and moved to Asia Plateau to turn this idea into reality.

When I first got here, my idea was to recruit five women from ten nearby villages and give them training every month for a year on governance issues so that they could go out and lead their own village development. But no one came to the meetings! Or if they came one month, they wouldn’t for the next. Women just didn’t seem to be interested in coming to meetings and learning about governance and I was quite disheartened. While talking and meeting with the women how-ever, I learned that they were interested in earn-ing money. This was the start of Grampari’s

livelihoods program. We started up a small train-ing program teaching ladies to decorate and sell diyas (earthen lamps). And while the ladies sat and made the diyas, we would screen films on Panchayati Raj (Indian governance). I realised that we needed to combine skills and training for this program to be successful. It has been through learnings such as these that Grampari’s programs have evolved.

Since then we’ve had many workshops for men, women, village officials and youth. We talk about listening to the inner voice, the four standards of IofC and their application to village life, how village officials can work together, health issues, urban migration and other issues that are relevant to rural India. There have been some amazing de-cisions that people have made during these work-shops. From children vowing not to cheat in their exams, to closing of village liquor shops, women of different castes coming together to work for their village, we’ve found these workshops to be quite powerful.

Grampari is now beginning to stand on its feet; people, funds and equipment have come in time to fuel its growth. It really has been (and contin-ues to be) a journey of faith, of things coming to-gether at the right time.

In my work with Grampari, there are days of great satisfaction and confidence when I see results but moments of despair when I find villagers not re-sponding. But with people around me to share the journey, my daily quiet time and the small suc-cesses that our programs bring, all help me to stay the course. It is my commitment to rural India that I will give my best to make a difference. I hope many more will join us in our attempt to bring about inclusive growth.

The Birth of GrampariJayashree Rao, Executive Director of Grampari talks about her decision to leave Bangalore to move to Asia Plateau and start up Grampari.

Jayashree at an earth building workshop ensures that workers get their daily fruit!


LIVELIHOODS PROGRAMME This programme provides opportunities for self-employment and entrepreneurship. Here are a few of the skills training courses we currently conduct. Students are charged a nominal fee and the Asia Plateau centre often provides a ready market.

What We DoA picture is worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes. Here are about 12,000 words to describe some of the activities of our three core sectors.

Sewing Class – women from nearby villages learn basic sewing techniques and earn a certificate that allows them to obtain a government subsidised sewing machine.

Solar Lantern Assembly – students learn how to assemble, maintain and market solar lanterns in an intensive 2 month course.

Self Help Groups – women from the villages of Dandhegar and Godavali receive training in handicrafts and marketing for alternative income generation.

Small Scale Industries – training is available in several other industries including leaf plate making, knitting (shown above), embroidery and brick making.


HEALTH & ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMMEThis programme works to improve quality of life through access to safe and sustainable drinking water, hygiene and sanitation and building capacity through natural resource management.

Roof Top Rainwater Harvesting – community members are hands-on in this one day workshop to install system that harvests rain from Grampari’s training hall to recharge one of our wells.

Watershed Demonstrations – Grampari teaches conservation practices to community groups, other NGOs and individuals interested in better yields and sustainable ecosystems.

Health Promotion – Ladies learn about the faecal oral route (where bacteria from the faeces of one person passes into the mouth of another) and how to prevent related illnesses.

Spring Protection – villagers from Pachputewadi learn how to protect and preserve their water sources by building and maintaining spring boxes and recharging ground water.


GOVERNANCE & LEADERSHIP PROGRAMMEThis programme works to strengthen local insti-tutions, develop ethical leaders and to empower the voiceless.

Natural farming – Grampari demonstrates sustainable farming and other practices such as composting, mulching and natural fertilizers on its campus.

Community Building – At the request of Gram Panchayats (village council), Grampari facilitates community events on village and personal development.

Childrens’ Workshops – Grampari hosts youth camps to foster ethical behaviour and build tomorrow’s leaders. The children come from diverse backgrounds, including orphanages, blind schools, urban and rural areas.

Sarpanch Leadership Training – Newly elected sarpanches (village leaders) are introduced to Grampari and ethical leadership concepts.


Why do you do what you do?Get to know the Grampari Team members as they discuss their motivations for working here.

“I owe rural India for what I have received in life.”

Jayashree Rao is founder and Executive Director of Gram-pari. She holds a diploma in business management and has over 30 years of experience as a successful business owner of a machine tools trading com-pany in Bangalore. She holds

executive positions at many civic organisations.

“I feel like I owe rural India for what I have received in life. As a female entrepreneur, I believe in rural women starting small enterprises and am passionate about em-powerment and livelihoods. Beyond pickles and papad, I’d like to work with them to provide something useful for their villages. I’ve been surprised by how knowl-edgeable our village women are about governance. I’ve come to realise that this is because the village women are directly involved in governance.”

“Small changes have a big Impact.”Milind Dange holds a BA (Eco-nomics) and an MSW, LLB (General) and has worked in the social sector for over 12 years. He has extensive experience in rural development programs in Maharashtra and brings his vil-lage background to his work.

“I am from a village. Cities in India are growing quickly and get a lot of resources and I’d like to see that develop-ment happen in villages. Small changes can have a big impact as Anna Hazare’s work shows. Villages don’t just need money; they need information, awareness and in-frastructure. Every villager should feel like he can make a small change.”

“It still humbles me when villagers let us into their lives...”

Sowmya Somnath is a regis-tered Professional Engineer with over a decade of struc-tural engineering experience working on diverse construc-tion projects in the US and works on rural water and sani-tation. She is also a founding

member of WMG. She has implemented rural drinking water, sanitation and hygiene projects in Africa and India.

“I believe everyone should have the same access to op-portunity regardless of the latitude or longitude of one’s birth. People need to be healthy to pursue these oppor-tunities. Proper water, sanitation and hygiene is one of the most powerful ways to ensure public health and this field is the intersection of my skill sets, my passion and communities’ needs. This work forces me to be creative, resourceful and patient. And it still humbles me when villagers let us into their lives and give us their trust.”

“When I am with people, I get strength to fight.”

Dr. Harsha Joshi holds a PhD in Reproductive Physiology and focuses on women’s health, empowerment, and education. She has worked for BAIF and is a founding member and Ex-ecutive Director of Akshara a joint initiative of Mahindra

United World College.

“I like to connect with people to learn more about their culture and values. When I am with people I get strength to fight issues like poverty, illiteracy and poor health. I can’t see myself not working alongside people, especially women and children.”


“It is my conviction that poverty is an injustice.”

Dr. Jared Buono has 15 years of experience in the environ-ment sector and holds a PhD in Natural Resource Manage-ment. He is a founding mem-ber of US-based NGO, WMG which has trained thousands of people across 4 continents in

conservation practices (www.watershedmg.org). He has extensive experience all over Africa.

“It is my conviction that poverty is an injustice. I work to right this wrong through what I know – and working with people to best manage their environment is what comes intuitively to me. I’m doing work I love! I get to help people with their basic needs and requirements and to work in a challenging, competitive and always changing environment that requires problem solving. I love working with rural people - they always feed us great food!”

“Grampari shares ideas that have transformed my life.”

Abhay Shaha is a registered Architect from Baramati with thirty years of residential and commercial design experi-ence. He also has degrees in Naturopathy, Counseling and Psychotherapy. He is closely involved with Grampari’s gov-

ernance and youth programs.

“I have had much benefit from IofC training and prin-ciples. I see Grampari as a way to share these ideas that have inspired and transformed my life. I am most inter-ested in the motivation and attitudinal changes that our approach advocates.”

“I wish to reach out to people at the grassroots levels.”

Farida Poonawala owns a trav-el agency in Poona. She is a patron of several NGOs that work to uplift downtrodden and street children. She works on Grampari’s governance & leadership areas with special focus on women.

“God has been very good to me. Hence I feel I owe it to Him and to humankind to do something for the greater good of humanity. I have great conviction for womens’ empowerment. I wish to work with Grampari to reach out to people at the grassroots levels in our country.”

“I am keen to promote IofC values in rural areas.” Anant Gogte has a M.Sc. in Environmental Sci-ence and over forty years of experience in farm management and agriculture extension. He is founder and Managing Trustee of Gram Vardhini, an NGO that focuses on community led develop-ment and conservation projects.

“I worked at the Asia Plateau farm during 1974-75. Ever since I have been keen to promote the values of IofC in rural areas. Working with Grampari helps me fulfill this wish more effectively.”

Fast Fact - did you know?There are more people living in poverty in eight states of India than in the poorest 26 countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

The numbers: 421 million people in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal compared to 410 million across the poorest countries of Africa.

-Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative


Take a walk through a rural community and chances are you will find numerous examples of failed schemes and dilapidated systems - dry wa-ter pumps, cracked stand pipes, and broken drains. And not just water projects; whether in com-merce, health, education or agriculture you will find numerous other examples. Unused commu-nity buildings, locked school latrines, partially con-structed dams, villages that have won Clean Village Awards that have people defecating in the streets; the list is endless.

Why are there so many examples of failure and why is this such a famil-iar story the world over? The choices in the graphic above certainly pro-vide some answers. When ground water is over-pumped, wells can run dry. When corruption

steals money, a dam cannot be completed. When there is no one to lead construction of a com-munity centre, things can go astray. And many times, it is a combination of several of these fac-tors that contribute to a failed attempt at rural development.

There are, however, ways to surmount these short-comings. Although difficult and time consuming, there are well documented processes to insulate against these pitfalls - processes that involve em-powering the communities in which the intended project is designed to help.

Often, the most important factor in determining project success and long term sustainability is the degree of involvement of the intended beneficiar-ies. How involved are they with planning and im-plementation? How big of a role did the people play in requesting, designing, building and maintaining the project? Does the community feel ownership? Community-led or participatory development en-sures that the answers to these questions are VERY, BIG and YES!

As far back as the 1970s development profession-als recognised the need for community buy-in and

Community-led DevelopmentA perspective on one of the most important factors of sustainable development.

Over half of all water projects fail in the first few years. Why?

CHECK ONE:

the environment could not sustain it

the money ran out

lack of leadership

poor planning

corruption

all of the above

“...most development projects either fail or fall far short of their initial goals, due to a lack of real involvement on the part of those for whom the project was intended in the first place, the beneficiaries” -Frans Geilfus


participatory methods were developed in earnest. One such method is village mapping, where com-munity members draw important landmarks in their community in order to self-identify problems and opportunities. Another is livelihoods analyses where small groups list their regular expenses and income to determine where savings can be made. These techniques represent a shift from the top-down approach where rural projects are designed in far off offices and implemented solely by techni-cal professionals. Community-led approaches are based on a process of dialogue, community immer-sion and building trust. In this way development becomes a two way street where a well-informed community makes its own development decisions and utilises the skills of NGOs or the resources of the government to implement its own plan. The end goal is to empower and foster a self-determi-nant rural India.

But this type of approach takes patience, commit-ment and hard work from both the community and its development partners. For one, it takes long-er to implement a project when consensus is re-quired. For example, some organisations mandate 18 months or more of community meetings and participatory planning before any physical work can begin. Results are often only achieved after

months, or even years, of community mobilisa-tion efforts. This can be difficult for government agencies, NGOs and funding groups to justify. And village members themselves often get impatient with this process. This also means that the initial costs of community-led projects can be higher due to the extended time frame. And this is often the challenge with participation-based develop-ment- it takes more time and money at the start of a project. But in the long run, if the people feel ownership and accountability and, for example, the water scheme lasts for 50 years, then all of the community meetings, consultations, and village stays are well worth the investment.

Within the complex fabric that is rural develop-ment in India today, community participation plays a crucial role. Even within the relatively newer movements of micro-finance, social entrepreneur-

ship, and market-based approaches we see how people are integral for lasting change. And the gov-ernment itself is promoting this type of solution with power-devolving schemes such as those that would allow allocation and oversight of funds at the Gram Panchayat (local village governance) level.

Grampari supports and employs this approach not just because our stated mission is to ‘build capac-ity in rural India’. But also because we believe that change comes from within, whether it’s at the in-dividual or community level. And because we have seen first-hand that when a community is empow-ered to make choices it can lead to efficient and inclusive growth and sustainable change.

The end goal is to empower and foster a self-determinant rural India.

Village map produced by an Abhepuri villager

Village watershed meeting near Pachputewadi


Wait, you dream about what?I spend a lot of time thinking about ways to get people to wash their hands. While some fanaticise about Katrina Kaif or Sachin Tendulkar, I daydream about a time when everyone has poop free hands (editor’s note: no, you didn’t read that sentence wrong – it did say “poop free hands”)

Why is hand washing with soap such a big deal?Check out these statistics from UNICEF:

• Over 1.5 million children under five die each year as a result of diarrhoea.

• Hand washing with soap at critical times can re-duce diarrhoea rates by more than 40%.

• Hand washing is one of the most cost effec-tive interventions and it’s effective - in primary schools, it can reduce the incidence of diarrhoea by 30%.

• Rates of hand washing with soap around the world are low – nil to 34% at critical moments.

• Hand washing with soap by birth attendants and mothers increased newborn survival rates up to 44%.

• Promotion and distribution of soap in schools China resulted in 54% fewer days of absence among students compared to schools without an intervention.

Can’t you just tell people to wash their hands because it’s good for them? We don’t always do what’s good for us. Are you getting 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise a day? Eating five servings of fruits and vegetables? Moderating your consumption of sweets? Don’t tell me it’s because you don’t know that you should be doing these things?

Health related behavior change is difficult and re-quires a variety of approaches that are tailored to the intervention community. In the same way that some people diet for fashion rather than for health, we rely on a variety of methods to bring about an increase in hand washing with soap.

So what’s all this about the Tippy-tap?The tippy tap is a ‘hands-free’, low cost, water

conserving hand washing de-vice that allows users to wash their hands in a hygienic and convenient manner. And its simple design makes it very ap-pealing to children and adults alike.

From Airports to ToiletsSowmya Somnath heads up the Watershed Management Group(WMG)/Grampari’s water, sanitation and hygiene program and talks about why she is passionate about hand washing with soap.

Kids learning the hand washing song at one of Grampari’s school programs.


You can’t just build a tippy tap and assume people will wash their hands?If only it were that easy! While the tippy tap is a great technology, increasing hand washing with soap behavior is more about the push of the intervention campaign and less about the pull of the technology.

So do you do anything else but hand washing?Some days it definitely feels like that! However, hand washing is just one piece of the water, sanita-tion and hygiene program WMG/Grampari is hoping to develop.

What else does the field of water, sanitation and hygiene involve?WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) includes water quality, hygiene behavior, solid waste man-agement and the safe disposal of human waste.

One of the most prevalent mechanisms for dis-ease transfer is the fecal-oral route. This is when pathogens from feces of one person are ingested by another. Diseases such as Hepatitis A, Cholera, Typhoid and Rotavirus are transmitted in this man-ner. Water is one of the main transmission paths and so water and sanitation are inextricably linked. You cannot talk about water inputs without talk-ing about waste outputs. One group defecating here can affect another group’s water source there. These linkages are why the term WASH was coined and why this combined field exists.

You’ve been spending a lot of time talking about behavior change? What’s that got to do with toilets?It’s true that hygiene related behaviour change is just one part of WASH but it’s a piece that I spend a lot of time on because it’s at the center

of sustainable public health inter-ventions. For example, I cannot tell you how many villages I have been to that have latrines that are used as chicken coops, grain silos and even to store deities! Govern-ment schemes often focus on the number of latrines built, rather than the number of latrines in use or the improvements in village health. While it is easy to build latrines, we focus on the much more challenging task of build-ing demand for latrines. It’s the same with hand washing – it’s easy enough to build tippy taps but let’s not lose focus that our aim is to in-crease hand washing and that tippy taps are a way to get us there.

What is development work?There are lots of definitions out there but it is basi-cally working with communities to improve their quality of life in a sustainable manner. I also think of development as teaching a person to fish rather than giving him/her a fish.

How do people here perceive devel-opment work?When I worked in as a structural engineer in Amer-ica, no one ever questioned why I was designing an air traffic control tower or a fancy flagship bank or even a conveyor belt across the Mexico US border. These were multi-million dollar projects that made a small group of people a lot of money and that served middle to upper class consumers. There was an inherent respect given to me when I talked about my work.

But now that I work on WASH initiatives that save lives and improve public health, ironically, what I do seems to be taken less seriously. There’s a per-ception that a do-good impulse is enough to take on this work. And absolutely everyone seems to be an expert on how we should go about it! Devel-opment work is hard; and we try to do a lot with

Behaviour Change? This tippy tap was built by a child at his home at his own initiative after attending a Grampari hand washing school program. Check out the innovative use of a cricket bat as a foot lever!


limited resources. It takes all the professional and technical skills I have from over a decade of work-ing around the world and learning from our suc-cesses and failures to do it effectively.

So what has WMG/Grampari’s WASH program done to date? Well, we launched our school tippy tap program on October 15th, 2010 on Global Hand Washing Day and have conducted it in several village schools so far; feedback from students and staff has been very positive. Learn more about this program through a photo essay on PAGE X. Andrew Hin-ton (who made Banking on Change for IofC) shot a film on the Grampari tippy tap (http://www.tippytap.org/video) and we won a non-profit film contest from over 1450 other video entries. The video was up on Youtube’s front page and has received over 200,000 hits to date. We’ve cre-ated posters and manuals and launched a website (www.tippytap.org) to be a resource centre for all things hand washing which aims to take our local learnings to the global stage. This has generated a lot of interested from groups around the world. We’ve put together two proposals to fund the tip-py tap school program for 25 schools that we are shopping around. We’re also working to mobilize communities around issues of water quality, open defecation and solid waste management.

What does Grampari need?More hours in the day! Actually, what we really need now is to expand our team. It has been a challenge to find good people who aren’t afraid of hard work and taking on big challenges. We’re at the stage where we need not architects, but brick layers.

Anything else? Yes, go wash your hands! With soap!

Sponsorship Options

Support Grampari with a do-nation and your money will go to:

Rs. 5000 funds a health and hygiene school program for 200 children.

Rs. 15,000 funds three day intensive empowerment programmes for women or children to develop tomorrow’s leaders.

Rs. 1.5 lakh supports all of the village trainers in our livelihoods programme for an entire year.

Rs. 8.5 lakhs funds our school hand wash-ing project in 30 villages.

Rs. 20 lakhs sponsors our livelihood pro-gramme for a year, creating opportunities for hundreds of undeserved community members our school hand washing project for 30 villages.

Your used vehicle allows us to expand our village outreach.

Questions?Email [email protected]


1969 The roots of the organization go back to 1969 when Jayashree Rao starts an informal school for children of the laborers constructing Asia Plateau.

1971 A few years later, a farm (dairy cow, poultry, & crops) is established as the local market is not al-ways able to meet the needs of AP. The farm is man-aged by several people like John Porteous, his son Alan Porteous, Garfield Hayes, Leslie Nazareth, Khloe Chase, Anant Gogte and Harbir Singh.

1980s While some farm opera-tions like dairy and poultry pro-duction cease, the agricultural cropping activities continue. And the forest does its best to reclaim the unused farm buildings

2007 Jayashree Rao shifts back to AP to develop a rural initia-tive. The name Grampari is cho-sen and several people contribute to the early vision: Harsha Joshi, Abhay Shaha, Anant Gogte, San-jay Kamble, and Vrunda Gupte. Luis Wallace is the first volunteer to help clean up the old farm.

2009 Mr. RC Mandal helps es-tablish a medicinal garden and documents the medicinal uses of all the plants. As Gramapari starts to take shape as an organization,

facilities are needed to run programmes and house staff. With the help of interns and volunteers, and via support of donors, remodeling starts. Abhay Shaha provides plans and the place is slowly trans-formed from poultry shed to dormitory, from bull pen to kitchen garden. Grampari soon after gradu-

ates its first batch of students in the sewing class.

2010 In early 2010, Milind Dange joins as Grampari’s first full time staff member. Grampari partners with WMG and NSIC, and Jared Buono and Sowmya Somnath join as full time partners. NSIC pro-vides 5 different types of training machines for the livelihoods pro-gramme. Grampari hosts its first solar lantern assembly training.

2011 Grampari facilitates its first Gram Sabha (village meeting) in the village, initiates watershed and sanitation programmes, and hosts its first computer training class. Evelyn Fitzherbert volun-teers to create an organic veg-etable garden. Remodeling of the last remaining farm building begins to turn it into the skills training centre. Grampari re-ceives a major grant to scale up programmes and expand into several more villages.

Grampari - a TimelineGrampari (Grameen Pariyaavaren Kendra) officially began in 2007. Here are some highlights from the journey.


2. “We asked the children why hand washing was important and did a drama with a ‘glitterball’ showing how germs spread.”

1. “Today we visited the village of Chikali and went to the Mandharewadi government primary school for a hand washing promotion program.”

Tippy Tap Hand Washing School ProgramSuraj Pawar and Devendra Kalambe, two teenagers from the nearby village of Dandhegar studying for their bachelors in computer science, accompanied us during one of our school programmes to promote hand washing. This was the first time that they had done something like this and were so enthusiastic about the experience, they wrote a report on the program. Below are excerpts from their report along with photos from the event.

3. “After performing a skit showing them when to wash their hands, we explained to them how to wash their hands properly in a funny way using hand actions so they will remember to wash properly.”


5. “We grouped the children into 3 groups and had a competition for building the tippy tap. After judging we selected six children as the health ministers to look after the Tippy tap for the six day school week and gave them tippy tap posters.” At the end, we have a vote of thanks to the children and teacher for cooperat-ing with us in the program!”

4. “We then gave the demo of the Tippy Tap and asked the children and adults to use it.”


May 4th - Today was dedicated to Pachputhewadi! Water is scarce here during the dry season - each household gets only five matkas per day. That’s only 35 litres per day for an entire family for eve-rything! We probably flush more water than this everyday!

Jared and I travelled to the hills high above the village from where Pachputhewadi gets its water. There are a few small natural springs here that have been flowing for years. In the ‘70s, after a drought where the village wells went dry, the vil-

lagers developed the springs into their primary water source. With the help of the government they constructed ‘spring boxes’. These small concrete boxes protect the mouth of the spring and collect the water. From the boxes, three

kilometres of pipe carries the spring water down to the village. However, the springs don’t pro-vide enough water, particularly in the dry season. And year after the year the flow from the springs seems to be reducing. Adding to the problem, sev-eral spring boxes were no longer capturing the water as the springs have shifted slightly, and wa-ter was being lost from many leaks.

For the past few months Grampari has been work-ing with community members to solve some of these problems, in particular helping the village repair the spring boxes and leaks, as

well as finding a few new springs. Grampari is also planning to do some watershed activities to recharge the springs so that the ground water does not dry up- one of Grampari’s principles

is that we don’t simply help in extracting more water - we also need to help in replenishing the springs to ensure sustainability.

So towards this goal we took the measurements of the spring boxes and pipes to make the required repairs. I must say that it was dangerous as we were working on a deep slope.

On the way back, I was astonished to observe that many of the villages did not have proper sanita-tion facilities nor did they have proper doors to their huts. However, they had antenna dishes on

In the field: Helping a Community Secure Their Water Supply

Saurabh Acharya is Grampari’s first official intern. He is studying for a combined IT-MBA degree from Symbiosis University in Pune and is developing our rural computer training programme. When he is not researching rural BPOs and village internet resource kiosks, he is writing a blog on his on his experiences (saurabhacharya.blogspot.com). What follows is an excerpt from the blog where he recounts a few days in the field on a watershed project.

“….we don’t simply help in extracting more water – we need

to help in replenishing the springs to ensure sustainability.”

Residents of Pachputewadi (seen down in the valley on the left) work on the hill slope.


the top of the houses! I really do not understand, if there can be dish TV penetration to this level, why not toilets? Only 21% of the rural India has access to improved sanitation (UNICEF, http://bit.ly/mmyWsk). You can also see gutka (proc-essed tobacco) packets all over, even in the remot-est places. I really do not understand the market

dynamics here; if private players with limited re-sources can have a penetration at this level, then why not government services? Jared recounted a lot of stories where money was being dumped into water supply projects which then failed. Many farmers now have debts of millions due to those projects. Come on! We need to give some thought to this.

May 5th - The villagers were so keen on starting the project, they got all the required materials, carried it up the hill and called up and said “We’ve already started working!” Jared was surprised and worried since a small disturbance around the spring could damage the water flow - these are very sensitive systems - so he wanted to be there when work started. We immediately went there and found there were almost 80 people! Jared and I got work overseeing the design and organising some teams. Sowmya started working with the ladies, who were there transporting many of the materials to each spring.

We also made a map of the whole area today to plan watershed activities to recharge the ground water. In my bag from home, I had a compass which had been there since my college days. I did

not know we would use it here but it was very handy while making the map. You never know what, or who, will help you out.

It was interesting to know that the springs can be affected by a small mistake during construction. I found out how these springs were formed. There

is a rock layer under the soil of the mountain (the same layer that forms the table land above Asia Plateau). When rain water penetrates the soil it drains down through the soil due to gravity and due to pressure from the waters of successive rains. This water keeps traveling down until it hits the rock layer, and then can’t go down any more. The water then either finds cracks and fissures in the rock or it slowly moves horizontally on top of the rock layer, until it comes out somewhere at the surface as a spring. Now the water is very lazy- it goes through the easiest route it can find. While digging for the spring boxes, if we change the pressures of the soil and the pores in the earth we may change the path of the spring and then it might become very hard to find it again!

Looking back, the last two days have been good. We have been working and eating together with community members- they were eager to share their delicious rotis and subji (vegetable dish). This has been a totally different experience for me. One thing that rarely gets mentioned when working in the corporate world is job satisfaction. Drinking the water from that spring box gave not only the pinch of pleasure, but also the sense of satisfaction.

BEFORE: One of the old defunct spring boxes AFTER: The same spring with a new spring box


When I first came to Panchgani from Australia eight weeks ago, I was vaguely aware that Asia Plateau had a rural and ecological development centre. I imagined a rusting shed, or perhaps a simple greenhouse. In an amazingly short period of time, I have come to realise that there is more to Grampari than meets the eye. The people, programmes and perspectives behind this initia-tive ensure a wide range of benefits are delivered to surrounding communities.

Asia Plateau’s rural development arm extends it-self far beyond the realm of simple crop manage-ment. Take a tour on any typical working day and you will find the place a hive of activity. During my short time here I have seen a diverse range of programs implemented by the humble Grampari team of six. Earth building, brick making, dis-posable leaf plate making, rainwater harvesting, English classes, mobile phone repair, computer literacy classes, sewing, organic crop develop-ment and even solar lantern making are offered as programs to surrounding community members. This list is growing all the time.

During my stay in India, I have come to know that many view corruption as part of everyday life. It is therefore worth noting that Asia Plateau, which

h o u s e s Grampari’s office and T r a i n i n g Centre, was established without the use of a sin-gle bribe. The standards of absolute honesty, love, purity and unselfishness therefore remain pillars upon which this rural initiative is built. I couldn’t help but be instantly drawn to the grassroots ap-proach that builds communities through the par-ticipation of its members on the ideal that trans-formation starts from within. To me, this breeds real and sustainable change.

Grampari addresses a range of issues without pitching a one size fits all solution. Instead it continually customises its outreach programs on a village by village basis, making its presence known far beyond the perimeter of the Panchgani property. There are no shortcuts taken here. Each individual undertaking is the outcome of pure dedication on behalf of its many staff and volun-teers. There is a genuine commitment to getting to know the village and its residents, thoughtfully assessing the issues and barriers to progression and combating these by collaborating with lo-cals to implement practical strategies to maintain steady development.

What drives this team forward is the deep seed-ed belief that livelihood programs like Grampari empower developing communities to become self sustaining and improve their socio-economic and health conditions. In gratitude, many village groups have welcomed Asia Plateau members to cultural events and festivities in their homes.

Working with Grampari

Give a man a bag of grain, and he can feed his family for a week. Teach a man efficient farming methods and he can support his village for generations to come. Rachel Mills describes her eye opening experience interning with Grampari.

Brick-making at a recent Earth Building Workshop hosted by Grampari.

How rewarding it was to assist in the design and development of the tippytap.org website!


Working with the people behind this initiative has been both a privilege and an enriching education-al experience.

Brick-making at a recent Earth Building Work-shop hosted by Grampari.

While ‘watershed characterisation and soil re-source mapping’ leave me scratching my head, being involved in the promotion of hand washing with soap made me realise the life-saving benefits of the work being undertaken.

How rewarding it was to assist in the design and development of the tippytap.org website!

Back at home I absentmindedly washed my hands, my thoughts far from the millions of Indian chil-dren who daily jeopardise their lives by neglecting this practice. The tippytap.org website aims to diseeminate local learnings from Grampari’s hand washing village program to a global platform for use by all water and sanitation practitioners. To promote the tippy tap (a life-saving hand wash-ing with soap device) and take part in Grampari’s fight to shatter this statistic and improve sanita-tion in local and global communities has been an

unforgettable experience for which I am most grateful.

Back at home Sydney has enforced water use re-strictions. I thought abiding by these was enough to play by part in conservation and sustainability. On non-water restriction days I consumed water like it was a limitless resource. As I washed my car or shampooed my hair, my thoughts were far from the millions of Indian villagers who trek six kilometres daily to the community well only to retrieve unsafe and dirty water. I had no concept of ‘sharing’ the water supply. To be exposed to these realities and observe Grampari’s work in providing equal access to opportunity for those in rural India has been both humbling and life changing.

Asia Plateau has been my home for the last two months, and while my time in India draws to a close I look forward to returning soon and seeing what further developments Grampari has made. Taking part in this initiative and making a differ-ence has been one of the most rewarding experi-ences in my life.

Above: with my husband Keith and AFL 5 members Eunbi (South Korea) and Mike (Kenya) entertaining village children with some Australian songs like ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and the ‘Wombat Wobble’.


Voices from the VillageIn this series, three villagers who have been involved with Grampari share their experiences.

How did you first come to Grampari?

I had heard Grampari was going to start a sewing class. I wasn’t interested in going since I didn’t know anything about Grampari or the Asia Pla-teau centre but my neighbour Anisha forced me to go with her. I discovered that I really liked the environment and found the class to be different and useful.

What do you like about Grampari’s classes?

There are lots of different things to learn! I learn sewing, leaf plate making, painting diyas (earthen lamps), stitching godadis (hand sewn mats). And I’ve joined the English class as well. The classes are not expensive and there is also a ready market

for us to sell our crafts through the conferences at the centre. These classes provide a lot of benefits.But you don’t just come for the classes, do you? We see you at almost every single Grampari func-tion, regardless of whether it’s teaching you skills or not!

It’s true. I like the loving nature of the people who work here. It’s fun! And it’s important to have a place where women can talk to each oth-er and share what is on our minds and further friendships.

How would you explain what Grampari does?

To me, Grampari works with village women and gives them education and skills training. It also

“It’s About More than Money”We wrap up this series with thoughts from Usha Malusare, a young woman from the nearby village of Godavali. Usha has been coming to Grampari’s workshops and skills trainings from their inception in 2009.

Children of Abhepuri attend a music festival.


How did you first come to Grampari and why?

About 2 years ago, our Gram Sevak (village rep-resentative) told us about a three day workshop at Grampari. Some prominent people from our village were invited to attend the workshop. With a love for social work and the desire to learn and experience something new, I decided to come to Grampari. I was very happy to see all these peo-ple gathered together at one place; people work-ing on development and officials in government had come together for one purpose. I don’t be-lieve our meeting was by chance, but rather, ar-ranged by fate.

How would you explain what Grampari does?

Sixty per-cent of Indi-ans depend on farm-ing and live in villages; there must be develop-ment in the rural areas. Grampari works through thought provoking dis-cussions and the sharing of technical know-how.

For example, Grampari has workshops on vari-ous subjects like environmental protection, rural

works on uniting our community. For example, when we first came to sell our diyas at the cen-tre, all the different castes came to sell separately. Grampari wouldn’t allow us to sell our diyas if we didn’t come together.

What would you recommend we do differently?

I think you should go out in the village more and set up meetings at the main square or Gram Pan-chayat Office. What you say hasn’t reached our village through people who have already come to Grampari – you need to talk about your pro-grammes directly with the villagers.

What do you find to be most useful from the livelihoods program?

The skills I learned through the livelihoods pro-gram allowed me to make my own money for the first time in my life. But it’s about more than

money. This income represents self-respect and strength and independence. It’s allowed me to have a voice in my family and given me the strength to make decisions for myself.

Usha, you’re al-ways smiling! What’s your secret?

There’s no se-cret! (She says this with a huge smile on her face.) I like learning new things and life is always giving you opportuni-ties to learn.

“Development Work Must be Done with Ice on your Head and Sugar in your Mouth”For the second of this series, we talked to Ashok Mandhare, a man who splits his time between his house in Mumbai and his house in Abhepuri. His wife, Neelam is sarpanch (village leader) of Abhepuri.

Ashok addresses his fellow Abhepuri villagers at a meeting.

Usha tries hard not to smile for this photo.


development, women’s empowerment, natural farming, small and home-based businesses for women.

Grampari works on rural and environmental de-velopment, but more importantly, also on self-de-velopment. Self-development means removing the negatives and bringing about positive change within one’s self. This change in yourself also af-fects your children, wife, parents, neighbors, as well as your society. And how you use this change to build your nation is what development is.

Describe the first workshop you attended and any of your learnings from it.

We identified the existing problems in the villag-es and discussed possible solutions. The morning quiet times were especially useful. We reflected on what our good and bad thoughts were. We then focused on removing the bad thoughts and accepting the good ones. I liked this concept very much. During the quiet time, I realised that I had come here with a longing to make my village suc-cessful, developed and united.

I got guidance and inspiration from Hivre Baazar’s sarpanch Popat Rao Pawar, the gentleness of Ab-hay Shah sir, and the unassuming nature and ef-forts of Jayashree madam. I understood that we find the answers to our dilemmas within our-selves. This was a very good thing to learn.

What decisions were you able to put into action since that first workshop?

In my personal life, I tend to get angry very quick-ly and I decided to try and control my anger. De-velopment work must be done with ice on your head and sugar in your mouth. Liquor was having a negative effect on our village so I decided to try to close the three liquor shops there. Complain-ing to the police had no effect. I went with some of the village youth and tried to reason with the shop owners. They listened to us and shut their shops. However, within a few days they reopened their shops. We went again to talk to them. One of them, had started reselling liquor and had spread the rumors that I had asked him to do so. This created misunderstanding about me in the

village. When I heard about this, I took the Wai police and some friends along with me and caught him red-handed selling the liquor. We took pos-session of all his stock and handed it over to the police. After this, the sale of alcohol in the village has stopped and it is so till today.

My wife has always supported me but now with her election as sarpanch, we also have the support of the Gram Panchayat (village leadership coun-cil). We started raising issues like village cleanli-ness and village development in the Gramsabha (village meeting) The ladies’ Gramsabhas, which used to happen merely on paper, started taking place in reality. People started noticing the chang-es happening in the village. The support of the women was especially commendable.

How has Grampari aided development in Abhepuri?

For the past ten to twelve years, I have noticed that many people come to our village functions but they don’t come with inspiration but come for monetary gain. That is not the case with Grampari workers.

We have had immense support and guidance from Grampari. We’ve had men’s, women’s and chil-dren’s workshops and those have helped bring people together to work for village development. The new additions to Grampari, Sou. Sowmya who taught us about hygiene and water conser-vation and Jared who taught watershed manage-ment, are partnering with us and we are seeing tangible results.

We feel secure of Grampari’s support and guid-ance as we work towards developing Abhepuri.

I pay my respects to all the well-wishers of Grampari.


Neelam Mandhre, a sarpanch (village leader) from Abhepuri, shares her thoughts on Gram-pari and her journey of leadership. While there are quotas set aside to ensure female governance, Neelam ran and won under the open category in the election in August 2010.

Soon after I was elected as the sarpanch of Ab-hepuri, I was invited to visit Grampari for a sar-panch felicitation. I had heard a lot about Gram-pari from my husband, Ashok and I was very eager to go there. We arrived to find many different officials from the area including the ex sarpanch of Kaldhari village, Ankush Parkhandhe in attend-ance. Kaldhari village is located in a backward drought ridden area but had recently won the first prize as an ideal village. After the welcome, Ankush spoke. It wasn’t a lecture; he shared his experience of 20 years of working with the rural development alongside fellow villagers and how they put a barren, drought ridden mountainous region on the map. He gave invaluable informa-tion about water management, village cleanli-ness, waste water management and environment preservation. He gave us practical ideas about what work could be done and shed light on how to think about these issues. I was inspired by his words and decided right then that I would make my Abhepuri village like the developed Kaldhari village and work hard to make it an ideal village.

Also, by looking at the kind behavior of Jayashree Madam and others, I decided that I too would be loving and respectful in my work. In trying to carry out my decision, I found people’s perspec-tive of me changed and they believed that inspite being a woman sarpanch, I could bring about change.

My next experience at Grampari was a very dif-ferent one. Grampari had organised a two-day workshop for the women of Abhepuri. Jayashree Madam urged me to bring as many women as I could and about 25 came. It was a different type

of experience for us - at the reg-istration, every-one’s names and numbers were noted down, and we were all were given a name badge. Our stay-ing arrangements were comfortable and all the women were happy. Sowmya made friends with all the women. They (Sowmya and others) were with us for the entire two days. The fact that they spent so much time with us was very surprising. During the two days, we thought only about ourselves. We had lost our identity as individuals because back in the village, we spent our time only look-ing after our homes and families. During the workshop, we tried to get back in touch with our forgotten identity. In those two days, we lived only for ourselves.

Grampari has helped us in other ways as well. They encouraged us to have monthly meetings for women in the village. Grampari workers also at-tend these meetings and try to address the issues raised by the women. Whenever we have needed Grampari’s help, we always had Grampari by our side, so we never feel alone while working in the village.

I come from an ordinary family where there is no interest in politics, but the family I have mar-ried into is immersed in social work. There was no elected sarpanch from our family before me. Some well-wishers suggested that I stand for elec-tion but I declined. The elders in our family were also reluctant about the idea. But by the urging of the well-wishers and the support of my husband and my mother-in law, I decided to contest the election.

“This World is a Big Place and There is a Great Need for You to be Involved in it.”


As I readied for the election, I was not mentally prepared as I was not sure if I could go among people, mix with them or lead them. Going to people’s houses and asking for votes was a diffi-cult thing but I persisted. With the support of my well-wishers, I was elected.

Grampari has shown us how to bring people to-gether. They have also visited the village and tried to build solidarity among the people. Sowmya and Jared have come to the village and stayed there. They visited peoples’ houses and encouraged them. It was with their efforts that the people of Abhepuri are starting to come together and do

shramadan (volunteer labour) and organise them-selves for village development.

In the village meetings, I always tell women to come forward and understand the working of the Panchayat so that they can benefit from it. I tell young girls to take advantage of the 50% reserva-tion for women. I tell them to think beyond one’s home and children. If a woman is educated, the household is educated. Similarly, when a woman comes forward, she can change society. This world is a big place and there is a great need for you to be involved in it.

Vimal attends a ladies meeting in Abhepuri.


What’s Next?

Putting together this edition of Disha was a treat! While it was definitely a challenge to find time to write these articles (apologies and thanks to our editing team!), it was so inspiring to read some of the thoughts of the villagers we serve and to share our journeys of service with each other.

This process has allowed us to recall some of our successes, but it has also allowed us to examine some of our specific challenges:

• We need skilled and committed individuals on staff to meet the needs of surrounding communi-ties. Our approach of participatory development is built upon a foundation of immersion and re-lationship building which means more time ‘on-the-ground’ and more native Marathi speakers. We are therefore looking to hire, mainly from lo-cal communities, staff who will function as com-munity coordinators and technical resources.

• While organisational development isn’t as excit-ing as spending time in the village, having strong administrative staff and effective procedures will allow us to perform at the highest level. We’ve done a lot on this front from a strategic planning session to a detailed multi-year budget projec-tion. We need to diversify and expand our funding sources in order to maintain our core programs without interruption. We will continue to focus on administrative and programme development.

• Documentation and promotion are a challenge for all small field-based organisations, but we need to share more of our work with the IofC family both here at Asia Plateau and abroad. We will be doing more with the website and social media to build our networks and share our learnings.

We will be working hard this year to address these challenges. The remainder of 2011 promises to be very exciting. Some highlights include:

• We recently received funding to conduct more community-level mobilisation activities. We will

be training village animators to promote commu-nity projects and coordinate activities. We are also procuring a vehicle to reach targeted villages.

• We’re pursuing other funding opportunities, such as a grant for our Tippy Tap School Hand-washing Campaign (learn more at http://www.tippytap.org/proposals) and a proposal for a leading foundation to fund our Livelihoods Pro-gramme – the computer training classes will have started by the time you read this article!

• Within the next year we’ll also continue ex-panding our watershed work to several commu-nities who have requested assistance.

To those of you who have supported Grampari through infusions of money, time and encourage-ment, we thank you for your generosity.

We want to close with one of our favourite quotes by Robert Kennedy that captures the spirit of the lives we hope to lead.

“Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events...it is from the numberless diverse acts of cour-age and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those rip-ples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

We wish you all well in your own journeys of hope, energy and daring.

In Service, The Grampari Team


Awards for Two IofC ActivistsTwo IofC activists have been recognised for their contribution to society:

Ann Njeri, a young Kenyan who is active with Creators of Peace and other IofC programmes, has been awarded the International Women's Day Outstanding Service Award for Kenya.

Cornelio Sommaruga, former President of IofC-International, has been awarded the 2011 tolerance prize of the Friends of Marcel Rudloff Association.

February 7 this year, the prestig-ious LOKAPRIYA GOPINATH BORDOLOI AEWARD for NA-TIONAL INTEGRATION was conferred by the Chief Minister

of Assam on Niketu Iralu, the Naga statesman-leader on behalf of the Govt. and people of As-sam. Niketu is a senior trustee of the Indian IofC and has served on the International Council.

In the conflict-ridden North East India Niketu Iralu and his wife Christine have been working for nearly two decades to bring peace and understand-ing between people of different, differing sides and achieved much success. He is a trusted leader and friend of all sides who seek his wise counsel to resolve their conflicts. His faith, dedication and relentless search for solutions have brought inner peace to countless people, established trust and unity within and between communities and have laid a firm foundation for future generations. The citation recognizing his work is given on the right:

Assam Honours Naga Leader

LOKAPRIYA GOPINATH BORDOLOI AEWARD for NATIONAL

INTEGRATION 2005.

CITATION

An illustrious son of Nagaland, a worshipper of hu-manity, Shri Niketu Iralu is an outstanding personal-ity and an exception to the time and clime to which he belongs.

A personality with a different mould of mind, a social activist of exceptional standing; he has embarked on a journey to usher in hope and moral strength amongst the people of North-East India.

A lifetime Trustee of the Friends of Moral Re-Ar-mament (MRA) now called Initiatives of Change (IoC) spreading over several countries, Shri Iralu has travelled widely across the globe to spread the messages of truth and humanism. His activities amply reflect the quality of his mind.

The Government and the people of Assam take im-mense pride in conferring the prestigious “Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Award for National Integration” for the year 2005 on Shri Niketu Iralu in recognition of his high ideals and outstanding contributions to public life.

May he live a long life of peace and tranquility.

Tarun Gogoi Chief Minister, Assam, 7th Feb 2011, Guwahati

News Brief


Farmer’s Dialogue in RwandaAbhay Shah, a farmer and an architect from Baramati and a key member of the Grampari family, recently attended a Farmer’s Dialogue Workshop in Rwanda and shares his experiences.

I am thankful to IofC, Farmers Dialogue and Grampari for giving me the opportunity to par-ticipate in this excellent workshop at Kigali. The focus of this workshop was to build the capacity of those who are taking the initiative to work with the farmers and to introduce methods of ethical farming. Around 30 participants were present from Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Repub-lic of Congo, Madagascar, France, Germany, Swit-zerland, Italy, India, Australia, U.K. etc.

I was profoundly moved by the farmers who shared their experiences of the genocide in Rwan-da in 1995 that took the lives of more than 2.50 lakh people. I realised how insignificant the issues in my life are when compared to the challenges that the Rwandans had faced.

It was an opportunity for every participant to deeply understand each other. I learned a lot from each other through the shared quiet times, the team building activities and the sharing of indi-vidual journeys. The diverse personalities at the

workshop made me reflect about my life. We also had a chance to understand conditions on the ground through visits to local farms and tea factories.

The organisers’ and participants’ dedication and passion inspired me. I believe that this dialogue with the people who grow the world’s food is a powerful way to make change.

Local IofC Team Meetings

Bangalore First Sunday 4 pm each month Details from Aswini Mohapatra: 9886607066; 740466211 and Kannan: 9741022933.

Jamshedpur Every Tuesday 6.30 pm Chand and Chandreshwar Khan, C5, Kharkai Road, Nildhi Colony, P O Golmuri, Jamshedpur – 831003 Contact: 0657-6510614

Mumbai First Saturday 5 pm each month

3 Kumaram, 10 Worli Sea Face, Mumbai 400018 Contact: Asha Anand 020-2492958, 24931642

Pune First Thursday 6.30 pm each month

Residence of Mrs. and Dr. Anurag Gupta, Magnolia Meadow, 24, Gulmohar Park, Aundh, Pune -411007 Ph. (020) 25884589 Contact: Datta Dhamanaskar 020-27658011

News Brief


Being the Change You Want to See in the WorldWe encourage villagers who attend our workshops to think about changes they may want to make in their lives and to document them. While the decisions vary from small to large, they all involve taking a step forward in living the change you want to see in the world. Here are some of those decisions

“I stopped using my guide stick to get around as I was embarrassed by it. Lis-tening to my other friends making deci-sions, I have decided to use it again as my safety is more important than my pride”.

--Malati, a blind girl from Pune

“I will plant a tree and water it every day.”

--Shrevas, a 16 year old from Wai

“I will teach the children in my Adivasi school to build tippy taps and ensure that the chil-dren wash their hands with soap.”

--Umesh, a teacher from Bhopoli

“After the Grampari workshop, all the la-dies in our community came together and did shramadan to clean up our vil-lage. Not once, but three times!”

--Sister Alice, a woman from Abhepuri

“I will not take out the anger I feel to-wards outsiders on my family”

--Damodhar, a man from Dhom

“I will build a tippy tap!”

--Prathik,a youth from Pune

“I vow to close all the liquor shops in my village.”

--Ashok, Abhepuri villager

“I had never washed my dishes before com-ing to Grampari. Now I know how much work it is for my mother! I promise to wash my own plates from now on.”

--Rahul, teenager from Chikali

“I will do things honestly from now on and will help the Buddhists in my vil-lage build their temple.”

--A village leader from Malatpur

“I used to take advantage of my blindness and make my brother do things I could do for myself. I will apologize to him and stop doing this.”

--Ramesh, a blind boy from Pune

Villagers share their decisions during a Grampari workshop.


Many hands make light work!

Do your part to ensure inclusive growth!

Donate to Grampari’s First Annual Summer Fund Raising Campaign! Your

generous contribution will support our water and sanitation and livelihoods

training programmes and the building of our skills training centre.

Our Indian supporters • Hanuman Bhosale • Farhad Forbes• Rajendra Gandhi • Rajmohan Gandhi• Khorshed Gandhy • Sarosh Ghandy • Prabhat Kumar • Russi Lala • Ranjit Lala • Arundhati Nanavati • Sutosh Pilay S.A• M.N Sampathkumar• Rajni Shah• Abhay Shaha • Rajni Shaha

• V.C Viswanathan• Arun Wakhlu• Vivek Asrani• Anand Shirke• Asian Institute of Transport

Development • Kaymo Fastener Co• Sandeep Gupta Memorial

Charitable Trust

Our international supporters • Anjuli Brown

• Phyllis Elliot

• Folker Family

• Garfield Hayes

• Lona Keyes

• Col. Bala Krishnan

• Manisha Shah

• Frieda Thaller

• George & Anushka Fitzherbert

• Rachel & Keith Mills

• IofC Sweden

• IofC Association Canada

Our regular supporters

• Seenu Iyenger

• Farida Poonawalla

• Suresh Vazirani

• Nand Wadhwani

Thanks to our SupportersWe’re inspired by Grampari’s supporters through their generous giving. Heartfelt thanks to each of you. We look forward to your continued support.


Many hands make light work. Be part of the solution!Donate to Grampari’s First Annual Summer Fundraising Campaign!

To:

Friends of Moral Re-Armament (India)Asia PlateauPanchgani, 412 805Maharashtra, India

Kindly find enclosed my Cheque/DD for Rs. ________ / US$________ /Other_________

Name: _____________________________________________________________________

Address: ____________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Phone: ________________________ Email : _______________________________________

Date: _________________________ Signature : _________________________

Thank you. Your contribution is important to us. All funds donated will go directly to our water and sani-tation and livelihoods training programmes and the building of our skills training centre.

How You Can Help

Grampari relies on the generous support of donors like you to bring our special brand of community de-velopment to rural India. Please see the appeal for our fund raising campaign on the last page of this issue.

But in addition to monetary contributions, there are many ways for you to support, promote and further this type of work. You can ‘like’ us on facebook (fa-cebook.com/grampari) to keep posted on the latest happenings and share it with your networks. You can share our work with others and help us build our con-nections within the philanthropic and corporate donor communities. We also need a small number of volun-teers to assist us, both at Asia Plateau and virtually, with several task such as translation, writing of pro-motional materials and web development.

Finally, you can help us recruit committed and dy-namic people to carry this work forward - Grampari is currently seeking Marathi speaking Community Coor-dinators, Technical Associates and Administrative staff:

• Our community coordinators will be hosted by the villages in which we work. Through total commu-nity immersion, the coordinators will be able to assist communities holistically, providing a link to Grampari’s services and building capacity at the grassroots level.

• Our technical associates will support and manage our livelihoods, health and environment and governance programmes. They will need hard skills in these areas, such as business training, public health, engineering or facilitation experience, but most importantly they will need to be community workers at heart.

• We also have need of one or more administrators who will help us run efficient and transparent manage-rial systems.

To learn more about these positions, or if you know someone who fits the bill, please contact us at [email protected]


Asia Plateau (AP)/IofC India Schedule

‘disha’ will frequently publish experiences of people who have taken steps of change in their lives, often leading to inspiring and far reaching consequences. If you know of such instance and people please write those stories and email them with pictures to: [email protected]

Date Day/s Event Ref.Person/s

Jul 1 - 3 Fri/Sun Proposed slot for Kirloskars / Saraswat Bank JoshiJul. 13 - 16 Wed/Sat HEL Heart of Effective Leadership* at Jamshedpur DarshanAug. 17 - 20 Wed/Sat HEL Heart of Effective Leadership* at Bangalore Darshan

Sep. 9 - 10 Fri/Sat Orchid Staff Retreat/Program on Environment JoshiSep. 14 - 17 Wed/Sat ELL Effective Living & Leadership* DarshanSep. 26 - 30 Mon/Fri Proposed program for SIMC Joshi/Siddharth

Oct. 1 - 3 Sat/Mon Proposed program for Vibha, an NGO JoshiOct. 5 Wed Panchgani International School (A) SachinOct. 7 - 9 Fri/Sun Program for Scholars Academy, Mumbai JoshiOct. 9 - 10 Sat/Sun Sweet Memories (A) Sachin Oct. 12 - 15 Wed/Sat SIIB I JoshiOct. 16 Sun Bloomingdale School (A) SachinOct. 17 - 20 Mon/Thu SIIB II JoshiOct. 22 Sat Nachiketa School (A) SachinOct. 30 - Nov 2 Sun/Wed Proposed program of SNDT Nursing College, Mumbai Joshi

Nov. 7 - 11 Mon/Fri Ethics in Public Governance for IAS Officers Vartak/Shanti NarainNov. 19 - 23 Sat/Wed CIB 2011 Sarosh GhandyNov. 30 - Dec 3 Wed/Sat SCIT I Joshi/Siddharth

Dec. 5 - 8 Mon/Thu SCIT II Joshi/SiddharthDec. 14 - 17 Wed/Sat ELL Effective Living & Leadership* DarshanDec. 19 - 23 Mon/Fri Ethical Leadership Program for IRTS Officers Vartak/Shanti NarainDec. 28 - 31 Wed/Sat Proposed program for SITM Joshi/Siddharth

Jan. 4 - 7 Wed/Sat ELL Effective Living & Leadership* DarshanJan. 10 - 13 Tue/Fri HEL Heart of Effective Leadership* DarshanJan. 16 - 20 Mon/Fri Ethics in Public Governance for IAS Officers Vartak/Shanti Narain

Feb. 1 - 4 Wed/Sat ELL Effective Living & Leadership* DarshanFeb. 6 - 11 Mon/Sat Proposed Program for IPS Officers Vartak/Shanti NarainFeb. 15 - 18 Wed/Sat HEL Heart of Effective Leadership* DarshanFeb. 21 - 26 Tue/Sun Vision for Young Tibetans Conference- Proposed Joshi

Mar. 7 - 10 Wed/Sat HEL Heart of Effective Leadership* DarshanMar. 14 - 18 Wed/Sat ELL Effective Living & Leadership* Darshan

• As on 30/05/2011. ELL – Effective Living and Leadership / HEL – Heart of Effective Leadership * Participation encouraged. Most dates are tentative and subject to changeFor confirmation please contact: Tel: (02168) 240241 / 242 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]


The opinions expressed in the articles are those held by the contributors and not necessarily of MRA-IofC. Edited by Dr A. S. Ravindra Rao and Published by Ishika Mukherjee on behalf of Friends of Moral Re-Armament (India). Printed at Rich

Prints, Narayan Peth, Pune-30. For private circulation only. For additional information contact: Asia Plateau, Panchgani 412 805, India. Telephone: +91(0)2168 240241/2 Fax: 240004 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.in.iofc.org

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(66cm) apart 2. Place the forked sticks in the holes and ensure they are level

3. Fill holes with soil & rocks, and pack tightly

BUILD YOUR OWN TIPPY TAP

2m forked sticks x2 1m straight sticks x2

Tools to dig

Gravel

String

Nail & candle

Soap

Water container

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5. Make a hole in the soap and thread string through it

6. Hang container & soap and fill with water

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9. Use gravel basin to capture water

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Disha Magazine featuring Grampari

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Transcript of Disha Magazine featuring Grampari