Hand in Hand / SEED Newsletter No 8

Food for thought - SHG women start canteen

The 1,800 girls in the SRM College ladies' hostel are big fans of their canteen. The place is brimming with students at any time of the day. Keeping a bunch of hungry college girls happy can't be an easy task. But the three women running the canteen are obviously doing a great job. Meet Bakiyam, Gajalakshmi and Amudhavalli, all three members of a Hand in Hand self help group. Their smiles, the speed and confidence with which they serve, and the endless chant of "akka, akka" as the students clamour for attention - it is ample proof of the success of this enterprise.

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300 Panchayats Declared Child Friendly

In a significant milestone, Hand in Hand has declared 300 Panchayats in three districts of Tamil Nadu as 100 percent 'Child Friendly' on 13 February 2009. Local government and community leaders were lauded for the achievement and honoured with citations and awards at a large function held in Kancheepuram. In these 300 Panchayats, or village clusters, all children aged 6-14 years attend school full time, are out of labour, and are screened regularly at health camps.

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A Helping Hand to Brazil

In an exciting new addition to South-South partnerships, the Inter American Development Bank (IADB) has chosen Hand in Hand to partner with Visão Mundial (World Vision), Brazil, and Agência Nacional de Desenvolvimento Microempresarial (ANDE) to start a poverty alleviation project in north-eastern Brazil.

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Good Governance Gets Ahead

Hand in Hand's Citizens' Centre Enterprises (CCEs) not only generate revenues for our entrepreneurs but also serve as a medium to increase the average villager's access to government and awareness of good governance issues. In several places, villagers are coming forward with complaints about poor roads or sanitation to CCEs which, in turn, forward the online petitions to the concerned government bodies for redress. In Cuddalore, two such petitions sent by our CCEs have resulted in a concrete road and a functioning bore well for drinking water.

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Low-cost Cover for Rural Poor

Micro insurance is a logical and essential part of microfinance, and an area where Hand in Hand sees great potential for effective intervention in impoverished rural and farming communities. Hand in Hand has now partnered with Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) to roll out a family insurance product for women in self help groups. Though India already has a well-developed micro insurance sector with a diverse range of products, large-scale distribution remains a challenge. The Hand in Hand-IOB partnership is an excellent opportunity to bridge this gap. In February 2009, the first 1,700 SHG members were enrolled under the scheme, and a premium amount of INR 227,500 was collected at the inauguration ceremony.

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Award for Hand in Hand

Hand in Hand has won the NABARD Award for excellent performance in the SHG-Bank Linkage Programme in Tamil Nadu for 2007-08. The award is a recognition of Hand in Hand's efforts in microfinance, enterprise creation, and socio-economic empowerment of the poor. We seek to achieve this by promoting Self Help Groups (SHGs) and providing them with microfinance through linkages with banks.

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Difficult Labour on Easy Terms

Her difficult labour is already a fading memory for Gunasundari. What this 21-year-old mother does remember very well is her comfortable 60 km car ride to the nearest hospital for delivery. And even more satisfying, she had no problem paying the hospital bills. Extremely pleased that she decided to take the Pregnancy Loan offered by Hand in Hand's Health Pillar to self help group women, Guna is a happy mother today.

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Water and Sanitation Partnership

Unsafe water and poor sanitation is a leading health hazard for the poor across the world. In addition, health expenditure is the second most common cause of debt in rural India. Given this scenario, US non-profit body WaterPartners International has signed on Hand in Hand to implement a safe water and sanitation project in Tamil Nadu.

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Food for thought - SHG women start canteen
SRM University is famous across India, and has a huge and beautiful campus. When the opening came up for a canteen here for the girls' hostel, Hand in Hand's enterprise development team grabbed the chance of giving the opportunity to some poor women from nearby villages.

Running a college canteen is a tough job. The pressure on the kitchen is always high, the service has to be fast, and students can be tough critics. So, it's particularly satisfying that these women, with no prior business experience, have not only taken on the challenge, but are making a go of it. "I was afraid at first. I had never stepped out of my home," says Amudhavalli. Today, she talks of expansion plans!

Two of the women were housewives, while the third herded cattle, before they decided to join the self help group (SHG) set up by Hand in Hand in their village, one of the more than 27,000 such set up by the organization so far. Their families used to earn between INR 2,000 and 5,000 a month. Today, their canteen has an average daily turnover of about INR 9,000, and the women have hired a cook and two helpers. The three entrepreneurs share the task of supplies, sales, service and cleaning up.

The canteen was set up in July 2008 with a loan of INR 65,000 that went mainly into capital expenditure including vessels, stoves and a refrigerator. Loan repayment starts only after a year, giving them time to stabilize.

Earlier, along with the other SHG women, they were trained by Hand in Hand in basic finance management, entrepreneurship, and accounts. "Hand in Hand staff gave us courage and motivated us constantly," says Bagiyam. Hand in Hand continues to extend mentoring and technical support through external consultants like MD Market Makers, which teaches hospitality and inventory management, and will help scale up the project later.

Already, in eight months, the women have moved on to stocking shampoo and detergent satchets, candles and sanitary towels, all based on student demands. Next in the pipeline are telephone recharge cards and stationery.

The menu too has been revamped to keep the girls happy. From Chinese and Indian, the canteen now serves tandoori, clearly a big hit, given how fast the chicken tikka masala moves! And with prices in the INR 15-50 range, it's easy on the students' pockets as well.

"One day soon, we will be able to afford to send our daughters to this college, that's our aim," say the women confidently. No business school background, but these women have shown that they can succeed in the world of business.

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300 Panchayats Declared Child Friendly
The 300 Panchayats selected for Hand in Hand's citation and award also make the cut because they have fully functioning Child Rights Protection Committees, maintain a proper student-teacher ratio, hold regular awareness rallies and programmes, as there are effective Evening Tuition Centres.

Hand in Hand recognises this significant milestone could have been achieved only with the concerted efforts of the volunteers in Child Rights Protection Committees (CRPC), the district administration, Panchayat presidents, school teachers and principals, youth, as well as self help group women and parents.

CRPCs play a particularly significant role, as they are expected to sustain the programme after Hand in Hand exits the village. CRPC volunteers track out-of-school children, protect child rights, spread awareness against child labour and promote universal education. Their work at the grassroots level, though challenging, has proved to have the most impact. All children are tracked, so that they do not lapse into labour or malnutrition.

Shantha Sinha, Chairperson, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, was the chief guest at the occasion. Her speech stressed the need to be vigilant about child rights. She applauded Hand in Hand's work and pointed out that it was the community's responsibility to keep it going.

Hand in Hand strongly believes that a child's right to education is non-negotiable. It works to bring every child out of labour and into school. Of the 12,600 Panchayats in Tamil Nadu, Hand in Hand aims to make at least 10 percent fully child-friendly in the near term. The work has been extended to 780 Panchayats so far.

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A Helping Hand to Brazil
Collaborations between developing countries can provide shared opportunities for capacity building. Recognising this, the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the IADB, which has initiated and funded the project, decided that Hand in Hand's successful model of poverty reduction and employment generation could be successfully adapted in Brazil.

The first of its kind in Brazil, the programme will aim at large-scale impact using a multi-pronged strategy. To reach down to the ultra poor, it is important to realise that their situation can only be improved through a holistic approach that offers literacy, financial and enterprise training, plus skills building, as has been proven by Hand in Hand in Tamil Nadu and BRAC in Bangladesh.

In Brazil, Local Units for Income Generating Opportunities (LUO) will form the basis for mobilisation and training, on the same lines as India's self help groups. Each unit will be provided with technical support and micro credit to help increase income-generating opportunities.

The credit-plus approach gives technical assistance, access to finance, market and industry linkages to the poor entrepreneur. In Brazil, Hand in Hand will act as the inspirational catalyst and provide much of the key technical assistance.

The programme will gradually be scaled up to create a regional network of local grassroots organizations tied to Visão Mundial and ANDE. In the final stages, the programme will spread out the model to mobilise alternative funds for lending and technical assistance to ensure sustainability.

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Good Governance Gets Ahead
Apart from being a revenue-generating enterprise and disseminating basic IT skills, the motivation for Citizens' Centre Enterprises (CCEs) is to create arenas where information on good governance can be disseminated.

This last aim is coming true as more and more people in rural areas have begun using the centres to find out details of government schemes such as old age and widow pension plans, to send in requests for public facilities like bus stands, or to voice grievances and send in online petitions to concerned government departments for civic works.

Trained on the Right to Information Act, volunteers of the Good Governance Rights Protection Committee (GGRPC) are now helping citizens get their grievances solved and recognise their rights.

Recently, in Cuddalore, the Hand in Hand CCE sent two online petitions to the concerned government departments. Now, both problems have been addressed. The first complaint was about a drinking water bore well that did not have a power connection for over five months. The CCE forwarded the petition to the District Collector. The second complaint was about a poorly maintained road in a residential area. The potholed road was filled with pools of stagnant water that were breeding mosquitoes. Though the local municipality had begun repairing the road, the project was abandoned before completion. The CCE appealed to the Collector to have the work finished.

Both petitions were accepted and work was restarted by the government. In February 2009, power supply to the bore well was established, and the damaged road has been re-constructed into a concrete road.

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Low-cost Cover for Rural Poor
Life insurance cover is probably one of the most undersold products in India, especially in the rural areas. Hand in Hand now extends its work to micro insurance with the latest collaboration with IOB, which will introduce life insurance to the almost 400,000 women in Hand in Hand's self help groups. The product, Janashree Bima Yojana, is open to all SHG members aged between 18 and 59 years. Members pay a very low premium of INR 100 per year, which is met by a matching contribution from the government, for a sum assured of INR 30,000.

In addition, the product has some special provisions - including accidental death and disability cover, and a scholarship scheme for two children - to make it more attractive. Hand in Hand is in the process of rolling out the micro insurance product across Tamil Nadu.

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Hand in Hand wins NABARD Best NGO Award
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development awarded Hand in Hand the prize for the Best NGO for Bank Linkages. Hand in Hand CEO Dr Kalpana Sankar and Mr. V. Karuthoviyan, Project Director, SHG and Microfinance pillar of HiH, received the award. The NABARD SHG-Bank Linkage Programme, started in 1989, has now assumed the shape of a movement and is seen as having the potential to transform the rural economy.

The award acknowledges that through well co-coordinated efforts of banks, committed NGOs and SHGs, poor and backward communities can witness a silent transformation. Hand in Hand has so far helped form more than 27,000 SHGs, mobilised more than 400,000 women into groups, and helped create or upgrade more than 200,000 small and medium enterprises. The total credit disbursed through Hand in Hand through bank linkages is INR 1,858 million as of February 2009. The award is a highly encouraging sign from the Indian government, even as Hand in Hand gears up to increase the outreach of its SHG, microfinance and training programme across India. We are currently present in 18 districts of Tamil Nadu, as well as other states such as Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. We have also taken the SHG and enterprise creation model to South Africa, Afghanistan and Brazil.

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Difficult Labour on Easy Terms
In its bid to constantly offer innovative solutions to the problems of the poor, Hand in Hand has tied up with Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), one of India's leading business and research schools, to offer a Pregnancy Loan to expectant mothers.

The loan is meant to encourage the practice of institutional deliveries among the rural poor, and thus reduce maternal and neonatal mortality rates. The INR 7,800 loan is to be paid back in 18 installments of INR 488 plus INR 98 interest, and is used to cover travel, hospital and medical costs during pregnancy and after delivery.

The IFMR Pregnancy loan has brought a smile of relief to many expecting mothers in Tamil Nadu's rural hinterland. Pregnancy finance aims to change India's dismal rural statistics, where institutional delivery rates are as low as 31 percent, and over 70 percent maternal deaths occur during delivery.

Despite the government stepping up health expenditure and awareness programmes, the absence of formal lines of finance for those who cannot afford institutional health care is a huge problem. Informal loans are available at exorbitant interest rates of 36-60 percent per annum.

Hand in Hand's Pregnancy Loan is disbursed two weeks before the expected delivery date. Repayments can be made over 12 -18 months starting a month after delivery, the first two months being principal free, and the interest rate is 15 percent per annum diminishing.

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Water and Sanitation Partnership
In India, nearly half the indebted rural households are in debt because of having to pay crippling hospital bills. This vicious circle - expenditure on healthcare, which creates poverty, which in turn contributes to malnourishment - decreases economic productivity and perpetuates further ill health. Most health spending goes to treat Acute Diarrhoeal Diseases (ADD), for which the major contributing factors are open defecation, unprotected water sources, and poor water quality.

The INR 11 million funding from WaterPartners International will go towards providing water connections and toilets for 5,900 households, and will cover a population of 29,500 across 300 villages in two blocks of Kancheepuram district. The project, signed in December 2008, spans three years. The initial survey and training work has begun.

The project aims to address both water and sanitation issues in an integrated manner, through awareness building, technological innovation, training and microfinance. Microfinance has traditionally been offered to create enterprises and establish income earning ventures for the poor. This pioneering alliance will set a trend of providing the poor with micro credit for potable water and sanitation, ultimately reducing health expenses, and thus indirectly improving their economic condition.

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Support Us!
As you can see, our scope of activities has increased and we are reaching out to more and more communities every day. In order to continue in our successful fight against poverty and marginalisation, we now seek your partnership. All donations, no matter what size, are welcome, and they will contribute to our work. If you wish to donate, please visit us on www.hihseed.org, where you can also read more about our projects and programmes and also make online donations.

Questions, comments, or contributions to the next newsletter are welcome! Please mail me at the address given below and I promise to get back to you.

Yours Sincerely,

Kalpana Sankar
Chief Executive Officer

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