: SNS Foundation (SNSF)

Discussion Forum

In Lucknow

By Shohratgarh Environmental Society (SES) Posted on Fri 24 May 2013, over 11 years ago

Dear Damyanti Ji,

Your attached ppt shows location Lucknow. What kind of project it is ??Is it with some local NGO partner??

Thanks,
Sandeep

Locations

By Shohratgarh Environmental Society (SES) Posted on Mon 15 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Hi!!

As SNS foundation works on several area such as education, health etc. what are aim these projects & where are located??

Thanks,
Sandeep
Shohratgarh Environmental Society(SES)

Locations

By SNS Foundation (SNSF) Posted on Mon 15 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Hi Sandeep,

Thanks for showing interest in SNS Foundation. We are located in the following locations:

1. Parwanoo in Himachal Pradesh
2. Gurgaon & Rewari in Haryana
3. Dewas in Madhya Pradesh
4. Nasik & Pune in Maharashtra
5. Chennai, Hosur in Tamil Nadu
6. Bangalore in Karnataka

Our Education programme which involves quality improvement is government schools, mainstreaming of out-of-school children into formal stream is spread across 15 schools in Gurgaon and 5 schools in Bangalore. (Annual Coverage 13,000 students)

Vocational Education which includes imparting skills such as cutting and tailoring, beauty culture, computers, nursery teachers' training to women and girls and skills such as 2-wheeler auto mechanic and electrician to male candidates. Vocational Education is spread across all locations mentioned above. Reach out to 6000 students annually with a placement rate of 30%.

Parwanoo (District Solan) is SNS Foundation's centre of excellence for Health projects. We are working with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in the area of Reproductive and Child Health since 1999 and with Himachal Pradesh State AIDS Control Society.

You could also refer to attached brochure and presentation.

Thanks. Hope your question has been answered to some extent.

Damayanti

Locations

By Shohratgarh Environmental Society (SES) Posted on Tue 30 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Thanks Damyanti Ji for reply.

Water Projects

By Gram Vikas Mandal, Dethali Posted on Mon 15 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Hello,

Very happy to know about you and your work. I am based out of Gurgaon and would be happy to meet to know more. Meanwhile I have few questions pertaining to water projects you undertake.

(1) How did you decide particular projects to be taken up?
(2) What were villagers efforts in solving the problems prior to your help.
(3) How much they contributed in terms of means, efforts or ideas for implementing the project
(4) How do you monitor the project both at the planning/implementation time as well as post completion on the ground.
(5) Did they think of using NREGA for funding? if not any reason?
(6) How much time your own people spend on ground and how much the villagers contribute in project.

Look forward to learning from your experience.

Mayur from Dethali Gram Vikas Mandal.

Water Projects

By SNS Foundation (SNSF) Posted on Tue 16 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Dear Mr Shah,

You could contact me at 9971799223 for us to fix up a mutually convenient time and date for meeting up. It would certainly be a pleasure. Meanwhile, I am giving point by point answer to questions raised by you:

(1) How did you decide particular projects to be taken up?

SNS Foundation's work in the sector of enhancing access water to for tribal families is born out of its decade long engagement with over 5000 tribal women in Peth and Trimabkeshwar blocks who have been formed in slef help groups, access micro finance and have started micro enterprises. It is to reduce their daily drudgery of 2-5 hours spent in collecting water and help them devote time for economic activities that the organization thought of taking up particular projects. Our natural choice for sites are those villages/areas where SNS Foundation faciliated Self Help Groups are present. We work in a cluster mode and the 180 odd villages where we work have been divided into 24 clusters. Presently we are focused on our 1st cluster with about 8-9 villages.

(2) What were villagers efforts in solving the problems prior to your help.

Not very much.The drudgery involved in collecting water is all experienced by women and girls. Hence it is difficult to expect that the men folk will come forward to jointly put up some structure.

(3) How much they contributed in terms of means, efforts or ideas for implementing the project: The villagers work as labour, we pay them for 8 hours of work but they contribute 2-4 extra hours. The women self help groups are the labour contractors who make payments and monitor. The options of enhancing access to water are jointly discussed with villagers before putting them into action. Initially there was no monetary contribution but now in our 6th village of work, we have sought and received monetary contribution of Rs 15 K.

(4) How do you monitor the project both at the planning/implementation time as well as post completion on the ground: Planning and Implementation happens under direct supervision of SNSF staff. Post completion of project every village forms a self help group with maximum possible households as its members and a bank account is opened. A monthly contribution is fixed per household for maintenance. total collected money is used for activities like dam repair, paying electricity bill where pump is used to draw water from well to storage tank.

(5) Did they think of using NREGA for funding? if not any reason?
NREGA has not reached these villages. however we have met Minister for Rural Development Mr. Jairam Ramesh (Nov 2, 2012) and Jt Secretary Mr. Vijay Thallam (March 15, 2013) for inputs of NRLM and NREGA in this area.

(6) How much time your own people spend on ground and how much the villagers contribute in project.

For e.g. in a project of 30 days, SNSF staff will spend 10 days on site, supervise progress, negotiate vendor rates etc. Remaining 20 days it is monitored by self help groups of the village as trust quotient with them is high and helps in building greater ownership of the projects.

Water Projects

By Gram Vikas Mandal, Dethali Posted on Tue 23 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Thanks. The replies were useful. Do hope to meet once I am back to Delhi.

Mayur (Dethali Gram Vikas Mandal)

drinking water projects

By Watershed Organization Trust Posted on Mon 22 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Warm greetings from WOTR !

We are happy to know about the good work SNS Foundation is being doing in the tribal belt of Peth and Trimbakeshwar area

We would like to know more about drinking water projects in your area -

1. What is the overall situation of drinking water and underground water situation in the area

2. Being a tribal belt area, the State Govt. has implemented drinking water supply schemes almost in each and every village. What is the overall scenario and conditions of the these schemes ?

3. Since you are engaged in drinking water, health and sanitation (WASH) activities, do you promote toilet facilities too? What is the status of the open defecation situation in your project villages ?

4. What kind of measures are taken in order to strengthen the drinking water source ?

5. How are the projects being implemented and whether the funds are released to CBO's account or they handle and manage the project funds as a main actor of the project.

Thank you in advance for your time

best,
Thomas

drinking water projects

By SNS Foundation (SNSF) Posted on Wed 24 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

1. What is the overall situation of drinking water and underground water situation in the area?

By February end- beginning of March, all sources of water viz. wells, ponds, borewells, dry up, forcing the women to walk longer distances for fetching water. Both Peth and Trimbakeshwar areas are arid and the terrain is rocky, making percolation of water to increase the underground water table is a major challenge, Hence our strategy has been to focus more on methods, which increase storage of water (check dams, deepening of pond & wells)and thus helps in percolation to a certain extent.

2. Being a tribal belt area, the State Govt. has implemented drinking water supply schemes almost in each and every village. What is the overall scenario and conditions of the these schemes ?

SNS Foundation has presence in about 180 villages of the two blocks through its self help groups. Of the 180 villages, 25% - 30% villages (45-60) have government drinking water schemes. However, these too dry up / become non-functional after a February / March, reasons for which are same as mentioned in 1.

Since, our work to enhance access to water is just about 2 years old, we have not made in roads into WASH areas of sanitation and hygiene. at present there is 100% open defecation in these areas. Though government has made it compulsory for gram panchayat members to have toilets in their homes and all cooncerned have done so, they are not able to use the toilets optimally because of poor water condition as highlighted in answers above.

4. What kind of measures are taken in order to strengthen the drinking water source ?
Please refer to the attached presentation to know about projects done in 5 villages to increase access to water.

5.How are the projects being implemented and whether the funds are released to CBO's account or they handle and manage the project funds as a main actor of the project.

SNS Foundation team has been directly implementing all projects on ground, hence it is functioning similar to a CBO. However, going an extra mile to strengthen the people's network on ground, we have / are implementing the following systems, now that we have successful projects of demonstration value -

a) Labour is taken from project villages who are paid the minimum wages of the state. As their contribution to the project, labour put in 2 extra hours of work (Shramdaan) for 8 hours of pay received.

b) Self Help Groups act as labour contractors, pay the labour wages and monitor whether or not additional Shramdaan is coming through

c) With 6 successful projects behind us, in the seventh project SHGs are being motivated to carry out all vendor negotiations and villagers are coming forward not only with 'Shramdaan' efforts but also monetary contribution towards the entire project cost. The monetary contribution from villagers is deposited into a bank account formed in the name of the Self Help Group which comprises membership of all village households. The remaining contribution from SNSF also goes into this bank account and villagers make payments themselves.

d) After completion of project in a village, a fixed amount is collected from all households by the village level SHG and depsoited into the bank account- to make sure funds are available for necessary maintenance works.

Hope you find the above satisfactory. Our knowledge to go tap govt schemes for this purpose is weak and needs guidance.

drinking water projects

By Watershed Organization Trust Posted on Wed 24 Apr 2013, over 11 years ago

Many thanks Damayanti for the detailed reply

Best regards,
Thomas

Communication and management process

By Peer Water Exchange Posted on Wed 01 May 2013, over 11 years ago

Dear Damayanti,

Welcome to PWX!

Thank you and the participating peers for your participating in learning and sharing.

I have a couple of questions on your information flow and decision-making process?

1. Do you have an on the ground representative (of the SHG or a local NGO)?
If yes, what is the means of communicating with them?

2. How do you manage your diverse projects across India? What is the channel for info coming in and storage?

3. How do you make decisions? When hurdles are encountered in the field, how do make decisions in the Gurgaon office? How do make joint decisions? And release required resources?

4. What is your data repository? Do you have a long-term M&E plan? If yes, how do you track? What indicators? What resources? How long?

Thanks,
Rajesh

Communication and management process

By SNS Foundation (SNSF) Posted on Sat 04 May 2013, over 11 years ago

Dear Rajesh,

1.Do you have an on the ground representative (of the SHG or a local NGO)? If yes, what is the means of communicating with them?

SNS Foundation has on ground 431 self help groups across the two blocks of Peth and Trimabakeshwar. 90% of them can be contacted by mobile as there is one or the other member who has a connection, making it possible to reach out to the entire group. In addition, there is a team of 14 SHG co-ordinators (each having mobile connection) across the two blocks each having an average of 30 groups to monitor. This is the ground level monitoring structure for the micro-finance intervention. When in a village, some water related intervention is made, all or maximum households in the village form a separate self help group, open a bank account and deposit the designated monthly per household contribution earmarked for repair and maintenance.

SNS Foundation staff both from Head Office and Nasik branch visit (monthly visits per block)and participate in the village level meetings.

2. How do you manage your diverse projects across India? What is the channel for info coming in and storage?

Diverse projects across India are managed through branch offices at every location, equipped with both managerial and field level staff. The main channel of information coming is e-mail and telecoms and two -way travel between branch offices and head office. Information related to programme, beneficiaries, financials are both centrally and locationally available on computers.

3. How do you make decisions? When hurdles are encountered in the field, how do make decisions in the Gurgaon office? How do make joint decisions? And release required resources?

As explained in Q.2, the branch offices are adept with knowledge, manpower and technology to manage their field level operations, hence decisions need not be taken at the Gurgaon level. Financial resources are in the process of getting a cent percent centralized, each location submits its financial requirements at the beginning of the financial year based on which the overall organizational budget is worked out. Each location is aware of its budget from April onwards. Thereafter, based on the budget they send monthly requirements for funds to head office.

When new initiatives are undertaken at any location, joint meetings of head office and branch office staff take place to draw out the complete plan.

4.What is your data repository? Do you have a long-term M&E plan? If yes, how do you track? What indicators? What resources? How long ?

Data repository consists of beneficiary profile, depending on programme both individual and/or population profile is maintained, case studies, project budgets - income & expenditure details, implementation schedule, monitoring and evaluation indicators, (for e.g. (a) in vocational training the M&E indicators are number of students who have completed the course, pass outs, drop outs, number who have joined job/started business, monthly earnings, retention in jobs etc.(b) in micro-finance - loans made available at every stage to self help group, the individual/group business started with loan amount, their monthly income with the business started).

There is no M&E software in position as of now. We visited WOTR recently in Pune and they said that in their villages they have a system by which weather related information is provided to villagers by SMS. we do not have anything like this yet. Our M&E is usually year on year basis and based on this a comparative picture is developed.