India NGO Awards 2007—Profiles of the Finalists
Regional Finalists—Category: Small
GOONJ.. (North)
GOONJ.. works towards creating a nation wide movement for channelising vital resources lying in excess in urban and middle-class households to far flung rural areas in India, thus addressing some of the very basic needs of millions of poor people. GOONJ.. uses, used clothes as an entry point into the recycling and distribution channel, setting up an efficient and round the year system for proper collection and distribution, building partnerships with various stakeholders to reach a wider network of people. With offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Jalandhar, the organisations works with about 2,00,000 direct beneficiaries every year in the most marginalized areas like the Moosahari community in Bihar, the child labourers in Ferozabad (U.P), the quarry workers in Tamil Nadu, the prawn farming communities in Sunderban Delta (West Bengal).GOONJ.. has launched several campaigns such as Vastradaan, School to School, Work for Cloth and recirculation of unused Tsunami relief materials, in the last few years to access surplus reusable materials to provide solutions to the poor and marginalised. The organisation has recently launched a new campaign that produces and distributes low cost sanitary napkins made from reusable cotton cloth and is reached to thousands of marginalized women to whom the lack of access to clean cloth can lead to great health hazards.
Dream A Dream Foundation (South)
Dream A Dream, started in November 1999 by a group of 11 young people, is today a professionally run, registered not-for-profit trust working with over 500 children coming from vulnerable backgrounds such as children from the streets / slum communities, runaway children, orphans, and HIV+ children among others. The organisation seeks to empower children from vulnerable backgrounds by developing life skills and at the same time sensitizing the community through active volunteering, leading to a non-discriminatory society where unique differences are appreciated. This is achieved by providing sustained life skill development programmes to children through exposure to sports, outdoor camps, creative arts, reading based programmes, computer training programmes, cinema and theatre among others. Creation of a strong community participation model through volunteer-based programmes also leads to empowerment and sensitization about children’s issues among the community. Today, this has developed into a full-fledged programme including over 500 volunteers.
Go to Dream A Dream’s Web site
Pragati (East)
Pragati Koraput was set up in 1992, with an aim to work for socio-economic development of the poor and marginalized communities in the remote pockets of Koraput district in Orissa. The organisation today has a presence in 170 villages of Orissa reaching out to 6979 beneficiary families. Two third of the stakeholders belong to Scheduled tribes and Scheduled castes with 80% of them being small and marginal farmers. Thrust areas of the organisation are formation and strengthening of civil society organisations, natural resource management, sustainable agriculture, livelihood promotion and disaster preparedness and rehabilitation. Pragati has also promoted a district level network of forest protecting communities covering 742 villages of Koraput District.
Pragati’s role is to function as a facilitator for the welfare of rural deprived sections of the society in order to merge them in the social mainstream with different interventions for development of socio-economic standard of the people living in backward areas of Koraput District.
SPRAT (West)
SPRAT headquartered in Ahmedabad offers its services through a network of 6 full fledged and two mini community empowerment centres called CARAVAN, operating from 5 cities of Gujarat. SPRAT was started with the objective of empowering the impoverished people, specially those directly and indirectly affected due to the civic disturbances of Gujarat. Its other objectives include promoting rationality and scientific temper in everyday thought and action. It offers TALEEM basic literacy programme at slums and has taught over 5000 illiterate women and children. Through MUSKAAN Adventure Park, it connects people of different faiths via recreation and promotes appreciation of everyday science. Together this network serves over 1000 persons daily at Ahmedabad, Himmatnagar, Mehsana, Surat and Nadiad.
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