1. Identifying and Fostering Self-Help Affinity Groups (SAGs): Since 1984-85 MYRADA has fostered SAGs of the rural poor. They form the power base of the poor which helps them to overcome obstacles in their path to the river. They are credit-plus institutions since they do not only manage finance but provide space for the poor to grow in skills and in confidence to make decisions regarding their lives leading to initiatives for social change in the home and in society. Over 600 members of the SAGs have been elected to various Panchayat Institutions.

In December 2002, there were 6886 SAGs in MYRADA’s projects, with 107,544 members, managing a total common fund of Rs.555 million of which Rs.229 million is savings and Rs.114 million interest earned on lending. They have disbursed over 672,775 loans. Several thousand more SAGs have been fostered in Myanmar, Cambodia, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and in the North east states of Manipur, Assam and Meghalaya.

NABARD supported MYRADA with a grant of Rs.1 million in 1987 from its R&D fund, for the pilot initiative of linking SAGs to Banks. Between 1987 and 1990 NABARD and MYRADA initiated several studies to assess the comparative advantages of the SAG-Bank Linkage approach. In 1990 the RBI came out with a policy statement recognising the SAGs as bankable institutions and allowing Banks to extend a loan to the group (even if unregistered) instead of the prevailing policy to lend only to individuals (who were formed into groups). This was a major change in policy and was followed by Guidelines from NABARD in 1991. NABARD also continued to make a systematic effort to promote the SAG strategy through training and management support; in this effort MYRADA played a major role mainly by conducting training for Bankers and NGOs and by providing regular feedback to RBI and NABARD which fed into policy and practice. The SAG Bank Linkage Model was inaugurated in 1992 by NABARD. The first Bank loan to an SAG in MYRADA’s projects, however, was given in 1990-1991 by a private Bank (Vysya Bank).

By December 2002, 4876 SAGs promoted by MYRADA were linked directly with Financial Institutions (1560 to Commercial banks, 220 to Private Banks, 1806 to RRBs, 85 to Cooperative Banks, 26 to Cooperative Societies, 1179 to Sanghamithra); this lays the basis for sustainability of credit flow through a wide range of financial institutions.
Initially MYRADA called these affinity groups Credit Management Groups. When NABARD provided the R&D grant in 1987, the name was changed to Self Help Groups (SHGs); when the SHG strategy was officially accepted by Government in 1999, MYRADA changed the name to Self-help Affinity Groups (SAGs) to focus attention on the critical structural feature which linked the members, namely affinity. Top

2. A Focus on Women and Children: MYRADA adopts the SAG strategy for the empowerment of women and the girl child and invests in formal and non-formal education for school going children and dropouts. Poor women have taken thousands of loans from SAGs for their children’s education; this is a good indicator that they have placed a value on educating their child. These SAGs have also taken the lead to change traditional social attitudes and practices that are biased against women and the girl child. In collaboration with Plan International, MYRADA works with 17,000 children of poor families, providing health facilities, upgrading educational services and forming School Betterment Committees. Women/ parents as well as the SAGs are actively involved in these initiatives. MYRADA has collaborated with the Tamilnadu Women’s Development Corporation in Dharmapuri, Erode and Nilgiris Districts, with the Government of Andhra Pradesh’s UNDP programme in Anantapur District, with the Karnataka Government’s Stree Shakti programme and with SwaShakti. MYRADA deputed staff to the Belgaum ZP to train SAGs. In all these programmes thousands of women SAGs have been organised and capacity building provided. MYRADA’s strategy to support the formation of SAGs of Devadasis (within an overall strategy to ensure that new dedications to the Devadasi system cease and that Devadasis are supported to become independent) has culminated in the organisation of these women into an NGO called Mahila Abhivruddhi Mathu Samrakshana Samsthe (MASS) which has over 2000 members and is supported by NOVIB. MYRADA has also set up a legal support cell supported by NOVIB; it is based in Belgaum District with back up from Bangalore; it is fully dedicated to tackling women's legal problems.

During the past four years, MYRADA has trained women in non-traditional skills like masonry, welding, plumbing and autorickshaw driving. A major initiative with Titan Industries Ltd employing 220 women in polishing and assembling watchstraps and clocks has been functioning for over 6 years. Their incomes range from Rs.2000 to Rs.3000 p.m.; they have now formed a Private Limited Company and hired one of MYRADA's senior staff. The women are now owners of their company which they have named MEADOW (Management of Enterprises and Development of Women) Rural Enterprises Private Ltd. Top

3. Management of Micro-Watersheds: Around 1985, realising that a major investment in drylands was required to ensure food security of the poor, MYRADA began exploring the strategy of micro watershed management in Gulbarga District in collaboration with the SDC and the Government of Karnataka. MYRADA's focus was to foster appropriate people's institutions which would take on the responsibility of planning, budgeting and implementing appropriate treatment measures to increase productivity (and reduce risk) in a watershed and then managing the investment for sustained impact. MYRADA has two simple slogans: "Make the water walk" and "Bring the soil back to life" (through judicious use of biomass, compost, silt and soil cover). ISRO's satellite photographs of the Gulbarga project taken 1986 and again in 1994, prove that there has been remarkable change in the biomass cover in the project area. Several studies have shown sustained increases in productivity and the ability of crops to weather prolonged dry periods. The lessons learned from this project were incorporated in others both in MYRADA and outside; the National policy and strategy for micro watershed management drew from this experiment.

MYRADA's major concern in watershed projects is that all the financial inputs are given as grants; this does not lay the basis for financial sustainability; besides experience showed when the programme is based on grants, people do not make serious efforts to prioritise treatment measures and to ensure proper and effective implementation or maintain assets. True many projects incorporate a "contribution" from the farmer up front before the grants are given. But where does the farmer get this contribution from? He/she has in turn to borrow from private sources (or from the SAG where they function). Further the dynamics that a contribution introduces in the process are not the same as those introduced by a loan. MYRADA has attempted to introduce the practice of converting grants into loans for treatment measures on private lands with German Agro Action, MISEREOR and NOVIB support. The first step towards this objective is to motivate the Watershed Management Associations to convert the grants they receive into loans for treatment measures on private lands. This does not place a burden on the farmer up front This experiment now covers 120 micro watersheds in MYRADA's project areas. There has been significant improvement in the quality of implementation, reduction in costs and in some cases diversification in the cropping pattern as a result of introducing a loan component and culture. These watershed projects where Government funds are not involved allow MYRADA the space to experiment on the basis of new perceptions and systems arising from the field. The introduction of the three tier structure of people's institutions, namely the SAGs of the poor, the Area Groups which manage a micro catchment of about 100 has and the Committees at the level of the watershed of around 500ha which emerged in MYRADA 's projects is now being replicated in several areas.

MYRADA also offers its services to Government sponsored watershed projects. MYRADA implements several watershed projects sponsored by Government and the Zilla Parishads under DPAP, IWDP, DDP, NWDPRA and APRLP in Karnataka, Andhra and Tamil Nadu. MYRADA is also involved in Multilateral and Bilateral watershed projects. A project with KAWAD (Karnataka Watershed Development Society) and DFID started in 1999 in the Districts of Chitradurga and Bellary. Another project called SUJALA in collaboration with the Karnataka Watershed Development Department and the World Bank started in 2002; MYRADA is the Partner NGO at State level and the Lead NGO in two Districts namely Kolar and Chitradurga. Top

4. Participatory Strategies in Regeneration of Arid Lands and Forestry Management: MYRADA promotes two strategies. One in arid lands lying degraded and fallow (Anantapur District for example) and the second in forest under stress in moderate to high rainfall areas (like the Western Ghats). The first strategy in arid zones includes regeneration of private lands lying fallow, revenue wastes and other non-agricultural lands lying degraded in the watershed. Planting is minimal. Traditional practices used in treatment of upper reaches of the micro watershed and of nalas are recognised and adopted. The overall strategy is based on micro watershed management. Investment in soil and water conservation measures in the upper reaches is comparatively high. MYRADA's experience indicates that unless people derive benefits and have adequate evidence and that there is a causal link between efforts and investments to manage water flow (by protecting and regenerating the upper reaches, treating nalas and private agricultural lands lying fallow), and increase in agricultural and biomass productivity, there is no motivation for sustained management of treatment measures on degraded areas. A major project which fostered this strategy was supported by India Canada Environment Facility (ICEF) where MYRADA co-ordinated a network of eight NGOs in Anantapur District.

The second strategy adopted in the Western Ghats programme is based on training of forestry staff in participatory management practices, micro planning in each village, formation and training of Village Forestry Committees, identification of affinity groups (especially of headloaders and those who depend on forest products for their livelihood) and forming them into SAGs, exposure of these groups to other MYRADA projects and training of NGOs. The objective of this intervention in collaboration with the Forest Department and DFID (UK) was to lay the basis for people's livelihoods by providing them a range of options, to protect core areas of the forest and to establish effective Village Forest Committees to manage and sustain natural resources which provide both the basis for their livelihood as well as adequate forest cover. This project was completed in 2001 and lessons learned incorporated in other programmes which have a forestry component. Top

5. Initiatives in Towns and Urban Areas: This is a new but growing dimension in MYRADA's programme. In the past two years MYRADA has gradually increased it's support to programmes in urban areas and towns. To begin with MYRADA helped Sanghamithra (a non-for profit finance company), which it promoted to open an urban programme in Bangalore in collaboration with over 20 NGOs. MYRADA helped to expose and train these NGOs to identify and train SAGs which then approached Sanghamithra and local Banks for a loan. Initiatives in towns have also begun; these are growth centres and do not have well-established local institutions to respond to new needs. In 2002, MYRADA was approached by the Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environmental management project to collaborate in four coastal towns of Uttara Kannada namely, Ankola, Bhatkal, Dandeli and Karwar MYRADA's role is largely to promote people's institutions which are appropriate to the resource to be managed. These institutions in collaboration with the Ward Committees and local bodies undertake several programmes including micro finance, individual and public sanitation, solid waste management and management of drinking water and sanitation systems. Top

6. Resettlement in Self-Reliant Communities of Released Bonded Labourers and Refugees: MYRADA started with resettling several thousand Tibetan refugees and moved into similar programmes with the Sri Lanka Repatriates. Within existing project areas about 10,000 released bonded and landless labourers have been provided with land in three southern states. Recognising MYRADA's experience in this area, the Government of Karnataka approached it to prepare an Action Plan to resettle 20,000 families to be displaced by the Upper Krishna Project and to implement a pilot project in 1987. Top

7. District Strategy: MYRADA's experience indicates that it is not enough and often not strategically appropriate to try to influence policy change directly. To be as effective as possible, it is necessary to focus on a compact area where other existing institutions required to support innovations in favour of the poor need to be mobilised and networked so that the institutional base is adequate to lobby for policy change and a degree of institutional reform required to support and sustain these changes. During 1998, the District was identified as an appropriate operational area for effective networking. MYRADA's district strategy rests on three thrusts or pillars: i) Provision of credit to the poor for which there is appropriate (if inadequate) infrastructure at the District level based on RRBs, Commercial banks, District Cooperative Credit Banks, SAGs of MYRADA and of other NGOs; these institutions need to network, to support one another and to provide capacity building where required ii) Microwatershed management - since a large share of credit is invested in dryland agriculture, it is necessary to reduce the risks involved; the watershed strategy is most suited to achieve this reduction. In Karnataka the District Watershed Development Officer and a support team which manages all watershed programmes, does provide a nodal point, but the office is often understaffed and is subject to the decisions of the Steering Committee of the ZP where often political pressures predominate; the flow of funds is often disrupted and usually late. A District network of institutions involved in watershed management can play a significant role in ensuring that the Government sponsored watershed programmes function according to plan and that common quality standards are maintained. Besides the network supports the sustained involvement of NGOs which is required to promote effective participation of people and the building of watershed institutions. MYRADA attempts to network all institutions involved in watershed management in the District and to provide capacity building where required. iii) Off-farm enterprises. This sector is severely neglected. It requires the infusion of personnel and resources from the private sector and partnerships between NGOs and the private sector where both sectors offer their comparative advantages to provide employment to the poor, add value to their products and open new markets. Through the District strategy, MYRADA endeavours to promote these partnerships. Top

8. Capacity Building and Sharing: Though MYRADA has not actively promoted itself as a training organisation, it is increasingly looked at as a training resource by agencies in development both at the national and international levels. TRAINING IS PROVIDED TO CBOS, NGOS, Government functionaries, Donors, Bankers and community based resource persons in 11 well-equipped Training Centres, in the KVK and in several sub-centres. MYRADA approaches training as a means to share its experience and best practices only in sectors where it is evident that its interventions have had sufficient field level impact namely, SAG formation, micro watershed management, participatory methodologies, arid zone development and organisational and financial management systems for NGOs and CBOs. All the trainings are conducted in the field where people have succeeded in implementing what they are asked to share. The practical nature of the training services means that demand for MYRADA's services far exceeds what can be delivered as the staff need to balance the requirements of our field-based work and training. In 2002 the total number of training programmes exceeded 7000, of which over 90% was for community-based organisations. An average of 350 programmes are held every year for bankers, NGOs, international organisations, teachers, and government functionaries. Members of CBOs and local level volunteers who have worked in MYRADA's programmes for many years are now able to conduct training programmes on their own; as a result several persons (both women and men) now find employment opportunities in their community as trainers to the several CBOs that are emerging spontaneously.

MYRADA's training materials in the form of manuals, flipcharts, videos and case studies are highly valued and have been translated into several languages and adapted by various institutions. The website is increasingly gaining importance and popularity in communicating the training services of MYRADA. People in development around the world access MYRADA's experiences documented in the form of books, occasional papers and videos. About 60 papers under the categories of Rural management Systems, PRA/PALM and Krishi Vigyan Kendra series can be downloaded free of charge from the website. Top

9. Education: MYRADA invests in upgrading the existing educational system at village level, in preparing children to cope with its requirements as well as in setting up alternate systems to cope with those who cannot do so. Infrastructure has been provided: 1580 new classrooms have been constructed, 165 schools provided with drinking water, toilet systems, laboratory equipment, study materials and library books. Teacher's skills have been upgraded and over 500 teachers employed for providing education to dropouts and to those who need special help at flexible times. Special coaching camps for 3 to 4 months have resulted in significant increase in the percentage of passes. Systematic awareness programmes are conducted to motivate parents to send children to school. Over 20,000 loans have been taken from SAGs for education. The willingness to borrow and invest in children is a good indicator of the level of awareness of the value of education. The SAGs monitor the attendance of members' children and the School Betterment Committees monitor the performance of the teachers and attend to general school matters. In an effort to encourage excellence, several brilliant children from poor families have been supported to enter professional courses (medical, engineering, etc.). One technical school in Dharmapuri is providing quality training to dropouts most of whom have secured employment after they have graduated. Top

10. Sanghamithra- A Not-For-Profit Micro Finance Institution: MYRADA is not a micro finance institution; hence it consistently refuses to accept loans/grants for on-ward lending to SAGs. A survey conducted by MYRADA in three districts in the mid-eighties showed that hardly 20% of rural credit for the poor is provided by official financial institutions. The SAGs respond to credit needs of the poor, but they need capital to cope with demand. MYRADA had worked with NABARD and the RBI to change policy that allowed the Banks to lend directly to SAGs; but the response of Banks has been inadequate in many areas; further it is expected that as Banks policies are liberalised, they will move towards larger loans which will quickly place the poor out of their sphere of concern. MYRADA therefore decided to promote a Non-Banking Financial Institution (non-profit) called SANGHAMITHRA, which operates independently of MYRADA and lends to SAGs formed by MYRADA and other NGOs. Sanghamithra plans to remain small - with a loan portfolio of about Rs 20-25 crores - and to promote several Sanghamithra's in other parts of the State and country. A Fund Management Company which plays the role of a holding company and which will promote and supervise the Sanghamithras is on the anvil. Sanghamithra has been supported by CIDA (Canada), NABARD, Canara Bank and a private donor (Mrs.R.Nilekani of Akshara Foundation). Sanghamithra's corporate office is located in Mysore; its urban office located in Bangalore was partially supported by a private donor (Ramanathan Foundation) Top

11. Off-farm IGPs: MYRADA like most NGOs, is weak in design and marketing. MYRADA, however, realised that providing credit, reducing the investment risk in dryland agriculture through watershed strategy and providing supporting services to on-farm activities was not enough; off- farm enterprises also had to be promoted. It therefore linked up with industries, which provide design and marketing support, while it builds up the capacity of the poor to cope with organisational demands and quality control. It did not set up off-farm enterprises on its own, but let the SAGs decide. Over 15000 loans for off farm enterprises have been provided by SAGs. MYRADA helps the SAGs to establish links with the private sector to ensure that value is added to the enterprises that SAG members borrow for. While most of these links are with smaller enterprises, there is a major one with Titan Watches, which has lasted 4 years, where 220 women who have formed their own company have a business contract to assemble clocks and watch straps. Top

12. Health: MYRADA's health programme focuses on providing infrastructure support to existing Government facilities in remote areas which are ill-equipped, on arranging health camps and early detection and referral of chronic diseases and disabilities, on capacity building of local level health volunteers, and on school health education and check-up for children from standards 6-10. In the recent past, a pilot project supported by PLAN was promoted in 30 villages for the prevention of low birth weight, maternal and child malnutrition and the promotion of intellectual and mental development of the child through early infant stimulation by the family care giver.

MYRADA is working with the Population Foundation of India on an extensive Reproductive Child and Community Health Programme and is recognised as a Resource and Training Agency in this field. With the support of Childreach USA, MYRADA successfully completed an intensive Community Awareness Programme on HIV-AIDs in 4 taluks of Belgaum District. A major programme on environmental sanitation was executed in Mysore District in collaboration with the World Bank and the Government of Karnataka. Currently, MYRADA is collaborating with the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation and the Asian Development Bank on an Environmental Sanitation Programme in the towns of Uttara Kannada District. A unique and successful programme on community managed loans for household toilet construction is under implementation with UNICEF collaboration in Erode District of Tamilnadu. Top

13. HIV-AIDS: A New Area: Myrada implemented an HIV-AIDS programme called AIDS Control and Prevention from 1994 to 1997 in Belgaum District. In 2003, Myrada was invited by the Government of Karnataka to partner the Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT) on a major HIV-AIDS Awareness and Prevention Programme targeting high risk men and women. The programme is funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. After extensive discussions, Myrada took a considered decision to enter into partnership with the KHPT to take up this programme in Kolar, Chitradurga and Gulbarga districts. Implementation of this 5-year programme has started since February 2004. This programme calls for additional staff recruitments and the absorption of new skills in existing as well as newly recruited staff. Around 38 staff have been recruited and the required skill training programmes have been initiated. Besides these staff, a further 59 outreach workers have been identified and trained; they report to the local people's institutions. Top