MYRADA is committed to doing its part in contributing to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Very recently, an attempt was made to categorize MYRADA’s records to date in support of the MDGs. While it is not possible to give a complete listing of all MYRADA’s records, its major activities in relation to the MDGs have been as follows :
Over 10,000 such groups have been promoted directly by MYRADA till date. Through the efforts of MYRADA and in collaboration with other institutions like NABARD, the State and Central Governments in India, and multi-lateral agencies like IFAD, UNDP, UNOPS, etc., the SHG concept has been transformed into a national and regional movement. As a result of policy influencing, lending regulations have been modified to include priority sector loans directly to SHGs and without asking for beneficiary lists or pre-formulated loan utilisation plans.
Membership in MYRADA-facilitated SHGs is over 160,000 of whom more than 95% are women. They control a Common Fund of over Rs.1.1 billion (own savings, interest earned on loans given to members, bank interest, etc.). They have advanced over 1.1 million loans amounting more than Rs.2.7 billion. Thus, they have created money in the hands of people, given them the choice to negotiate with others, to cope with adversities and to pursue their aspirations.
Apart from the resettlement of Tibetan refugees that marked the origin of MYRADA, it has also enabled the resettlement of over 10,000 others (Srilankan repatriates, and released bonded labourers) on lands allotted by the Government. As a consequence of these experiences, MYRADA was also approached by and assisted the Government of Karnataka and assisted in the preparation of rehabilitation plans for around 20,000 families being displaced by a major dam project (the Upper Krishna Project).
so that investments in economic spheres translate into actual increases in income. To give an example, in villages bordering forests there is no guarantee that investments in agriculture will result in better yields when the crops are subject to predation by wild animals. In rainfed drylands, without investment in soil and water conservation activities agriculture is a risky proposition. Hence, MYRADA strives to reduce such risks. Promotion of LEISA, fencing of crop lands in risky locations, construction of godowns and safe storage structures, promotion of mixed/alternate crops, post harvest value addition, life and asset insurance, etc. are some of the measures taken up on scale to reduce risks to the poor.
is an area that MYRADA believes holds an answer to the threatened livelihoods of the rural poor in the current context of liberalisation and globalisation. The youth see a greater future in the manufacturing and services sectors when compared to dryland agriculture. MYRADA has successfully trained a number of young men and women who have since found employment as masons, electricians, plumbers, fitters, drivers, in the garment industry, as veterinary promoters, food product retailers, etc. In one location, MYRADA has also enabled a group of over 200 young women to set up a private limited company of their own – where they are the shareholders, managers, and workers – to assemble watch straps and make gold and silver jewellery. It has also set up a Technical Training Institute where boys and girls (including high school drop outs) can learn trades for employment in the industrial sector. Nevertheless, entrepreneurship development and training for employment in the non-farm sector remains an area in which MYRADA has to expand its investments and efforts.
MYRADA has always been clear that it should not compromise its development role with the role of a financier. On the other hand, besides continued and as yet unmet needs for credit by the poor, there is enormous space for innovation in the field of micro-finance that has not yet been tapped by mainline financial institutions. Hence, MYRADA has promoted a non-banking and not-for-profit micro-finance institution called Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services. In the relatively short time that it has been in operation (since January 2000), it is partnered with over 90 NGOs and has advanced credit of over Rs.2.6 billion directly to more than 6,000 SHGs (including repeat loans to the same groups). It is now well-known in the field of micro-finance and has started to independently command the attention of others in the field, who visit to learn from its systems and field practices.
2.1. Donor support to MYRADA has enabled it support more than 20,000 children to complete 10 years of schooling. It is not that the children have been given substantial material inputs to stay in school, though that has also been done; it has been more of working with parents to convince them of the value of schooling, and working with the government and the school committees to build a better learning environment in schools. Around 1,580 classrooms have been constructed for schools in rural areas. In close to 200 schools it has been possible to provide drinking water, toilets, teaching materials, play materials, library and laboratory materials and so on. More than 300 schools have been supported with additional teachers to tide over staff shortages, and Myrada has worked to strengthen school committees in over 300 schools and motivate them to work for school betterment.
2.2. Regular summer camps are held for children in some of MYRADA’s project locations with a mix of lessons and cultural activities. Teachers’ training programmes have been conducted in the past in the techniques of ‘Joyful Learning’. Close to examination times, special coaching classes have been conducted each year to enable children of non-literate parents to prepare better.
2.3. Donor support in some locations has enabled MYRADA to contribute to an insurance programme where a lumpsum of money is realised by the time the student completes high school. This facility has been extended to more than 5,000 children.
2.4. As briefly mentioned under point 1.4, MYRADA has set up one vocational training institute that is now independently registered. It offers 3 to 6 month courses in a variety of vocational skills for both boys and girls. It has residential facilities. This institute trains upto 120 youth per year, and one of its important features is that unlike other vocational training institutes, it also takes in boys and girls who have discontinued school after coming up to Class 8 or 9.
2.5. It is important to note that till date, the SHGs promoted by MYRADA have advanced more than 20,000 loans to members to support the education of their children. Apart from the financial facility, this indicates that the members who are drawn from the poorer sections of society now see a future in investing in their children.
3.1. As already mentioned, more than 95% of the membership in SHGs is of women. The important thing to note here is not only do they now have savings in their own name, access to credit, and have experienced a rise in status coming in the wake of this money power, every member of each SHG also undergoes between 8 and 14 modules of training in a variety of topics that prepare them to face the challenges of integrating with the mainstream. To this end, MYRADA conducts more than 5,000 training programmes for CBOs each year.
3.2. A recent rapid stock-taking review has shown that more than 200 women from self help groups have been elected to Panchayaths and other local bodies.
3.3. MYRADA can take credit for organising the devadasi women of Belgaum District (Karnataka) not only to work for their own social and economic development but even more importantly, to carry out a movement through which dedications of future generations of devadasis has been effectively contained. The women now have an organisation of their own (MASS). They have also expanded their activities to include prevention of child marriage, besides which they have a legal support programme that is available to all vulnerable people and not just the devadasi members of MASS. Adoption of a similar approach directly by the Government in the neighbouring district of Bijapur-Bagalkot, and the involvement of MASS by the Government and NGOs to support similar movements in Raichur and Koppal districts have been other achievements.
3.4. As already mentioned in a prior paragraph, MYRADA has been instrumental in setting up MEADOW, a Private Limited Company that is owned, managed, and staffed by 200 young women. They are linked with a major watch manufacturer earn wages upward of Rs.3,000 per month from making watchstraps, assembling watches and table clocks, and crafting jewellery. Initially, MYRADA had been asked to manage this programme directly but refused on the ground that its role was to promote the growth of appropriate people’s institutions to manage their own programmes. MEADOW had been functioning successfully for the past 8 years, has built up a good asset base (land, buildings, machinery), and has been making profits each year. The women themselves are respected as major bread earners in their families; they are taking their own decisions, are no longer under pressure to marry early, and have the freedom to do many things where earlier they were controlled by their families.
3.5. Through Community Managed Resource Centres MYRADA has been able to establish legal help desks in more than 25 locations, and in most locations the services are being provided mainly to women.
3.6. In the last 2 years MYRADA has been able to organise around 350 SHGs of female sex workers. Though this was not originally planned (the plan was only to work on HIV-AIDS issues with high risk groups), the women showed interest in forming SHGs. These SHGs are also receiving institution-building training inputs, and some of them have also taken membership in the Community Managed Resource Centres where they are well accepted by the others.
4.1. and 5.1. (Combined) In RCH (Reproductive and Child Health) activities, MYRADA is identified as Training Resource Centre for its successful interventions in training community level RCH Resource Persons identified both by MYRADA and by other NGOs. It also implements RCH programmes in several districts (e.g. Kolar, Chitradurga, Mysore, Chamarajanagar, Dharmapuri, Anantapur). In all these locations it is collaborating successfully with the Government and other NGOs.
6.1. Since the late 1980s, MYRADA has been extensively popularising facts related to the ‘Six Killer Diseases in Childhood’ (polio, whooping cough, tetanus, diphtheria, measles, and tuberculosis) and has worked with the government to promote full immunisation of all children. In this context, it has also actively participated in the more recent Pulse Polio Campaign and has won prizes for enabling the most number of immunisations.
6.2. As early as in 1994, MYRADA pioneered a large scale rural-focussed HIV-AIDS awareness and prevention programme to cover an adult population of over 1 million in 4 talukas of Belgaum District, Karnataka. Using a multi-media approach, the programme adopted many of the strategies and activities that have since come into mainstream use in India. The programme was very favourably evaluated by Price Waterhouse. MYRADA was invited to a conference in Ethiopia to present its work.
6.3. Currently, MYRADA is collaborating with the Government of Karnataka (Karnataka Health Promotion Trust) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on HIV-AIDS prevention and impact mitigation in 4 districts (in 38 small towns). It is in regular contact with over 12,000 sex workers (female, male, eunuch), has established 34 drop-in centres, 750 condom outlets, 61 programme/referral clinics, more than 350 SHGs of sex workers, and is also working with the Panchayaths and district administration to make it a synergized effort. A similar programme is being implemented in 4 towns of another district with the support of the Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society.
6.4. With UNDP support, a programme to specifically reduce HIV-AIDS and STIs vulnerability in young women is being implemented in 4 rural talukas of one district (Bellary).
6.5. MYRADA has been designated ‘Prime Partner’ of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Global AIDS Programme to provide HIV-AIDS awareness, technical support, capacity building and community care in 2 districts through public-private collaborations. On this programme it is working with 5 sub-grantees. As a part of this programme it has been able to initiate rural outreach through training programmes for 2,400 SHGs. It is also providing inputs to 100 provincial colleges and 20 factories. The Red Ribbon Clubs formed in the colleges are attracting a lot of favourable attention, and CDC’s overall satisfaction with MYRADA’s efforts has resulted in its taking the assistance of MYRADA to (i) Provide technical assistance to USAID grantees in Maharashtra to improve their quality of work (USAID had requested CDC for this help, and CDC has requested MYRADA for it), and (ii) Take up a programme of Panchayath Training to raise awareness among Panchayath Members and get their co-operation to address HIV-AIDS issues in their constituencies. (These 2 initiatives have not yet been started but will soon be.)
6.6. As a result of the above programmes, MYRADA has developed strong links with the Karnataka Positive People’s Network (KNP+) and its district chapters. Consequent to this engagement, KNP+ has been involving MYRADA to facilitate vision building exercises for its district chapters and also to strengthen its own accounting and management systems.
6.7. MYRADA has also been taking up HIV-AIDS awareness as a ‘credit-plus’ training activity for self help group members on almost all its project locations.
6.8. In addition to HIV-AIDS and STIs, MYRADA is also addressing problems like tuberculosis, leprosy, diabetes, diarrhoea, etc. in needed locations through public and private collaborations.
6.9. Since disease manifestations are closely linked with the status of water and sanitation, MYRADA is also engaged in drinking water and sanitation programmes on a large scale, both on its own and in collaboration with the Government. Its initiative to promote the construction of home toilets through the creation of loan funds (mobilised from UNICEF and managed by SHG Federations) is regarded by UNICEF as the first initiative of its kind, about which UNICEF has made a video document; it has also ushered in policy change through which funds are being created at the level of each Block for the Government to advance as loans for toilet construction.
7.1. MYRADA’s commitment to work on environmental sustainability issues is most obviously manifested in its efforts to promote watershed development in rainfed drylands. As early as in 1983-84, it was the first NGO to be formally invited into a partnership with the Karnataka State Government and a bi-lateral agency (Swiss Development Cooperation) to work on participatory integrated development of watersheds in a drought prone area. The experiences and lessons from there have fed into the refinement of the watershed development approach in India.
7.2. Currently, MYRADA is the State Partner to the Watershed Development Department in Karnataka on the World Bank assisted Sujala Watershed Programme. It is also the Lead NGO for this programme in 2 districts, besides being directly involved in implementing the works on 35,000 hectares (under the Sujala Programme).
7.3. Until last year, MYRADA had both supervisory and implementation roles on a large watershed programme supported by DFID and managed by the Karnataka Watershed Development Society. It was also involved in a forestry programmes in partnership with the India-Canada Environment Facility (in Andhra Pradesh, where it formed a network of 8 other NGOs to collaborate on this programme), and with DFID (in Karnataka, mainly to orient the Forest Department Staff on how to be more people-friendly and engage in participatory forestry development). With regard to regeneration of arid lands and forest management, MYRADA’s major contributions have been in two areas : (i) Direct involvement in the regeneration of arid lands and promotion of forestry on watershed principles, with appropriate technical and management inputs and through appropriate local level institutions, mainly undertaken in Anantapur district (Kadiri), Chitradurga district (Challakere), and Gulbarga district (Kamlapur and Chincholi). (ii) Promoting the adoption of participatory approaches by the Forest Department through training of all cadres of their staff, mainly operationalised in the Western Ghats Project (Karwar district).
7.4. MYRADA, in almost all its project locations, is also supporting watershed development work with the support of NGO partners like Novib, German Agro Action, etc. and in collaboration with district governments under State and Central programmes. Through such government and private partnerships, treatment works have been/are being carried out on approximately 150,000 ha. of land in various locations.
7.6. As already mentioned, MYRADA is partnered with UNICEF and the district governments on school and household level water and sanitation programmes in Tamilnadu and Karnataka. (It was earlier involved in the World Bank – Government collaborative Integrated Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project). Very recently, it is collaborating with a Bangalore-based NGO – Arghyam Foundation – on water resources augmentation and management in two locations.
7.7. Environmental protection and promotion are also encouraged through an increasing focus on LEISA technologies and a fuller utilisation of agricultural and domestic ‘wastes’ (through biogas, vermicomposting, eco-san toilets, indigenous growth promoters and pest repellents, rain water harvesting, tree planting on field bunds, etc.), all of which are being promoted on a large and significant scale and are also being visited by other organisations (e.g. one location in Erode District had no fewer than 1,500 visitors in 2005-2006, from farmers, other MYRADA projects, State Governments, Central Government, overseas NGOs, Agricultural Universities, etc.)
8.1. MYRADA’s NGO partnerships contribute in no small measure to enabling wider global links. Besides, it is a part of networks like Banking with the Poor and the Asian NGO Coalition that not only create platforms for dialogue but also undertake joint activities for wider sharing and learning. Of late, it is also engaged with e-groups on subjects like poverty reduction, HIV-AIDS, livelihoods promotion, micro-finance, etc.
Perhaps this does not fit in under ‘Global Partnerships’ but to MYRADA it is an important effort. Initiated in one district (Chitradurga) and subsequently replicated in four other locations (Kadiri, Mysore, Gulbarga and Chamarajanagar), this is a network promoted by MYRADA and focussed on developing common data base, sharing of information and experiences, capacity building, and commitment to the maintenance of mutually accepted quality standards in field work, particularly in the promotion of SHGs. It is a formal platform for NGOs, Government, Banks, and other support organisations to interact with one another on a regular basis. It has been playing a very useful role in the sector.
8.3. The Executive Director of MYRADA is on several national and international bodies as an Advisor/Consultant to deliberate on development policy and practice (e.g. Consultant to IFAD, Member of Reserve Bank’s Committee on Financial Inclusion, Member of the National Committee to reformulate Watershed Guidelines, etc.)
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