To know that we reach out to this kid in a Government Hospital outside Chennai in Chengalpattu is totally worth all the effort we put in. Participate in SIFI’s Vision Ventilator today.
A visit to Chengalpattu Government Hospital.
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SIFI Photo-Walk – Part II
We are closer towards our target of buying a Ventilator for Chengelpet Government Hospital. Do join us for the walk.
Date : Saturday, 4th February, 2012
Time : 4:00 P.M.
Venue : Mylapore Kapaleeswarar Temple.
Parking : At Mylapore Temple premises or Mylapore Railway Station.
For more details. Call us @ 8939820407/9962583422.
A Photo-walk for Raising funds
We conducted a photo-walk on 26th January, 2011 to raised funds for EKAM. Their inaugural photo-walk was a roaring success with 18 participants. Starting at the ‘Light-House’ MRTS station, the walk took the participants across a lot of color, crowd and children.
Set amidst a Republic day parade on Marina Beach & the slums of Triplicane, we were able to reach out to newer volunteers & donors. One of the participants, Mr.Santosh, came all the way from Bangalore to participate in the walk as he thought ‘he really wanted to do this’. Participants for the walk included students, working professionals & professional photographers. Mobile, point & shoot and high-end were the different kind of cameras seen at the walk. This diversity is unlikely to be seen in other photo-walks around the city. “Thanks to SIFI, this is the first time I attended a Republic day parade & walked through a slum-lane in my own city” said Anu, one of the participants.
The display of India’s military might & a walk with the children in the urban slums subtly jelled with SIFI’s goals. The proceeds raised from the walk where through registration & would go towards our project ‘Vision Ventilator’, which funds a ventilator for the Chengalpet Government Hospital. We started our journey in 2011 & currently fund small NGO’s in Healthcare and Education like EKAM.
To attend their next photo-walk, you can log on to: www.sifindia.com or Like them on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/social.investment.foundation.of.india
Spreading Smiles, Saving Lives – SIFI’s fund raising photo walk
SIFI is happy to launch its maiden fund raising event: ‘Spreading Smiles, Saving Lives’, a photo-walk for a social cause. All photo enthusiasts are invited to be a part of the walk that will focus on the nuances of photography for causes. The proceeds from this walk will go towards the cause of Vision Ventilator – donating a ventilator to the Chengelpet Government Hospital.
On event day:
• Participants interact with photographers from across the city and click photos during the walk
• Participants are encouraged to bring photos based on the theme ‘a journey called life’. An open discussion on such photos will be undertaken to offer comments and suggestions.
• Talk by Sriram Sabhapathy on social photography. He is an avid photographer whose photos may be viewed at http://www.sriramphotography.com/
After the event:
Each participant may send 2 photos (with caption) shot during the walk. The top 12 photos, adjudged by a professional photographer will go into making a calendar for 2012. All due photo credits will be mentioned.
The event is divided into 2 sessions :
Session 1 : 26th January 2012 around Triplicane
Session 2 : 5th February 2012 around Mount Road/Parrys
A fee of Rs 100/- will be collected from all participants and will go towards the cause of Vision Ventilator. Participants are encouraged to donate over and above the fee on the event day.
Interested persons are requested to register at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGZqcGdMaVZtTElUeEs4dl8xTUVveGc6MQ
Venturing into social media
Having been involved in SIFI since its genesis a few months ago, I have had the first hand experience of witnessing its progress. Our model is simple – to collect funds from individuals, pool it and direct it to NGOs in need of funds.
During the course of these months, the team has been confronted by many questions – why not approach corporate organizations or companies for money who may contribute as a part of their CSR initiative? Is SIFI going to direct the collected funds only to NGOs or also to individuals who are in need of funds? How does SIFI ensure the credibility of NGOs and ensure that the money goes towards the best cause that yields maximum positive social impact? However, one of the biggest questions that have been debated by the team – social media : to do or not to do?
In the initial stages, the progress was slow as the team used personal contacts to get funds in. But soon almost everyone on our close network was aware of SIFI and a few contributed to the cause. Given the question of growth and sustainability, it became imperative to reach out to a larger market. That’s when the debate of venturing into social media arose for the first time. The team was divided on opinion.
As the youngest in the 7 member team, I was eager to use social media such as Facebook to publicise our cause. I believed that, with this, things start rolling and results are achieved faster. After many rounds of thought provoking and challenging questions thrown at me, we negotiated and decided to use it for the short term. And thus, our Facebook page for Vision Ventilator was born.
As a tweak from the original features of a Facebook Page, this page will exist only until 31stMarch 2012 – the deadline for SIFI to raise INR 2,50,000 to donate a ventilator to the Chengelpet Government Hospital. Being admin of the page is both challenging and overwhelming. I learn a lot by searching for content for regular updates on the page – about world affairs, people’s attitudes, resource management etc. It is satisfying to note that in 10 days nearly 65 people have liked the page, with just as many talking about it. However, it gets tougher from here on as it must stand the test of time. It must fulfill the purpose of spreading awareness of SIFI and its activities and enable raising funds.
The ideological shift in allowing flexibility to create and manage SIFI’s social media relations has paved way for all of us to be more open to change. Ideas that were previously not taken too seriously like printing tee shirts, banners in events etc are resurfacing. A measured outcome is the impending photo-walk as a fundraising event for Vision Ventilator.
Personally, I find it enjoyable to be the face of SIFI – posting and updating details of our activities and connecting with a bunch of people who relate with and support our cause. It gives me a purpose to wake up everyday and a reason to look forward to being proactive and passionate about everything I do.
Swetha Viswanathan
India Urban Conference
I was privileged to attend the India Urban Conference in the Infosys Campus at Mysore, Karnataka, India. The theme for the conference was ‘Evidence & Experience’. It was required that every anchor organization conducted sessions on their sector of expertise.
Let us begin with some facts here, by 2030, 60% of the World’s population is projected to be in Urban areas. In India, estimates suggest we would have over 40% of the population in urban areas. Find below a snap-shot taken from a McKinsey report on Urban settlement.
Cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore & Pune will be economically bigger than countries like Malaysia, Portugal, Columbia etc. Read McK report here.
{Interesting fact: India will have 68 cities with a population of more than a million by 2030, 63 cities have been recommended in the “multi-brand” FDI retail Bill. Contrary to the government’s claim of ‘JUST’ 63 cities }
The anchors were Pratham (Education), Janaagraha (Governance), IIHS(settlements), PHFI (Health), Arghyam (Water), IFMR (Finance), Dronah (Culture), IUSF/SPA (Planning)
As the sessions happened in-parallel, i was able to attend Deep-Dives (as it was called) of Pratham & IFMR.
DAY 1 : Thursday Nov 17th, 2011 – Field Visit
Pratham kicked off with field-visit to one of the urban settlements in Mysore. We conducted a survey in Kurubarahalli, Siddhartha Layout. Door-to-Door through the help of mobile phones. It was great to interact with the kids when you don’t speak their native language.
Door to Door in Kurubarahalli layout
Learnings
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The smallest block in Urban India is no longer a ‘Ward’.
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‘Low-cost Private schools’ are no better
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Urban areas with income diversity are tough to work with
DAY 2 : Friday Nov 18th, 2011 – Pratham on Education
In a session moderated by Mr.Subir Shukla (blog), we discussed on ‘what the learning outcomes are’ in the context of RTE. 3R’s are the all to learning? In school days I never valued ‘Moral education’ classes because there was no focus on outcomes.Apart from measuring ‘Letter, Para, Division’, what other things should we measure?
Subir Shukla moderating the session by Pratham
The final session for the day was ‘Sharing Data: Strategies and platform for Data Access’. I was pleased to meet one of my seniors from NIT Calicut working on Accountability Initiative.
Have you ever wondered what CESS is? Read their Gov Budget spending on SSA here.
It is really interesting to see government data being projected in a ‘BETTER’ form as compared to the DISE data which is horrendous.
Learnings
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Data is never ready. Present the data you have
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Keep it simple.
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Story should go along with the data. Easy to understand.
BUT, there is plenty of data to show that the situation is bad. So, a lot of implementers do not fancy ‘Data’ folks especially in development.
DAY 3 : Saturday Nov 19th, 2011 – IFMR on Finance
IFMR sessions were REALLY interesting. In one of the sessions by Mr.Harvey Koh,who specializes on Impact measurement, I learnt how the Monitor Group is working on disbursing loans to people with salaries of Rs.10,000-15,000.
The final session which I attended, was by Mr.Vikram Kapur an IAS officer from Tamil Nadu, India. He spoke about financing local/municipal government through a Municipal bond market. He presented a concept of moving away from grant by Central to State or State to Local government to ‘Public Funds’.
Ensures
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Completion of the project on tim
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Governments need not wait for ‘Grants’ for every project.
Look through this entire presentation here The default rate has been ‘NIL’ in his experience. NIL!!
What are you trying to say?
Rural development planning in India is extremely strong compared to Urban development. In my visits, I have found staying in villages more comfortable. Though the quality of education & health should improve, I find governance largely better in villages than it is in cities.
The lowest percentage of voting from any ward in the last Tamil Nadu State Assembly Elections was from T.Nagar, Chennai at 63%. Chennai polled at a measly 66% compared to Karur at over 85%. Most of us treat cities like villages and adopt a wrong model for development. NGO’s & government alike.
SIFI is an organization based out of Chennai. It is important for us to understand the approach NGO’s take in their respective area of work. Increasingly, we would try short-listing NGO’s that specialize in Urban Development especially working with Citizens & communities as Tamil Nadu & India become more urbanized than ever.
How does SIFI as a team work?
How does SIFI as a team work? A lot of people, including my parents and relatives, have asked me this question. So here’s an approximate answer to your question people.
I hate to call SIFI a volunteer driven NGO at this point of time. But at the same time, we are not a full time NGO either. So how is that we work? get work done? and what is that we do as a team??
SIFI is a six member team presently (yes! click here) of which five of us reside very much in Chennai, India. Though primarily our work is around getting in new donors and in turn ching ching ($), there are lot many activities that happen in the back end – such as…
- identifying list of potential NGOs
- field visits of these NGOs + reporting
- liaising with our beneficiary NGOs – keeping track of their progress and our money spent on them
- reaching back to donors on how their money has been spent
- preparing and sending out newsletters
- brainstorming on marketing ideas
- calling up and reaching out to potential donors
- many admin works – printing receipts for money received, mailing to donors etc.
- meeting new team members (in-progress)
Considering the massive amount of work involved, and the fact that we are not full time, 
we decided that the best way to get all work done is to have WORK-MEETINGS (Venky coined this term!) – sit at one place on a sunday (once a week / fortnight), get work done + lunch + gossips: – yes, sounds very much like a corporate office set up, but just that we have a lot of fun when we work, we don’t have strict work-space and we work only for 3 hrs a week! 
and obviously, we get our work done!
We tried this model on Sunday… Not sure if it is sustainable but sure it works and (worked), and now I sign off with the dream and hope that we are able to do this full time tomorrow with an established (but darn cool) office! yay!
- Sriram Sabhapathy; December 09, 2011
