Swades Foundation is uncompromising in its mission of rural development and lifelong empowerment.  “Our USP, since the time we started our 360-degree operations in year 2013 is a holistic development model which has a huge multiplier effect,” says Founder Ronnie Screwvala. “We work through 4 key verticals, viz. Health & nutrition, education, water & sanitation and economic development.” To ensure holistic development, the organization insists that community members are empowered and trained to contribute to all initiatives. Community members also contribute with either a small financial amount or shramdaan which gives them a high degree of ownership towards the project. Says Founder Zarina Screwvala, “Our goal is to create a model of development which can be adapted and implemented at scale. We call it the inside-out model of development with the community in the centre. We follow a focussed 4E strategy: Engage, Empower, Execute and Exit for rural India through holistic and sustainable growth by engaging with and empowering village communities, executing multiple programmes on the ground and working towards an exit strategy. Critically we do not believe in charity, we believe in creating an empowered village community.”

^{Founder Zarina Screwvala Doing Shramdaan}

Operating in 7 blocks of Raigad district in Maharashtra, (viz. Mahad, Mangaon, Poladpur, Tala, Mhasala, Sudhagad & Shrivardhan) where the pursuit of water is the very core of life, Swades’ intervention of ensuring that every household gets sufficient potable drinking water year-round, is the foundation on which the transformation of the community is based. “We bring water to each home,” says Zarina Screwvala. “Apart from the obvious convenience, it gives women time to start some entrepreneurial activity or contribute in the field and enables the girl child to continue her education. Of course, without water our huge sanitation programme would not work. We have constructed over 21,000 individual household toilets and toilets in over 140 schools impacting over 135,000 people. Most importantly we sensitize the community to use them through wonderful street plays, rallies, the formation and strengthening of cleanliness committees– our bit to contribute to an ODF India.”

^{Panose Dam built by Swades Foundation}

Inextricably bound with progress is the health of a community and Swades works extensively on this vertical through its multiple programmes, the most extensive being eye care, primary health care and alleviation of anaemia and malnutrition amongst children. Swades operates 3 mobile vision care vans moving through hamlets for primary screening and providing free spectacles to take care of refractive errors. It also supports cataract surgeries and corrective surgeries. So far, the organization has facilitated 13,290 cataract operations and over 208 pediatric eye surgeries and given out 68,545 spectacles. Moreover, it has supported 131 child heart surgeries and has screened and tested 37,413 children for anaemia, providing them with therapeutic interventions in partnership with government schemes. The organization has also facilitated distribution of government approved therapeutic doses for all pregnant women and children, besides creating and training a strong cadre of over 1,000 community health workers called SwadesMitras, serving over 370,000 population.

Education, the pillar for long-term change has been treated with customized solutions, tailored to fit the socio-economic landscape. Says Zarina Screwvala, “We have conducted leadership and in-service training programmes with more than 4,800 educators. We aim to make learning joyful which includes infrastructure upgrades. We have provided drinking water and hand wash stations, sanitation stations, libraries, computer laboratories and learning aids in science and mathematics to 1,272 schools. We have also provided career counselling to over 46,400 children and more than 4,300 scholarships to deserving students.”

Completing the circle is Economic Development under which Swades aims to ensure that every household has an annual income of a minimum of INR 2 lakhs per annum through multiple options of livelihood. Says Ronnie Screwvala, “We have brought 1,956 acres under cultivation with customized irrigation. Apart from this we have conducted exposure trips and training for over 24,298 farmers, grafted more than 120,000 trees and planted over 693,000 new fruit-bearing saplings for horticulture. We have also created 4,378 dairy entrepreneurs and provided them with 5,580 milch cattle including backward and forward market linkages.” Apart from this, Swades has encouraged over 4,000 households to engage in poultry as an income generation occupation and skilled 2,378 young people, notably getting almost 80% of them into formal jobs through direct placement or self-employment. For instance, in collaboration with IL&FS Institute of Skills, Swades has provided vocational training in hospitality, healthcare, IT/ITES, construction, beauty & wellness and automotive. 2,378 youngsters have been trained and 1,889 placed in formal employment so far.

Remarkable implementation here and one of the key reasons is clearly that 90% of the staff is living and operating out of Raigad along with over 1,000 community volunteers. Says Zarina Screwvala, “We are stringent on monitoring and evaluation and this enables us to make amendments as required to optimize our model. 10% of our staff comes from some of the best corporates of India, men and women who have chosen a different career path. I truly believe philanthropy is now a cool place to work.”

Till date Swades has brought change to the lives of 2,000 hamlets touching close to 500,000 lives, but according to Ronnie Screwvala this is just the beginning. “We are uncompromising in our aim of empowering no less than 1 million rural Indians every 5 to 6 years,” he says. “The potential for us to contribute is immense...the potential for change is epic and we intend to continue to pursue it.”

This initiative has recently won NGOBOX-Dalmia Bharat 5th CSR Impact Award in Implementation Agency of the year category.

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Impact-Story is a series on development and CSR interventions leading to some impacts on the ground. If you have a project, innovation or intervention that has changed the lives of a few people or a community, please share a brief note at csr@ngobox.org. Our Team will get back to you after validating the information for a detailed coverage. For more information, please visit  indiacsrsummit.in