Yuva Rural Association (YRA) is a registered society functioning from Nagpur. YRA has turned 21 years old now and continues to work hard for the development of the rural & tribal poor. The focus is to empower the deprived sections of rural and tribal society through interventions in the areas of livelihoods, gender, natural resource management (Environment) Climate Change mitigation, and adaptation and advocacy to achieve its goals for the betterment of the constituencies. YRA’s current direct interventions are in more than 945 villages from around 18 blocks of 7 districts in the Vidarbha region and Parbhani district in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. All these interventions were to address various development issues of the constituency groups- small and marginal farmers, women, youth, tribal, and children.YRA also has indirect interventions on various issues at the state and national levels through our collaborative partners. YRA has been successful in facilitating people’s Organizations and Institutions, thus increasing the participation, accountability, transparency, and ownership of our constituencies so that the social transformation process rolls on its own in a sustainable model.

YRA is a professional voluntary development organization working in partnership with International Development Organizations, (Oxfam India, SWISSAID India, UNICEF, IFAD) National and State governments (Women and Child Development Department, NABARD, Ministry of Agriculture and Water and Sanitation Department, Karnataka Health Promotion Trust (KHPT), Rangoonwala Foundation, Revitalizing Rainfed Agriculture Network (RRA-N), Dilasa & WASSAN) and Corporate Social Responsibility projects with HDFC Bank, Infosys, Mahindra and Mahindra, HDB financial services and Edelweiss towards Sustainable Development.

In this wonderful and enriching journey that we have experienced, we have been successful in forming People’s Organizations and People’s Institutions, thus increasing the participation, accountability, and ownership of our target beneficiaries so that they take the responsibility for their own development. The members of these PO’s and PI’s and the volunteers are assisting in widening the scale and scope of our interventions and this is the biggest strength of the organization. They have helped us in our goal of making the life of the rural people meaningful.

• YRA has been a cadre-building organization
• YRA has a big identity in Maharashtra because of sustained work
• Themes – YRA's contribution is increasing in networking known nationally
• YRA is a learning organization
• We aimed high, and we have reached a respectable level
• Our mission and vision are still leading us to rights-based advocacy
• Systems and policies are in place
• The governance is reflective. Very strong. Always shows us the mirror.
• Facilitative monitoring
• All legal & statutory compliances are regular and on time.

YRA’s historical strength:

• Our inheritance or legacy is advocacy, which has formed the basis of our identity
• First, we used to assess the wants and needs of people. Now we do not truly understand, and so cannot articulate to funders for partnership
• Core competencies are not built to the extent expected
• Core capability remained in capacity building, PO/PI formation, facilitation, and advocacy
• Style of functioning and identity
• YRA changed all three
• Staff needs to be viewed in terms of competence, capability, and identity
• As an organization, we do not know what we have gotten into.Organizations successfully develop a set of paradigms, behaviors, etc. Changing it is very difficult.

• Knowledge about execution challenges, facilitating factors, and inhibitors on the ground, particularly in unfamiliar territory, like inaccessible parts of the country.
• Talent acquisition from communities where the company has limited reach.
• Mechanisms for scaling up their operations by creating extensions of the corporate organization.
• Establishing key relationships with local actors and communities and building brand equity. This would include building credibility and goodwill with political and regulatory bodies as well.
• Mechanisms for developing market insight by tapping into local customer needs, doing market research, and learning from pilots.

Considering the motivation, YRA is strongly functional in Maharashtra State with direct intervention and operational in the other states of the country with indirect interventions throughout network partners.YRA has developed strong systems with regard to administration, human resources recruitment, performance appraisal, salary payments, daily monitoring, monthly reports, monthly/ quarterly project reviews, quarterly staff workshop, and so on. All such systems will be checked, and reviewed at the beginning of the plan, and decided the frequency of reviewing each of the systems and followed strictly.

YRA focuses on following operational strategies:

• Facilitate exercising rights: The state and central government have enough pro-poor policies, programs, and budgets approved. Most of them are towards achieving the basic human rights and Sustainable Goals mandated by the UN and member states. YRA’s strategy will be focused on facilitating the exercising of those rights and SDGs among the poor.
• PO/PI building and Capacity Building: The poor are not organized and so they are exploited. YRA will facilitate their coming together for their development through their collectives in the forms of their Organizations and Institutions. Only building organizations and institutions will be inadequate and so YRA will focus on its capacity building.  
• Direct facilitation: YRA will remain a facilitating organization during this strategic plan. Various processes will be adopted in the capacity building till the organizations and instructions become self-dependent.
• Cadres at the grass-root level: Youth and women will be selected based on leadership qualities; those could play the roles of Community Resource Persons (CRP). They will be given required training including skill training as required.
• Replicating and scaling up the “Development Models”: YRA has evolved certain development models as demonstrations that could be replicated and scaled up in other parts of the state.
• Need-based livelihood programs: innovative, local, environmentally friendly, and need-based livelihood activities will be promoted.
• Demand creation: The poor and marginalized people are not aware of their rights and demands. We will make them aware so that they will demand their development.
• Focus on BCC: Attitudinal change among people has to be focused through BCC.
• Four level interventions: Capacity building at an individual level, facilitating implementation at the community level, networking at the regional level, and advocacy at the national level.
• Networking & Collaborations: YRA is engaged with various issue-based networks, nationally and statewide. It has been a win-win for both YRA and the networks and so YRA will continue this relationship with the networks and alliances. YRA initiated a state-level network of the organizations in Maharashtra and will lead the same till the leadership will get changed democratically.
• Annual Plan & Review: YRA will derive an annual plan of action every year out of the strategic plan 2021-2025 & the same will be reviewed collectively at the end of that particular year.