"Changing lives, but not temporarily….," says Deepak Nathani, COO and Executive Director, Cybage Software Pvt. Ltd and Trustee of the company’s philanthropic arm, CybageAsha. An impromptu adage perhaps; but comes with a sincerity that thrives to ‘spread smiles’ as the Pune-based offshore service provider rolls on to gather momentum on ‘adopting’ its ninth village in Maharashtra. An act that goes beyond donating money, blankets or conducting ad hoc health camps -- the trade-in here is achieving long term happiness as against evoking temporary or oneoff change.
What began as voluntary participation by the company’s employees (fondly referred to as ‘Cybagians’), to work for causes related to AIDS afflicted kids in an around Pune under the CyberAsha mantle since 2003 has now transcended to include involvement in alcohol de-addiction programmes, social welfare and Go-Green initiatives, besides its now tested model of rural infrastructure development.
Village ‘adoption’ for CybageAsha primarily focuses on infrastructural development and awareness programmes that seek to infuse a sense of complete engagement with villagers and local civic bodies in bringing about necessary improvements in the living standards of those residing in backward villages (ideally a population less than 2000 inhabitants).
The idea is to initially hand-hold villages during the developmental stage and hand it over aka a loosely structured build-and-transfer mode once the villagers become self-reliant in managing their affairs themselves.
‘For’, ‘Of’ and ‘By’ the People “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” this popular adage could well be seen as the stepping" stone to Cybage’s village adoption model.
Unlike a Christmas candy handed over to villagers in the form of concrete (pucca) roads, smokeless chullahs, sanitation and water harvesting activities, community farming or de-silting projects, funding for these is appropriated on a ball park 50:50 financial sharing basis that plays on the ‘psychological’ positioning of ownership of these projects by the villagers themselves. “The actual financials are negotiable and depends on the particular infrastructural need – also on how much the respective Gram Panchayat, ZPs and other civic groups are able to fork out at a given time,” explained Nathani.
The Pilot Run
The 2008 pilot project at Karnawadi in Bhor Taluka, exemplifies an ideal private-public partnership with the local authorities, when initial resources and infrastructure for education at the local school was at low ebb.
But, with encouragement from the Cybage team, villagers did manage to collect around 40% of the funding which unfortunately fell short to meet ends. Cybage then offered to channelize the balance amount (Rs 5 to 10 lakh in tranches) and helped build additional classrooms and a new block to the school building. This step evoked a sense of responsibility from the then governing civic body who then provided the school with playground equipment – a win-win for the children definitely!
“About 50-60 homes in and around Karnawadi today have identical toilets in the area. At a cost approximating less than Rs 10,000 per toilet, the idea is to see many more such versions of toilets coming up in different geographies and this is what every model village should have,” he added.
The Cybagian Grassroots
The village development model works its linkages via issues identified by fellow Cybagians who act as POCs (points of contact) with their respective local village communities. The process begins with nominations received from employees twice or thrice each year. These Cybagians are either natives of a particular village or have kith and kin residing in the nominated villages.
Nominations are vetted based on the demographics, population count and distance of the chosen villages from Cybage’s Pune head office (ideally located 60-80 Kms from the campus).
“This enables employees and the CSR taskforce to visit the adopted villages and monitor their respective work-in-progress regularly, until they are ready for handover to their respective civic bodies,” explained Pushpa Darekar, CSR executive at Cybage. Once a village is nominated, due diligence is done that takes into account surveyed data, followed by talks with villagers and the Gram Sarpanch. A village baseline survey is also conducted to understand public opinion on identified developmental projects. Sometimes, villagers from nearby hamlets who have gained from Cybage’s past initiatives too accompany the CSR team to start in a new village.
“It is the responsibility of individual POCs (who could be a nominee or native of the selected village), to check on the progress of any initiative, especially if it has been nominated under his or her recommendation. Engagement is for a minimum 7-8 months or even longer depending on the intricacy of the projects undertaken,” said Sandeep Mhaske, a young System Analyst at Cybage and a POC for CybageAsha’s initiatives at Nawali village in Purandhar Taluka. In his individual capacity, Sandeep has further created a sub-task force at the village level comprising of villagers and other interested groups who have the “passion and dedication” and are available regularly for participating in the process of ‘change’.
A village baseline survey is conducted to understand public opinion. Sometimes, villagers from nearby hamlets who have gained from Cybage’s past initiatives too accompany the CSR team to start in a new village
“It is the responsibility of individual POCs (who could be a nominee or native of the selected village), to check on the progress of any initiative, especially if it has been nominated under his or her recommendation. Engagement is for a minimum 7-8 months or even longer depending on the intricacy of the projects undertaken,” said Sandeep Mhaske, a young System Analyst at Cybage and a POC for CybageAsha’s initiatives at Nawali village in Purandhar Taluka. In his individual capacity, Sandeep has further created a sub-task force at the village level comprising of villagers and other interested groups who have the “passion and dedication” and are available regularly for participating in the process of ‘change’. “The grassroots village team in fact have been recording the progress of our on-going projects along with photographs in the village I represent, and this on their own initiative,” added Mhaske.
“I have personally gained from engaging with such projects on how to interact with people at all levels, the capacity to understand problems related to rural development, dealing with specific challenges and gaining the trust of stakeholders at all working levels, besides the satisfaction I derive from ‘doing good’ and gaining a ‘can do’ attitude as part of the larger CSR initiative,” Mhaske concluded with a sense of pride.
The Funding Panacea
“Funding is not an issue but execution is,” said Mr Nathani. He explained that funding under the CybageAsha trust now follows a rough master plan where voluntary contributions from company employees account for a monthly collection of approximately Rs 20,000 while the company also sets aside around Rs 1 crore annually for projects that have a gestation time span of five years or so.
Cybage has ambitious plans to continue its forays into building water reservoirs and de-silting activities. “We are striving for a permanent change in people’s lives that can outlive our responsibilities, going beyond another 20-26 years, maybe,” signs off Mr Nathani.
And as Pushpa quips, “We are looking at making our village at Nawali in Purandhar Taluka our second model village and are scouting for opportunities to embrace the inhabitants of Kiwale in Khed Taluka under our wings.” If change be permanent, CSR for Cybage says, “the next village ahead”!
By Sangeeta Ghosh Dastidar
