Name Ms. Parvathy Narayanan
Organization Association for India’s Development (www.aidindia.org)
Contact To contact Parvathy, please send a mail to profiles@ngogateway.com
Profile Snapshot Parvathy is the Content Head, English at AID INDIA. She is actively involved in education and rural development projects
Parvathy Narayanan
Background:
Parvathy holds degrees in M.S.W (Master of Social Work) and B.Com. She chose this track because she wanted to be in an on-field job, not to be limited to a desk job and bogged down by theory. She was greatly attracted by the fact that as much as 50% of her MSW course was out-door, experiential learning.
First-Steps:
Post her MSW, she joined CAPART (Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology), a Delhi-based autonomous funding agency under the purview of the Ministry of Rural Development and was involved in Rural Development projects. She worked for a year in the District Collectorate, Erode, Tamil Nadu, followed by a year at the CAPART headquarters in Delhi on project management activities and finally spent a year with an NGO involved in natural resource management at Nilakottai in Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu. While at Nilakottai, she started Aspire Foundation, an NGO focused on education.
Current Role:
She has been associated with Aid India for over 3 years now. She enjoys her association with Aid India for the rich learning environment and flexibility provided with projects. She has the freedom to research, experiment, make mistakes and improve. Also, the diverse backgrounds & experiences of people involved and their high enthusiasm levels add to up to a positive and encouraging atmosphere.
She is part of a 5-member team that is developing content for English primary education with special focus on improving reading and speaking skills. They have been running a pilot project in 50 schools in 2 districts in Tamil Nadu. Through continuous refinement and experiments, they have developed a special one-on-one evaluation method to study the impact of their programs. They have simplified their program and evaluation mechanism with the aim to scale it up to make their model replicable across a larger set of schools.
Memorable Moments:
In her journey so far, her most memorable moment has been starting her own organization, Aspire Foundation. She recounts that she felt a need and set out to fulfill it. She adds that one does not have to wait and be totally prepared to take the plunge. It is better to get started and fine-tune later. She was motivated by the overwhelming response from exuberant children and their parents, when her organization brought them into the fold of its first education scholarships.
There have been memorable moments during her work with Aid India. Once such instance is when an inspired teacher in a Government school in Vellore district made effective use of the English program to demonstrate that poor children studying in a Government school were capable of speaking English well and this demonstration brought 15 students who had joined private schools back into the fold of his school! I was very happy that we were able to provide this highly motivated teacher a tool to provide quality education to students in his village.
Challenges:
One of the biggest challenges she faced working in rural areas, was the perception rural folk had of her as an “urban” social worker. It took her a while and lot of good work to prove herself and connect with them. Another hurdle to be cleared is getting accustomed to the way of life in interior places without the basic amenities taken for granted in cities. Initially, she did face a bit of reluctance from her parents regarding the career path of MSW she had chosen. But over the years, they have been very supportive and are now proud of the work she does.
About the Indian social sector in general, she points out that smaller NGOs continue to face funding issues. Funding organizations are hesitant to support programs designed by smaller NGOs who are yet to prove themselves. These NGOs in turn are more often than not, forced to take up pre-designed projects to sustain themselves.
Message:
Her greatest learning she would like to share with other organizations is that no solution is a permanent solution. The environment continuously keeps changing and so should our solutions. One has to keep abreast of the target set to track how it is evolving. For example, while working with children, one has to study the influence of external media on the way children perceive and learn. She strongly feels that like-minded organizations networking among each other and share their learning and best practices is a good idea. This would lead to better effectiveness of projects and people would not have to re-invent the wheel every time.
Also, she encourages others to collaborate with Aid India, on her program or other programs. She is looking forward to collaborate with other bodies and individuals.
Her message to volunteers is to be clear with what role they would like to play. She suggests that volunteers research about their organizations and meet up to discuss role and expectations before committing to a cause. She adds that if volunteers can be clear & candid about their availability, be it for a day, a week or a month, NGOs can map them accordingly. That way NGOs and volunteers can make the most effective use of their time, resulting in a win-win situation.
—-
Interviewer Manik Vinnakota
Popularity: 3% [?]
NEW VISION SOCIETY
NEW VISION SOCIETY is a voluntary not for profit organization which works with underprivileged communities to keep children safe from abuse and enable these people live with respect and bring about attitudinal change in establishing social and gender equalities. New Vision Society was conceptualized in 2003by a committed team of diverse backgrounds who sincerely felt that Empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals of group to be aware of their rights, to facilitate means to transform these rights into desired actions and outcomes. The organization attained its legal identity in 2004 with well-defined Vision and Mission. New Vision Society is committed to facilitating the empowering process among the communities through various developmental initiatives.
New Vision Society believes that Community Development is the process of developing active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect, influencing power structures in the society to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives.
New Vision Society facilitates in enhancing the innate potential of communities, and has strong will for developing self-reliant communities, irrespective of the socio –economic and cultural status. The organization is working with human resource of the nation capable of contributing towards the development of the nation. The organization has been working relentlessly with this commitment to its credit. The organization works with a Right-based approach that help strengthen the coherence and transparency with clearer conceptual thinking on issues such as accountability , power and participation for achieving significant programmed outcomes.
MISSION
NEW VISION SOCIETY is committed to work with socially and economically disadvantaged communities and empowering them by facilitating to be educated , skilled and aware of their rights so that they become self reliant and live a dignified and quality life .
VISION
NEW VISION SOCIETY envision a society wherein the community build a common conception for human dignity, gender equality, economic independence with solidarity and communal harmony. And every child avails of quality support and has an opportunity to grow to his/her full potential.
OUR BENEFICIARIES
Children especially girls
Women
Physically and mentally challenged
Minority groups
Street children
Slum dwellers
HIV/AIDS affected people
Major diseases affected people
Villagers
Senior citizens
WE WORK FOR
NEW VISION SOCIETY works with children and their families, communities, to implement programs at grass root level in health, education, water and sanitation, income generation and cross – cultural communication.
OUR METHOD
Our strategy is to help individuals, families and communities to increase their capacity to help themselves.
We believe that the rural /urban, slums situation can be developed and changed only by getting the residents to actively participate and contribute to the development.
Therefore we use a professionally managed approach in which we have moved a way from the traditionally practiced merciful approach by which resources are simply given to the needy , Instead , the emphasis is on creating critical awareness among the people about their prevailing situation and to motivate them to bring social change .
Aim and Objective of the society
• We promote holistic child development child protection and right by equipping the child care providers.
• To develop human potential and create sustainability for underprivileged women.
• To create awareness among the street children and women regarding good health, education, hygiene and nutrition and also to provide related support services.
• To arrange vocational and technical training course for the poor and distressed women and for vulnerable groups of women to enhance their skills and enable them to lead a subsistent life.
• To take necessary measures to generate income through micro-credit and allied programme by developing Self Help Groups.
• To help adult boys and girls from the streets of Dehradun receive a decent training job with a reasonable salary.
• To improve upon their exiting skills.
• To help them develop an independent way of loving.
• To help them attain a more meaningful lifestyle by facilitating their withdrawal from the streets and moving into a recognized trade.
• To develop their confidence and potential.
• To give food shelter and education to orphan children.
• To reduce family size by providing teaching on and family planning resources.
CONSCIENTIZATION
The New Vision Society has been trying to create awareness among the illiterate residents. For this purpose different meetings and camps are organized in which the opportunity is created to thinks and analyze the prevailing situation. Awareness is created about education, health issues, family planning, HIV/AIDS, TB/DOTS, sanitation and personal hygiene etc.
People are informed of the existing problems and motivated to take action towards the solution.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
New Vision society has facilitated the formation of various groups within the community. These groups include the adult learners group. Shills learners, women’s group self employers groups etc. these groups meet regularly to encourage each other and work and towards their own development and communal harmony.
• Facility of collective initiatives and enable them to realize the strength of unity.
• Community mobilization for bringing about sustainability of programs and interventions.
• Mobilize the communities for micro-enterprise through self –help groups their federation for collective action.
• Build capacity of community based groups to enable them to work for their betterment in terms of community development, infrastructure support required to meet the basic amenities and facilities in the areas through establishment of linkage o from concerned agencies.
UNIVERSALIZATION OF EDUCATION
• Providing access to education for every child by setting up support systems like Non-formal and Remedial education centers in order to reduce the dropout rates, gender gap in enrolment and No of out school children.
• Cater to the educational needs of girls from minority communities through bridge courses.
• Demonstrating and improving the quality of education by funning Remedial education centers.
• Use of child –friendly method of teaching and learning processes in classrooms through extensive use of teaching Learning materials.
• Capacity building of teams, stakeholders, and communities involved to education programs.
• Research & process documentation of innovative educational initiatives, networking and advocacy with the government counterparts and communities.
COMMUNITY HEALTH
• Initiate and implement preventive and promotion of comprehensive health programs &with especial focus on Maternal and Child Health.
• Work towards greater inclusion of socially marginalized groups, like HIV/AIDS affected individuals.
• Assist Govt/other health service providers for implementation of preventive and promotion of health programs.
• Promotion of family welfare and awareness programs.
• Promote environmental protection like tree plantation and water management.
INCME GENERATTION PROGRAM
• To work for under-privileged communities in vocational skill development to make them self reliant.
• To advocate with corporate bodies and other organization for placement of skilled and trained persons from among the communities.
• To enhance self-employment among the communities through tie-ups with funding institution and other organizations.
• Facilitate exploring livelihood avenues.
HUMAN RESOURES DEVLOPMENT
• Capacity building through training and documentation for teams, extension workers, and community based organization and stakeholders.
ENTERPRENEURSHIP DEVLOPMENT
• Facilitate individuals and communities for developing micro enterprise.
Latent Talent Development
• Identify and develop the latent of the children and individuals from among the communities.
• Developing leaders for tomorrow for sustaining the above initiatives in the communities.
PROGRAM INTERVENTIONS
EDUCATION
• Establishing Activities: Pre-primary, Non-formal, Remedial education and Adult literacy centers.
• Vocational Skill Development Tailoring, Knitting, beauty Culture, Computer operations.
• Latent Talent Development: Talent identification, training, exposure and organize competitions.
• Lobby and Advocacy, Networking: Sharing and mutual learning with Government, Counterparts, Partnerships with Government schemes.
HEALTH
• Preventive: Immunization Sanitation and personal Hygiene
• Promotions: Awareness Drives, Camps, Mobilization
• Curative : Referrals, Linkages.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVLOPMENT
• Community groups of children, Youth and women.
• Activity groups like sanitation, Self Help Groups
• Community Based Organization.
• Development of infrastructure for Old Age Homes. School, Hostel for adolescent girls, Shelter Homes for street Children etc.
Parimala (Student name-cont.No.-9941982761)-In HSC exam got marks in 1150/1200 for 2008-2009 year. This girl studying in SEET college, chennai-I year physics. Her father has the Histeria person. Her mother has disability person. she need more financial support for social help supporters. Kindly arrange her education support.
We are the NGO working in the field of Self Help Group in the state of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Our aim is to enhance financial status of rural people through rural development. we get impressed by knowing your work and profile.
Rajendra Dhende
E.O.
SHG federation, Sangli.