No-Cost Extension with Deval Sanghavi

In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval speaks to Vimal Jat, the co-founder and CEO of Synergy Sansthan, an organization in Madhya Pradesh that works on development programs for underserved youth.   Born in Seoni Malwa block of Hoshangabad district, Madhya Pradesh, Vimal has a postgraduate degree in Social Work from Devi Ahilya University, Indore. During his time at university he and his friends formed a youth group with the aim to advocate for adolescent and youth rights. Vimal went on to co-found Synergy Sansthan in 2006,  a youth-led non-profit that works with marginalized children, adolescents and youth leadership from rural and tribal areas. The non-profit has co-created context based leadership journeys for rural and tribal youths in Madhya Pradesh and worked on a range of issues from gender based violence, education, governance, livelihoods, constitutional literacy, and child protection. Today, Synergy Sansthan is a leading youth-led organization in  Madhya Pradesh with a dedicated team of over 50 staff, 300 fellows, and 2000 volunteers based out of 120 villages and slums across 3 districts in the state. Deval and Vimal speak about the importance of listening to young people,  building grassroot leadership and co-creating solutions with community members. Synergy Sansthan is a part of Rebuild India.  To know more about their work visit www.synergysansthan.org If you want to listen to more of No Cost Extension, go to https://www.dasra.org/podcast.php where we have show notes, links and more.  Additional Audio:  Our Story - Synergy by Synergy Sansthan Udaan - We are ready to raise our voice to end violence against women. By Synergy Sansthan Youth Meet 2024-Yuva Aagaz Yuva Aawaz| State youth Conference 2024| by Synergy Sansthan

In this special episode of No-Cost Extension, we look back at conversations we’ve had on the podcast around serving with and for dignity.  Many NGOs work at the grassroot level with communities that have a deep-rooted legacy of oppression which manifests in every economic and socio-political facet of life. From lack of access to education, employment, resources and legal recourse, all while facing discrimination spanning generations. The only way forward to detangle this insidious web of oppression, is to provide space and resources that enable these very people to take back their power. Listen to Nandita Bhatt from the Martha Farrell Foundation talk about her experience in working with and for domestic workers in India. Revathi Radhakrishnan from Vanavil Trust talks about the stigma and discrimination she’s seen the people of NT-DNT communities in Tamil Nadu face. Deepa Pawar from Anubhuti Trust, reflects on her own journey as an NT-DNT woman herself, and what she wants the future of the sector to be like for her people. You can listen to each of their individual conversations with Deval on the No-Cost Extension feed.  If you want to listen to more of No Cost Extension, go to https://www.dasra.org/podcast.php where we have show notes, links and more.   

In this special episode of No-Cost Extension we speak to three development sector leaders about This past season, Deval and his guests have talked about mental health in the development sector.  From the sense of urgency that never leaves the work and the feeling of inadequacy that leaders experience when faced with the immense scale of the problem at hand.  You’ll hear Dhruv Lakra get candid about how the constant hustle of the early days took a toll on him emotionally and physically.    Revathi Radhakrishnan the founder of Vanavil Trust opens up about how her mental health took a huge hit doing relief work post with nomadic communities and Denotified Tribes during Covid19.  And Vishal Talreja, co-founder of Dream-A-Dream foundation is frank about the toll aspects of his 25 year long stint in the social sector lead to burnout and depression, and how that fuelled the founding of The Cocoon Initiative, a  program that provides leaders an opportunity to have an extended break from their work for personal rejuvenation.   You can listen to each of their individual conversations with Deval on the No-Cost Extension feed.  If you want to listen to more of No Cost Extension, go to https://www.dasra.org/podcast.php where we have show notes, links and more.   

Dr. Sitavva Jodatti is the founder of the Mahila Abhivruddhi Mattu Samrakshna Samsthe (MASS), an organisation founded to end the devadasi practice in the Belgaum district of Karnataka.  The devadasi practice is one in which young girls are devoted and married to a religious deity, before they reaches puberty, to act as a caretaker. Recently, this practice has been used to push girls into prostitution. Dr. Sitavva herself was forced into the devadasi practice at the age of seven and it’s her own experiences that lead to the formation of MASS in 1997. MASS is an association of ex-Devadasi women that largely works  with dalit women and children, as well as ex-Devadasis from the dalit community to secure citizen rights and their access to education, livelihoods, and healthcare. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval, Dr. Jodatti and Sabera Shaikh  who has been associated with MASS for the last 26 years trace the growth of the organisation, their work with Myrada & KSWDC to end the practice and spread awareness about the system, and their many livelihood and upskilling initiatives in the community. They are also joined by Ustati Gujral, a member of Dasra’s Rebuild India Fund.  Sitravvaji was conferred the Padma Shri in 2018 for the incredible work she’s done for the people she represents.  This  conversation takes place in English, Kannada and Hindi.  If you want to listen to more of No Cost Extension, go to https://www.dasra.org/podcast.php where we have show notes, links and more.  AUDIO:  MASS NGO GHATAPRABHA BELGAUM - by MASS NGO BELGAUM

Hejang Misao is the founder and CEO of Integrated Social & Institutional Development for Empowerment (InSIDE-North East), an organization that works towards the empowerment of children, youth and women in Manipur, under the Gun2Pen project.   Hejang is no stranger to conflict in his state, and it prompted him to start an organisation that would help those directly or indirectly affected by conflict and violence. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval and Hejang touch upon the history of Manipur, the socio-economic disparities that prevail in the region, and the violence that has beset the state for decades, and which grabbed national and international attention in 2023.  Hejang also speaks about the power of music, his belief in bringing people together through sports, and using sports to empower girls in his home state. To know more about the work InSIDE North East does visit https://insidenortheast.org/ If you want to listen to more of No Cost Extension, go to https://www.dasra.org/podcast.php where we have show notes, links and more.  Audio used:  forest-bird (1).WAV by sama66 CC0 1.0 Football Match ( ALL MANIPUR CINEMATOGRAPHY ASSOCIATION VS ALL MANIPUR MATAM ISHEI KANGLUM KANGLUP) by Sahil Malom CC BY 3.0

The Rebuild Conversations is a series in which the No-Cost Extension team checks in with the Rebuild India Fund Investment Committee members to see how they’re doing, what they’ve been learning and how they envisage for the future of the Fund. Rebuild India’s mission is to provide grassroot organizations with long-term flexible funding that can support them through the course of 5-10 years, without constraints or targets. As of early 2024, the fund has been working with over 142 NGOs from across India.   In this conversation recorded in January 2024, you can hear Rameez Alam (Catalyst 2030), Deep Jyoti Sonu Brahma (Farm 2 Food), Deepa Pawar (Anubhuti Trust), Anita Patil (Goonj) and Nandita Pradhan Bhatt (Martha Farrell Foundation) talk about the learning and unlearning of past ideas, grappling with the preconceived biases that we all go into the work with and the difficult questions that need to be asked when navigating the sector.  You can listen to the first two Rebuild Conversations on this feed. To know more about the Rebuild India Fund, the work that it does, or more about the investment committee members go to www.rebuildindiafund.org.  If you want to listen to more of No Cost Extension, go to https://www.dasra.org/podcast.php where we’ve got show notes, links and a lot more. 

Twenty five years ago Vishal Talreja founded Dream-a-Dream as a voluntary effort in Mumbai with eleven other individuals who were committed to working with young people.  Since then, Ðream-A-Dream has become a non-profit that works with close to 5 million children across six Indian states, with a vision to provide transformative educational experiences that impart life skills to children living in poverty. Deval and Vishal have known each other since the beginning of their journeys in the social sector, and over the years their relationship has grown from one of co-travellers in the same sector and strengthened into one of friendship. After a brief stint in investment banking and running Dream-A-Dream as a volunteer effort, Vishal committed to Dream-A-Dream full time, a decision that wasn’t met with approval by his family. Listen as the Ashoka Fellow and Eisenhower Fellow  speaks candidly about his early years setting up Dream-A-Dream, the societal pressures to conform and get a ‘real’ job and meeting his life partner Suchetha who is now the CEO of Dream-A-Dream.  In this episode, Vishal also opens up about how building an organization came at the cost of his own mental health and the well-being of his organization.  He speaks of his burnout and depression, and how his physical and mental health forced him to pull back and recalibrate, which led him to found The Cocoon Initiative, which allows civil society leaders to take a break from their work to rest, rejuvenate, reflect and revive their core strengths, clarify their purpose and heal their body, mind and spirit from years of having given fully into one’s cause.  To know more about the work of Dream-A-Dream please visit www.dreamadream.org. You can find The Cocoon Initiative at https://www.cocooninitiative.org/.  For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce  and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra  

Rahima Khatun has been associated with Nari-O-Shishu Kalyan Kendra (NOSKK)  an NGO working extensively with  the rights and dignity of women and children across West Bengal for over two decades.  The earliest seed for NOSKK was sown on Republic Day in 1952 when Rahima’s father started a community library in their village before going on to open madrassas to promote education amongst both men and women.  A strong desire to work for the community was ingrained in Rahima as a child and she often spent her weekends building houses, cleaning drains and later worked tirelessly as a youth leader.  But it was attending the UN World Conferences on Women in Beijing in 1995 that close to 50,000 women from across the world attended, that strengthened Rahima’s resolve to work in the field of gender rights through NOSKK.   In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval and Rahima talk about how attending the Beijing conference impacted her and the organisation’s growth, NOSKK’s work in livelihoods, with self help groups and adolescent health and how they intersect. She also speaks about the transformative work of the Migration Resilience Collaborative, changing gender norms and destigmatising mental health in the communities they work with and within her organisation.  As a member of the Rebuild India Fund, Rahima shares how unrestricted funding has made a huge change to NOSKK’s way of working and how being a part of the cohort has helped them in myriad ways. Mahaswetha Chakraborty, a member of the Rebuild India Fund communications team was the translator during this conversation.  To know more about the work of NOSKK please visit https://www.noskk.in/ For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce  and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra  

From selling horlicks in the Burdwan coalmine districts to studying filmmaking, this week’s guest on No-Cost Extension, Yasmin Madan has led a rich and varied life.  After holding various senior level positions at PSI and serving as the Private Sector Lead at Thinkwell, Yasmini joined Co-Impact – a global philanthropic collaborative ‘supporting locally-rooted coalitions working to achieve impact at scale in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.’ At Co-Impact, Yasmin is the Director and US Lead for Philanthropic Collaboration. Her extensive experience running country programs in Zimbabwe, Vietnam and Cambodia working across HIV, malaria, reproductive health, sanitation and cervical cancer led her to realise that there were genuine problems in the system that needed to be dealt with so that the system could serve its people in the long run.  In this episode, Yasmin talks about how social innovation is not about disruption  but about coordination, collaboration and orchestration. We discuss the difference between funder attribution and contribution, the life changing work of Lend A Hand India, and why we have a moral obligation to impact and scale.  You can read more about Co-Impact's work here https://co-impact.org/ For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce  and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra  

Deepa Pawar is the founder and director of the Anubhuti Trust, an organization formed and self-led by women, with the intention to work with youth on developing their leadership so that there are aware and responsible youth in society who can lead change for a more just and equitable world. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Deval and Deepa sit down at the Dasra office to talk about the stigmatization of Nomadic and Denotifed Tribes in India from the time of colonial rule, their unacknowledged role in the freedom struggle and how they have been historically viewed as outlaws.  Deepa speaks of how NDT communities cannot be viewed only through the lens of vulnerability and marginalization, the contribution of women in keeping the culture of the community alive, and how Anubhuti Trust places agency and liberty at the heart of their approach to movement building. She speaks of her accidental entry into the NGO sector, how Anubhuti came to be formed, the various areas their work touches upon - from Dalit activism to anti-caste feminism to environmental justice.  Deepa is also a member of the Rebuild India Fund Investment Committee and discusses the need for the development sector to be experimental, the myopic lens through which we often look at results and success and how funders can sometimes get in the way of the work organisations are trying to do.   For more information on Anubhuti’s work check out their website at https://www.anubhutitrust.org/.  For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce  and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra All additional audio courtesy of Anubhuti Trust/Youtube and field recordings.   

What is it like to dedicate one's life to working for some of the most under-represented groups? Nandita Pradhan Bhatt is the Director of the Martha Farrell Foundation, an NGO that supports informal, migrant workers, mostly female domestic workers and adolescent children to build their leadership and collective voice against injustice. Nandita has been a civil society practitioner decades, and has worked extensively on gender inclusion and the prevention of sexual harassment against women. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Nandita speaks of her childhood on tea plantations in Dooars and Darjeeling, where her father was a senior manager and she had an upbringing that cultivated a deep sense of respect, dignity and privilege. Deval and Nandita discuss the issues that workers face and how they were invisible to her growing up.  But as the Director of the Martha Farrell Foundation these deep issues are now only too obvious to her now that she’s ‘on the other side’.  After training as a special educator and working with young people, Nandita went back to college for a gender studies degree. She then worked with Dr. Martha Farell at PRIA, working in the space of gender mainstreaming in leadership and conducting gender audits of panchayats. From there her work has gone on to encompass sexual harassment at the workplace, the rights of domestic workers, and more.  Nandita and Deval discuss equality and equity and the difference between the two, how young people have very definite ideas about what they want, and the Rebuild India fund, which Nandita says her heart is tied to.  The Martha Farrell Foundation supports practical interventions which are committed to achieving a gender-just society and promoting life-long learning. You can find out more about them at https://www.marthafarrellfoundation.org/ For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra  

After a short year end break, No-Cost Extension is back! In the first episode of 2024, Deval sits down with Deep Jyoti Sonu Brahma, co-founder of Farm2Food Foundation. Deep speaks of his early years growing up and studying in Arunachal Pradesh, the impact the turbulent times in the North Eastern region had on him and later experiences with people led movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan. His journey lead him back to Assam with a desire to work with young people and communities and place their needs at the centre. What grew from that desire was Farm2Food, a non-profit social enterprise working with communities to create sustainable, farm-based livelihoods, revive indigenous food traditions and improve the nutritional quality of the food people eat.  Deep and Deval talk about the staggering diversity of India’s North Eastern states - culturally, linguistically and agriculturally - and why it’s important to protect this diversity from homogenisation. Deep shares how climate change has impacted communities, why ‘modernisation’ is not always the best thing, and how communities are increasingly disconnected from their natural surroundings.  They also touch upon the work the Rebuild India Fund and it’s principles which deeply align with Deep’s own beliefs and practices.  Listen to Deep and Deval discuss farming techniques, climate change, community led movements and why it’s important to place nature at the centre. To know more about Farm2Food, visit http://farm2food.org For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra  

Revathi Radhakrishnan is the founder-director of the Vanavil Trust, a non profit founded in  2004 that supports children of two Nomadic communities: Boom Boom Mattikarars and Narikuravars, in Tamil Nadu. After 17 years of working with the communities, Vanavil now has grown into an organisation that works in child protection,  health and nutrition, holistic education and livelihoods. As a child, Revathi was a vociferous reader, devouring whatever books she could lay her hands on. She had to give up her dreams of being a journalist and studied mathematics instead, but after graduating she went on to work in film, journalism and as a tv producer. Through her many professional avatars, Revathi kept her volunteering side alive. But it was the South Asian Tsunami of 2004 that set her onto the path that led to the formation of Vanavil. Revati arrived in Nagapattinam to help with relief efforts in the wake of the tsunami. But it was the death of a young baby Lakshmi that cemented her decision to work more formally with children from nomadic tribes in her home state of Tamil Nadu. In this episode of No-Cost Extension, Revathi tells Deval Sanghavi about the early years of working in this space and the heartbreak that goes along with it, what it means to be a member of a nomadic tribe, how they have been criminialised for centuries and the stigmas that still persist. But this is a conversation laced with hope - Vanavil’s work in educating young people, the unconventional ways in which they got students in to their school and how they are propelled forward by their belief that all children have a right to their childhoods. To know more about Vanavil Trust visit https://vanavil.org/  For more information on No-Cost Extension go to dasra.org/nce and follow Deval on X at @Deval_Sanghavi and @Dasra

Season 3 of No-Cost Extension kicks off with host Deval Sanghavi in conversation with Dhruv Lakra, founder and CEO of Mirakle Couriers, a for- profit courier service that employs low income deaf adults thereby delinking charity with disability.  Dhruv grew up in Kashmir before moving to Mumbai for college, after a brief stint as an investment banker he joined Dasra as one of the organisation’s first team members in 2004. He then went on to become a Skoll scholar at the Said School of Business, Oxford, after which he returned to India to bootstrap Mirakle Courier.  In this episode, Dhruv talks about how perceptions around the social sector have changed in the last two decades, the personal motivation to begin a social enterprise that worked with people with disabilities, the stigma and social conditioning around disabilities that sets in very early in society, the flipside of bootstrapping, mental health and what he would have done differently. Plus, some stories you might not have heard before, like the time Dhruv, Deval and Neera were house mates.   To know more about Mirakle Couriers visit https://www.miraklecouriers.com/ For more information on No-Cost Extension go to dasra.org/nce and follow Deval on Twitter at @Deval_Sanghavi and @Dasra

Deval Sanghavi is back with a new season of No-Cost Extension! In this season Deval’s talking to some of the most committed social leaders from India and around the world on what it’s like to work towards the challenging goal of equity. Deval and his guests also speak about what it is like to run organizations post COVID, bootstrapping and entrepreneurship, the work of philanthropy, and what it is like to work with the most marginalized and excluded communities.  Episodes drop November 30, 2023! Subscribe now where ever you get your podcasts to never miss an episode. For more information, go to www.dasra.org/nce.