NGO

Continuing our water series this week, today we profile a few remarkable people and organizations who have turned around several villages in Gujarat, a largely arid part of the country, into fertile agricultural land. This article demonstrates nicely what can be achieved when government agencies, non-governmental organizations and local governance bodies like water committees can work together and inspire community-level participation and ownership.

It was over a dinner that Shweta Chari, an electronics engineer, shared her idea of creating a place where children could play. That idea led to the creation of Toybank. The NGO provides toys and a place to play to kids whose families can't afford to buy what many consider a luxury. Watch this video to know about this amazing idea and how Toybank is making a change!

There are several people our society does not accept willingly. The leprosy-affected and the mentally handicapped are some of them. Imagine an entire village dedicated to them, where they can live freely and without prejudice, and receive loving care and attention from dedicated staff. This is what Sahyog Kushtha Yagna Trust in Gujarat attempts to achieve.

The Sahariya tribe of Baran district in Rajasthan is classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribe. For years, they were forced to work as bonded agricultural labourers by the landed gentry of the region. The past decade has seen them fighting for their rights, and now with the help of some local NGOs, governmental support and their own unified efforts, they are slowly reaping the benefits of their struggle to be treated as free and equal citizens of this nation.

Magadh Jal Jamaat, a loose network of progressive individuals in Gaya has been successfully able to revive over a dozen abandoned water sources and have instilled in people the need to create, clean up and conserve several lakes and ponds in the region. The problem of water scarcity had been of late afflicting the region, which once had a good system of ponds. But through their efforts, the group has managed to revive the traditional methods of irrigation, which are now more effective than the largest irrigation system in the area.

Sunitha has said time and again that the silence of the society towards human trafficking has to change. Let us become aware and appreciate her work.

Organ donation is still a relatively fledgling concept in India, and people are still grappling its moral, social, religious and other implications in the Indian context. Mohan Foundation has been promoting organ donation since 1997, and helps people understand what it entails - the rewards, the fears and the process. In the end, you could be gifting life to not one but several beneficiaries.

It seems to be a widely-shared lament that with the rapid spread of modern education, time-honoured values are quickly disappearing from our personal and collective lives. This may not be a mere coincidence because modern education focuses mainly on the cognitive or intellectual development of children, paying relatively little attention to nurturing their affective or emotional intelligence. VITAL is an initiative that aims at making value education an integral part of a student's life, with an interesting model for teachers to adopt.

How often have we lamented the lack of transparency in the electoral process? Or the dearth of genuine information, free from media biases, available to the general public about the politicians serving our nation or asking for our votes? Well, here is a website that attempts to solve these problems, and empower the voters in the country to be better informed about the choices they are faced with.

Make a Difference is a youth-focused organization that is trying to bridge the gap in education and empowering young people to take on bold initiative. Its Chennai chapter has been making great strides with unique and far-reaching initiatives. Prama Neeraja takes a look, and a lot of photographs!