Saloni Meghani

Why should the poor be deprived of the best expertise? The Dhan Foundation believes that rural development requires a professional approach rather than a do-gooder mentality

Punnatai, a middle-aged teacher from a village near Madurai, stops a Development of Humane Action (Dhan) Foundation vehicle, asks for a lift and gets in. She joins in the conversation among the young volunteers. And then she reveals the real reason for her presence there. Punnatai wants to 'defect' from her current self-help group (SHG) to the one formed by this set of volunteers. Why? Her answer comes in a single English word: "Honest."

Punnatai is among the many residents of an impoverished rural area who have noticed that graduates of the Tata-Dhan Academy are part of a new breed of social workers. These volunteers handle accounts in a transparent way, let the villagers keep the money in their own custody, conduct meetings regularly and efficiently, and let members of the group decide for themselves. They don't always encourage quick gains and often recommend the bitter pill for the long haul.

This is exactly what the Tata-Dhan Academy has been trying to achieve since its inception in 2000. The institution was born in response to the complexity of rural development issues, which require a professional approach rather than the neighbourly do-gooder mentality. "Our core concern is to bring high-quality, socially concerned people to work at the village level with the poor," says M. P. Vasimalai, founder and executive director of the Dhan Foundation. In a field that does not have standard codes of conduct, such training can be a critical quality differentiator.

Development managers need exposure. They have to bridge the gap between the villagers — who are well versed with their own problems — and the most innovative solutions available. They should be able to help marginalised groups articulate issues and organise themselves and, at the same time, employ every negotiation and public relations skill to operate in the mainstream. "Why should the poor be deprived of the best expertise?" asks Professor Ranjit Gupta, chairperson of the Tata-Dhan Academy's advisory council and former faculty of the Centre for Management in Agriculture at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

A. Umarani, who teaches at the Academy, points out, "Most initiatives in this sector start as relief work, addressing the symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem. Welfare work also depends largely on external resources. But, as the Chinese say, one needs to teach the underprivileged to fish rather than feed them fish. That requires a lot more skill."

It is to equip committed youngsters with these tools that the Tata-Dhan Academy awards 15 to 20 students with post-graduate diplomas in development management every year. The cost of about Rs 1.5 lakh per student is taken care of by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust, which provided the start-up fund for this initiative.

While institutions like the Tata Institute of Social Sciences provide top-notch development education in the urban areas, there are no similar institutions for India's many villages. Even the Institute of Rural Management at Anand, Gujarat, and the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, often do not address grassroots issues adequately.

The Dhan Foundation steps in to fill this lacuna, relying on a decade of experience in the field. The Foundation was established in 1997 and its stated goal was to bring "highly motivated and educated young women and men to the development sector". It works in around 100 locations in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and employs around 350 people.

The Academy's curriculum incorporates the learning of the Foundation in its focus areas of 'tank and bank'. Dhan has liberated many villagers from the stranglehold of the moneylenders with a micro-finance initiative called Kalianjiam. Working with two lakh families in about 5,000 villages, the organisation has helped the SHGs save as much as Rs 40 crore.

Shortage of water severely hampers the farmer's sustainability and livelihood. To prevent people from using up ground water without recharging it, Dhan has a programme for rehabilitating ponds and tanks built centuries ago by South Indian kings.

The Foundation transfers all this know-how to its students, using a practical teaching method. It employs fieldwork, case studies, role-play, lectures and seminars, among other things, to create a development army that can think on its feet. The Foundation has so far absorbed most of the students it has trained, ensuring that the insight they gain in the field comes right back into the pool.

The significance of this knowledge in our country cannot be emphasised enough. Raj Kumar, a former student and now a volunteer at Dhan says, "By being effective in the rural areas of the country I am helping myself and the whole country. If you are in a 100-storeyed building and even a single floor is weak, the entire edifice is endangered."

Uploaded in March 2005