Project Report - Social Entrepreneurship

Study of Need Base India an NGO Submitted to Prof. Trilochan Sastry

Submitted by

Chanchal Subhash (PGSEM, 1212013) Sandip Jalan (PGSEM, 1212047) Supriya Thengdi (PGSEM, 1212062)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction on Need Base India................................................................................................................................................... 3 Stakeholders .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 3 Mr. Sheik Rahim.............................................................................................................................................................................. 3 Rainbow Home................................................................................................................................................................................ 4 Children (Girls) ............................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Govt. school staff and Govt. school Kids ............................................................................................................................... 5 Volunteers......................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Current activities and Impact of the NGO...................................................................................................................................... 5 Success story Sushmita .................................................................................................................................................................. 7 One Not so happy ending .................................................................................................................................................................. 7 Current Challenges.................................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Financial ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 8 Unavailability of Projects............................................................................................................................................................ 9 Grooming extra ordinary talented girls in other extra-curricular activities......................................................... 9 Sustainability............................................................................................................................................................................................. 9 Community involvement and support .................................................................................................................................. 9 Financial Stability ........................................................................................................................................................................ 11 Long term rehabilitation........................................................................................................................................................... 11 Contingency plan ......................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Replication & Scalability ..................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Replication ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Scalability ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 12 Exhibits ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13 Exhibit1: Picture of Rainbow Home ..................................................................................................................................... 13 Exhibit 2: NBI Organization Details...................................................................................................................................... 13 EXHIBIT 3: daily schedule AT NEED BASE INDAI RAINBOW HOME .................................................................. 14 EXHIBIT 4: expenses and budget plan for financial year 2013-14 ......................................................................... 15 EXHIBIT 5: budget plan for next three years (financial year 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16) ......................... 15 References ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15

INTRODUCTION ON NEED BASE INDIA

Need Base India (referred to as NBI going forward) is an NGO founded for Child Care and Development. It was set up in 2009 by Mr. Sheik Rahim (Refer Exhibit 2 for the organization details). The intent to start this organization was to ensure care, protection, education and rehabilitation of vulnerable children (girls). These children are the unfortunate ones whose families are either incapable or negligent to take proper care of their children. NBI brings such children from different parts of Bangalore or even outside Bangalore to its center at Dodda Betta Halli, Bangalore. NBI mostly target girls in the age group of 6 to 14 years. Most of these girls are from families of both parents being highly addicted to alcohol, broken families, abusive families etc. In country like India where law and order is not so effective such girls can easily be victims of rape, prostitution, child labor, etc. NBI is doing a very good job in identifying such girls and giving them food, shelter, education and protection. As Rahim says NBI is a not just an NGO but a family for these girls. The idea is to empower these girls and make them independent so that when they go back to their family or in the society they can take care of themselves. NBI center at Dodda Betta Halli in Bangalore runs from a government school campus. The NBI girls go to the same government school for their studies. Currently two rooms from the government school are allocated to NBI where these girls study and stay. There is also room allocated for kitchen. There are around 12 permanent staffs which includes one security and four housemothers. One housemother compulsorily stays with the children overnight for their safety. Currently there are around 60 girls in this center. This center is basically a Rainbow Home (Another NGO) project that NBI is executing. Much of the funding for this center comes from Rainbow Home.

STAKEHOLDERS
MR. SHEIK RAHIM
After working for around 13 years in social sector Mr. Rahim decided to start his own NGO and do community service in child care and development. His friend Mr. Mallikarjuna helped him in the initial setup of NBI and is still actively leading different activities in NBI. Mr. Rahim is a very simple, down to earth and soft spoken person.
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When asked about the initial challenges in setting up the NGO he said Opening an NGO is easy; getting projects to work on is a challenge. After some initial struggle he got the Dodda Betta Halli center project from Rainbow Home. Another challenge he faced was to get the approvals from the education department for admitting the girls to the government school. He wants NBI to be a family for the girls. And we could easily figure that out from the way he interacts with the girls. He takes immense proud in the girls. This is how he introduced Jyoti (a very good singer) to us.
Jyoti please come here. Let me introduce you to the students from IIM, Bangalore. Jyoti see these guys have come here to study our NGO. Would you like to show them your talent? Would you like to sing and show them how good a singer you are? Be confident and show them. If you want to become a good singer you have to prove yourself in front of others. Then you will be able to sing in front of thousands on stage, a much bigger platform.

In no time, Jyoti very confidently started to sing. This introduction proved how the girls are being empowered in NBI. No doubt Jyoti is very good singer and given the right training and guidance she can go places. So the challenge that Rahim has is How to give them that platform in various fields?

RAINBOW HOME
Rainbow Home is another social enterprise in the field of child care and education. Rainbow Home has around 30 centers in India. There are 4 centers in Bangalore which are running out of Government schools. NBI center in Dodda Betta Halli is one of these. Mrs. Anuradha is managing the centers in Bangalore. Rainbow Home works is partial funding model. As in case of NBI two third of the funding is done by Rainbow Home and rest is left to NBI to manage. This ensures transparent, effective and ethical practices. Rainbow Home categories any center in two stages of development, first is start up stage and second is Maturity stage. NBI center is currently in start up stage because it has only around 60 children currently. To achieve maturity stage it has to have 150 children in the center.

CHILDREN (GIRLS)
One can easily see the impact of NBI by visiting the center in Dodda Betta Halli. The impact can be seen in the eyes of the girls there. All of them look so happy, joyful, and confident in whatever small things there are doing. These girls even on a Sunday afternoon are full busy. Few of them busy with studies, few with cooking, few with water tank, and few playing some games. No wonder why Mr. Rahim calls NBI a family.

GOVT. SCHOOL STAFF AND GOVT. SCHOOL KIDS

As the NGO is working out of the Govt. School in Dodda Betta Halli, the school teachers and other kids of the school are important stakeholders for NBI. It is very important to have the confidence and support of the school teachers. School teachers are supportive and help the NGO kids as they do for the other kids. As per the School teachers the NGO kids are very talented in extracurricular activities and no less in studies than the other kids.

VOLUNTEERS
Mr. Tathagatha Maiti, Mrs. Zeba, Mr. Rajesh Menon and Mrs. Nisha are regular volunteers at NBI. They normally visits on weekends as they are full time employed in various other sectors. They conduct classes on various subjects for these kids. After from these regular volunteers there are few irregular volunteers who contribute. However, Rahim prefers only volunteers who are committed and regular.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES AND IMPACT OF THE NGO

In nature, all off springs are cared for by their parents. Evolved complicated species normally need longer tending time before they can be left on their own. We humans, who are on the Apex of the evolutionary chart, need a really long time to groom our little ones. Infants take up to two years just for the separation anxiety to fade away. At this stage the real learning of a social life has just begun. According to Piagets stages of cognitive development there are four stages of cognitive development through which every human being passes. Sensorimotor stage: From birth till the age of around two the kid is still learning to control its senses and motions.

Preoperational Stage: From two years till the age of around seven. At this stage young children begin analyzing their environment. This is the stage when children are imitating others without understanding what they are doing. Also they are not able to understand other peoples view. Research shows that neglect at this point of development could lead to a person carrying some of these characteristics well into their adulthood. Such people even as adults fail to predict the effect of their own behavior on others. Concrete Stage: This stage which lasts from the age of seven of early adolescence. During this stage children can form logical thoughts. The child is not just behaving based on the reaction it gets for its actions, but on the effect that its action has on other people. However at this stage the child still does not think rationally, decisions are still pretty much emotional. Neglect at this stage can cause the child to never mature into rational thinking. A study by the Harvard Medical School has shown various people in jail, like Drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes to exhibit lack of growth from this stage essentially due to neglect. These people are very transactional in their behavior. Formal Operations: In this final stage the child learns to think rationally and hence is able to form difficult and abstract thought processes. The Rainbow Home run by Need Base India is all about providing a new Home to the children between the age of 6 and 14. These girls come from very difficult backgrounds and left to themselves will be deprived of proper development and could even end up in antisocial rings. Nurturing to the development of the girl child becomes even more important as children have a profound effect of their mother on their characters as the father is normally out for earning a livelihood. A child which develops under a mother who herself have not had the necessary development will result in following generations also to be offset in development. Hence it is important to ensure proper development of the girl child not just for the kid who are there now but also for future generations. We believe that absence of this could be a major contributor to the disintegration of our society. Rainbow home is providing the kids not just with shelter and food, but is ensuring protection from the bad elements of society and proper cognitive development of the child. This is very evident in the discipline, love and respect with which they are staying at Rainbow Home. We have visited a

few orphanages and found most of these uncontrolled children who are just running helterskelter. Contrary to this we found a well-structured and disciplined approach here at Rainbow Home. Rainbow Home also ensures that the girls receive additional tuitions to help them in their studies. It also tries to develop soft skills and art among the girls. This is ensuring a more comprehensive growth of the girls.

SUCCESS STORY SUSHMITA

Sushmita comes from a very poor family. She was studying in a convent school from 1st grade till 9th grade. She was a promising student. However due to financial limitations she was not able to pay fees. The school refused to let her appear for exams and subsequently asked her to leave the school. With no support from family and no guarantee for the future Sushmita came to NBI Rainbow home. The NBI made sure she was admitted to another convent school and paid for her educational expense. Sushmita made most of the opportunity and secured 65% marks in 10th grade. She is very good in mathematics and science and aspires to become a Chartered Accountant. She is going to a junior college to study further. In her spare time she also coaches other girls from the home. This reflects a familial culture where older siblings take care of the development of younger ones. In this sense we think this is a true success story for NBI Rainbow home.

ONE NOT SO HAPPY ENDING

As is true for any organization, along with the success stories at NBI Rainbow Home, there are bound to be some stories that do not have a perfect happy ending. On our visit to Rainbow home we enquired if there were any cases where intervention from the home did not work out. We got to know about a girl who had come to Rainbow home when she was around 8 years of age. The girl had no mother and her father was in jail. She was living with her grandparents and they were not able to provide for her well. Hence she found a new home in Rainbow home. After 1 year, her father came to the home and demanded to have her back with him. Rainbow home tried to

persuade him about the benefits that the girl was getting from living in the home and tried to convince him that this was in the best interests of the girl. However the father was very adamant. The girl herself expressed interest in going back with the father hence Rainbow home did not stop her against her will. After this incident the whereabouts of the girl are not known.

CURRENT CHALLENGES
FINANCIAL
Rainbow Homes as a group works on a franchisee kind of a model. They identify NGOs or individuals that share the values and passion of Rainbow homes and provide support for them to setup a new home in association with a government school. The major support for NBI is financial in nature where Rainbow Homes provides Rs. 20 lakh per annum. The expenses for NBI for one rainbow home come to around Rs. 30 lakh per annum. The gap in the funds is expected to be bridged by the home founder. Major expense heads are: i) Salaries of individuals working exclusively for the home: 6 Housemothers, 1 teacher, 1 security, 1 cook ii) Food for the girls iii) School expenses for the girls including stationery, books, uniform etc iv) Personal expenses for the girls like clothes, etc NBI bridges this gap both via cash donations from independent donors (individuals and organizations) and donations in terms of food, clothes, books, etc. The morning meal is provided by government under mid-day meal scheme. The evening meal is provided by a nearby temple. The recurring concern for NBI is how to bridge this gap in a sustainable manner. The precariousness of the donations creates a threat to the existence of the home. Since all girls in the home are minors and school going they are not expected (nor should they under our legal framework) to contribute to the financials of the home.

UNAVAILABILITY OF PROJECTS
Rahim mentioned that he is not getting more projects to execute and hence it is limiting the scale of operations of Need Base India.

GROOMING EXTRA ORDINARY TALENTED GIRLS IN OTHER EXTRA -CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Few of the girls are very talented in few extracurricular such as Singing, dancing etc. We ourselves got a glimpse of the talent. The challenge for Rahim is to provide them the platform and training to excel in such diverse fields. This will required more funding which is a constraint currently.

SUSTAINABILITY
For the short term and long term sustainability of the initiative we looked at following areas:

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT AND SUPPORT

NBIs project with Rainbow Homes has a set of stake holders. One aspect that must be looked into is, to what extend these stake holders been involved in the project. 1. Mr. Sheik Rahim: Is the principal manager of the center and hence is fully involved in the project. 2. Rainbow Homes: Being the primary funding agency, they too are deeply involved at a strategic and reporting level. However involvement in the operational level is inadequate. 3. Children (Girls): Being in the home day in and day out they are the core of the center and hence involvement is full. However the age of the children obviously prevents them from being active participants in decision making or administration. 4. Employees: The employees do not have any role in decision making and they carry out the day to day operations as per the instructions. However, to be more effective the house mothers and other employees should be involved more in the development of the NGO. 5. Government school staff: We found this group to be not adequately involved. The current Head Master of the school is very supportive of the program. However, neither the headmaster nor the teachers are involved in either the operation or decision making of the center. We feel a lot can be done and should be done in this field. Teachers are not aware

about the individual childrens background. They are not involved in activities related to the children and neither do they provide opinion or suggestion on the centers working. 6. Volunteers: Volunteers are basically part time and hence is a little difficult to be involved in the decision making and administration of the center. The few core member volunteers have predominantly been involved and busy with basic need based isolated issues. The volunteers have not been involved in the strategic matters of the center. 7. Local Residents: Though the local residents do not have any objection to the center, they too have not been involved in working of the center. The only strand of involvement comes from the local Durga Temple providing dinner for the girls. Based on these observations we conclude that not all stake holders are adequately involved in the execution of the project. This lack of involvement have manifested into a lack of support from the school teachers. This is dangerous considering the school is their primary area of operation. The problem aggravates itself due to the fact that the only supportive member, the Head Master is retiring in a months time (Sept 2013) and the next in line not just unsupportive, but also against the working of the center. During our interview with the School teachers the generic statements sounded something like these. The center uses up a lot of water and hence our kids do not get water when they come to the school. The girls do not have proper personal hygiene. Need base India should provide the girls more facilities. What will happen to these girls once they grow up? Grown up girls need special care and space.

The primary concern that the teachers seem to have is regarding the manner in which Need Base India is operating. They do not seem to have a problem with the girls attending the school. Neither do they have any complain regarding discipline or academic performance of the girls. We did hear positive remarks from the teachers such as

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The girls are good at studies Their interest and performance in cultural activities is even better than our students.

FINANCIAL STABILITY
Currently NBI is very dependent on Rainbow Home for funding and not at all self-sustainable financially. Following are our key observations after analyzing the expenditure planning (Exhibit 4) for the next year. 24.05% of the total budget is planned for administrative related expenses that include Accounts, Salary for senior management, etc. 22.42% of the total budget is planned for full time staffs (around 6). Does NBI need so many staffs to run the operations? If some percentage of expenditure from the above mentioned two heads can be reduced then more can be spent on the infrastructure, child care and development. Following are our few suggestions for better financial management. In short term try to mobilize people around the NGO for volunteering and for taking up the teaching activity. This will help to reduce the expenses on teachers. In long term mobilize people around the NGO to take up day to day operation activities. This will help to reduce expenses on house mothers, managers etc. Can senior managers take care of the accounts? In that case Accountant is not required for the current scale of operations. This will save around 75,000 per annum.

LONG TERM REHABILITATION

The project aims to accepts girls when they are no younger than 6 years of age and not older than 14. The vision of the center head of NBI Rainbow home is to empower the girls so as they can integrate back into the community that they have come from and affect a change in their

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communities. Even if they are not willing or able to affect a change they should be independent to lead their lives based on the education and support they have received from the home. However, once the girls are 14-15 years of age they are in the most vulnerable age. At this point they cannot be left out on their own. We feel that a person truly becomes independent once they have the ability to perform decent jobs and are able to earn a living for themselves. We did not see any concrete plans for making the girls independent from the home. So rehabilitation after the girls leave the home is an issue.

CONTINGENCY PLAN
Is there a plan B? This question came to us from assuming a worst case scenario. Since the home depends on external funds, community support and also heavily on the center head a probability of some problem occurring is not very remote. Supposing there is an event that necessitates closing down the home then the girls would be left in a worse position that what they were in before coming to the home. In coming to the home they have left their families (some of them dont have any family members to go back to). They have seen a slice of better life but not are independent enough to continue living on their own in similar conditions. There is no identified place / institution that will take these girls if this home closes down.

REPLICATION & SCALABILITY

REPLICATION
The center head is the pillar for NBI Rainbow home. He is involved in all decision making and is the key driver in raising funds. There are no clear parameters that someone can pick and use them to replicate the NBI rainbow home. The dependence on key people like center head, school head make it very difficult for any other person to come and manage the center or setup a center of their own. This also makes the center currently very vulnerable.

SCALABILITY
The infrastructure capabilities of NBI Rainbow home are limited. They are dependent on the school infrastructure for housing, cooking and other facilities like water, electricity. The funds

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from the rainbow home group are not sufficient to invest in building infrastructure facilities. The current setup is fully utilized with the 60 children staying at the home. There is no scope or plans for the expansion of the center. Hence the model also is not scalable to include more children.

EXHIBITS
EXHIBIT1: PICTURE OF RAINBOW HOME

EXHIBIT 2: NBI ORGANIZATION DETAILS

Name of the organisation Need Base India (A Foundation for Child Care and Development) Date established 23rd December 2009 Nationality Indian Legal status (including Registered under Karnataka Societies Act 1960, with Regd No. official registration 174/2009-10 number) PAN No. AABAN1900C TAN No. BLRN06374E 12 A Certificate Under Section 12A R/W Section 12AA (1)(b)(i) of the Income Tax Act 1961 80G No. DIT (E) BLR/12A / N 380/AABAN1900C/ITO (E)-2 / Vol 2011-12 Current contact address Need Base India, Higher Primary Govt. School, Dodda Betta Halli, Yelhanka Main Road, Bangalore 76 Person responsible for this Mr. Rahim, Secretary project Contact person Mr. Rahim, 09900806840
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2nd Contact Person E-mail address Bank Details

Mr. Mallikarjuna 08970732655 needbaseindia.org@gmail.com; rahim26@gmail.com Need Base India, A/c. No. 31610340400 State Bank of India, Vidyaranapura Branch, Bangalore-76 Identity of our organisation Social Main objectives of the To provide a child friendly environment to street children organization by providing the need based support through the centres. To mainstream the children in the formal schools and implement effective measures to prevent the children further dropout. Provide scholarship for the poor meritorious student studying in Govt. Schools. Referrals to an institutional care for education in those cases, where the family environment is not conducive for the child growth. To work with Government Schools to improve the quality of education and reduce the dropout rate. To sensitize and develop effective linkages with different stakeholders for proper implementation of child protection provisions. Lobby with various Govt. Officials on the issues of the children like care, protection and development.

EXHIBIT 3: DAILY SCHEDULE AT NEED BASE INDAI RAINBOW HOME

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EXHIBIT 4: EXPENSES AND BUDGET PLAN FOR FINANCIAL YEAR 2013-14

Expenses Categories Admin Expense Accounts Misc Training Infra Investment Infra Maintenance Misc Management Expense Salary Operating Expense For Kids Misc Salary Grand Total Amount Percentage of Total Expenses Rs. 353,000 12.25% Rs. 100,000 3.47% Rs. 223,000 7.74% Rs. 30,000 1.04% Rs. 50,000 1.73% Rs. 50,000 1.73% Rs. 48,000 1.67% Rs. 48,000 1.67% Rs. 340,200 11.80% Rs. 340,200 11.80% Rs. 2,091,293 72.55% Rs. 1,253,000 43.47% Rs. 192,000 6.66% Rs. 646,293 22.42% Rs. 2,882,493 100.00%

EXHIBIT 5: BUDGET PLAN FOR NEXT THREE YEARS (FINANCIAL YEAR 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16)

PF-BLR_NDH_BUDGE T 2013-2016.xlsx

REFERENCES
1. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Need-Base-India/189880381159573 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyie0zB9BZs 3. Documentation on NBI shared by Mr. Rahim

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