Running a Successful Volunteering Campaign Samaydan: a Government of Gujarat initiative

Transcription

1 Making Samaydan Work Youth Volunteering in Gujarat Running a Successful Volunteering Campaign Samaydan: a Government of Gujarat initiative (In the picture) Gujarat Vidyapith students making a makeshift drain in a slum area as part of Samaydan in Ahmedabad. A. Summary Volunteering led by a State Government happened for the first time in 2010, under the initiative of Hon ble CM, Shri Narendra Modi. This pioneering initiative Samaydan saw almost 2 lac people register across the state to volunteer their time and contribute in the areas of health, education, cleanliness and environment for the state. This paper recommends strengthening Samaydan so that it is scalable for the whole of Gujarat and incorporating more flexibility in the programme in terms of registration and activities, training of government officials to handle volunteering assignments, designing a youthtargeted publicity programme and giving ownership of the programme to the civil society. Implementation should be phase-wise, where the focus should begin with urban areas, especially Municipal Corporations where the target group of educated youngsters from colleges are first motivated, eventually flowing to general citizenry, and then to municipalities and rural areas. Finally, the paper emphasizes the need and mechanism of institutionalizing Samaydan the way countries in the west have done, so that youngsters have an opportunity to interact with the government and become more aware about their committed group of future leaders. B. Overview of Samaydan Volunteering Program Samaydan is an initiative towards contribution of 100 hours to public service by the youth of Gujarat in the Golden Jubilee Year. The registrations can be done both online (on selected websites) and offline (in civic centres and local government bodies). Samaydan, in its current form is focused more on outcomes and numbers; it is a movement that should be beyond the actual tangible outcomes like cleaner streets, more educated adults, and more plantations. It needs to become a movement that encourages the feeling of compassion, of feeling and patriotism towards the state. It should be synonymous with encouraging the spirit of volunteerism, of spontaneous action, of participation in the progress of governance. It need not be a programme concerned with too many checks and balances to track the progress and attendance of the samaydata, rather should focus more on motivation and trust. The ownership of it needs to essentially lie with the volunteers and not government employees. C. Current Model of Implementation: Ahmedabad and Surat Samaydan is a programme which needs to be targeted at educated youth who are in the age group of either studying in colleges or working as young professionals. This is the target group that can be motivated easily to work for welfare and also has time to donate a few hours every week. Since this age group is most prominently found in urban corporations, the target for Samaydan initially should be only the 8 municipal corporations of Gujarat. Once the programme takes root here, the externalities can flow to the municipalities and perhaps the rural areas as well, though for rural Samaydan, a Page 1 of 6

2 different strategy may have to be adopted. We can learn lessons from groups like Yuva Unstoppable, Volunteer Ahmedabad, and SPICMACAY etc. which already have a presence in the cities of Gujarat. The current operation of Samaydan is managed as follows, in Ahmedabad and Surat: Ahmedabad Health Education Environment Cleanliness Nodal Officer - DHO At the zonal level, it s the Assistant Health Officer to Nodal Officer - Head of the Municipal School Board Nodal Officer - Assistant Conservator of Forests The nodal officer is given Nodal Officer Deputy Health Officer whom the Public Health School teachers of the 476 list and briefing over all Apart from holding Supervisor over every ward submits the 15-day reports over performance of each Samaydata per zone. Under the PHS, there are sanitary made samaydatas who under Gunotsav spend extra hours teaching the weak children per week. This may be looked as gardens and then reaches out to the Samaydatas through the garden inspectors and supervisors at zonal the Clean Tapti Campaign earlier this year, the cleanliness part of Samaydan is also inspector and the sanitary duplication since the same levels. The samaydatas looked by the same sub-inspector who actually meet the Samaydatas personally and carry out the work. hours can be counted under Gunotsav initiative. are reached out through phone calls for maintainence and adoption hierarchy as of health. Surat Under the DHO, medical camps were held for 4 months with volunteers. Sanitary Inspectors are the ones Samaydatas normally report to. The Health Centres under the MOs also take samaydatas for IEC activities Apart from holding the Clean Tapti Campaign earlier this year, the cleanliness part of Samaydan is also looked by the same hierarchy as of health. (DHO followed by CSO at Zonal level and SI at Ward level) Principals of municipal schools are sent letters with list of samaydatas residing near the school. The samaydata similarly is sent a letter through the School Board and its zonal school officers giving details of the nearest school. The Principal allocates work to and the reports hours volunteered. Nodal Officer Garden Supervisors (Zone wise) The garden supervisors call and guide volunteers to maintain roadside plantations and hold meetings with residents associations for more plantation. D. Issues with current model of implementation On the basis of interaction with municipal authorities in both cities of Surat and Ahmedabad, the following observations have been made 1. Problems related to MIS - No segregation of data based on zones. The field of zone needs to be included so that samaydatas can be filtered on the basis of any zone to hold zonal level meetings. - No cross-section of data available. Once the zonal wise distribution is in place, being able to get cross-section of data will become indispensable, since we would need data per zone of number of volunteers for health, education etc. 2

3 - No way of finding out sub-activity division and number of samaydatas per activity, so one may know the number of samaydatas registered in education, but not sub-activity like Gunotsav. 2. Problems of Monitoring - Form for reporting is very detailed and has to be submitted every 15 days by the Samaydata. 24 forms have to be filled in per samaydata per year which is very difficult and time consuming. 3. Problems of Administration - Even with detailed bureaucratic set up to tackle the 40,000 samaydatas in the 8 corporations, the distances between the samaydata and the administration are a lot. It is difficult to track them, to allocate work, and to then evaluate it. - A more bottom-up approach needs to be applied here instead of the current top-down approach. The work ideas and reporting should come from the Samaydatas and not allocation and monitoring by government employees. E. Alternate Models for Implementation of Samaydan 1. Implementation based on Ownership Approach Samaydan so far has primarily been a programme of the government, but now it needs to become a programme that belongs to the samaydata. A more bottom-up approach needs to be applied where work ideas and reporting should come from the Samaydatas and not allocation and monitoring by government employees. We can form a group of prominent citizens of each city and each of these groups can hold meetings with samaydatas, have advisories and suggest activities that can be done in each city. There are two approaches: 1.1 The Group Methodology Dividing volunteers in groups facilitates peer learning and team building. In volunteering, it is difficult to maintain a constant level of enthusiasm towards one s task, and this is where working in groups helps. Group division can be held along zones and types of volunteering activity. 1.2 How do the groups function? Once the zonal groups are ready, through the example of SPICMACAY model of weekly meetings 1, we should have monthly meetings for all zones on a fixed date, time and venue. For example, on the second Saturday of every month at 6pm can be the meeting time fixed for every zone, where a venue would be fixed in advance where the meetings are held every month. This can be intimated to those who register afresh for Samaydan by mentioning it on the online/offline acknowledgement in a line We meet monthly once, to know the venue for your zone, call (helpline) or check (weblink). By using free bulk sms services, mass sms alerts can be sent to zonewise samaydatas reminding them every month a day before the monthly meeting is to be held. 1 See 3

4 In these monthly meetings, by motivating trainers and tying up with local NGOs, we can have ice breakers and team building games. The 15day reports can be submitted in these group meetings and volunteers can share experiences, problems and learning in their respective areas. In the monthly meetings, area wise groups can be formed and a group leader chosen who can then monitor around a group of 20 samaydatas from his/ her locality. This way, instead of taking reports from each samaydata, one can reports from group leaders, and also make samaydatas feel like they are working together on a project that is their responsibility. This creates a healthy competition among various groups as well. 1.3 Examples of Group Activities a. Pavement adoption Residents associations can be asked to adopt the nearest pavement to their locality and take care of the pavement dwellers. The interested group can take care of health, cleanliness, and teach the children. b. School Adoption - A list of the worst performing schools based on either Gunotsav data or SSC pass percentage can be obtained, they can be adopted by student groups from different colleges. These students groups can then see what kind of interventions are needed to bring the schools at par with better performing schools. Already, 5 IAS officers who had adopted schools as part of a government initiative have shown interest in having volunteers work in their schools. s were sent to volunteers of the Teach India Campaign and the volunteers who registered with the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation for Education Samaydan. Some 120 volunteers have shown active interest in adopting schools in their respective localities. Standard Operating Procedure Registration Online - Acknowledgement sent immediately Offline - Give hardcopy acknowledegement immediately Register as groups option Data present in excel on cross-section of zone and activity Orientation Zone wise or Activity wise depending on numbers Inform via SMS and Ice breakers through NGO heads than through NGOs Form groups, assign leaders and task distribution Help in identification of problems Done within 15 days of registration Monitoring Meet every 15 days Fixed Venue and time - Zone wise for all activities Asst Commisioner to be present Partner NGO to be present Exchange and Peer Learning Hours tracking through group leader and explain absence Group Performance Call/ from Partners for those who don't come Milestones 25 hours - Certificate 50 hours - Tshirt 75 hours -Workshop 100 hours - Meeting with CM/Bureuacrat 1.4 Mass Campaign Mass Campaigns held once a month can infuse the spirit of volunteerism among the general public and enthusiasm among the volunteers. Examples of mass campaigns can be cleanliness of heritage sites, riverbeds, and coastal areas in cleanliness. Organizing health camps, slum awareness weeks etc. in 4

5 health, organizing exchange programmes between elite and municipal schools, collection drives in schools2, etc. Two mass campaigns were held; students from Gujarat Vidyapith in one cleaned up a slum in Shahpur area of Ahmedabad and held a health camp for the slum residents where some 220 people came. In a second activity, some 75 students from PDPU cleaned up the surroundings of Vastrapur lake, an event which was covered by the media as well 1.5 Advantages of the Group Approach - The approach keeps the volunteer at the centre, and not the outcome of an activity - Volunteers are easy to manage because of the decentralization of management - Volunteers get a sense of responsibility and also ownership - Group-working can increase motivation and enthusiasm, opposed to individual volunteering - Peer learning and mutual sharing would lead to growth of the programme - A healthy competition between various groups would ensure higher levels of achievement 2. Implementation based on NGO Approach To collaborate with prominent NGOs and assign the volunteers to them through a specific mechanism. 2.1 Online Registration A mechanism could be a website made for Samaydan where in a volunteer could register his/her name and details and area of residence and area of interest. Automatically a list of relevant NGOs could then be displayed. The volunteer can the contact any of them and register to volunteer with them. An offline system could also be provided. Government would coordinate and monitor only. 2.2 Advantages of the NGO Approach - The work is essentially outsourced, and is costeffective since the NGOs have their needs met and the volunteers get to work in the area of their liking - NGOs have expertise in managing volunteers Experts from Yuva Unstoppable, Indicorps, and Savera - 3 NGOs based in Ahmedabad area already helping the Samaydan team to execute the program better. 2 See to view similar initiative run by Ahmedabad based NGO Yuva Unstoppable 5

6 E. Plan on institutionalizing Samaydan as a permanent programme of GoG Samaydan should become an institution of the Government of Gujarat. The idea behind this is to have a permanent interface with citizens and giving them a chance to participate and understand governance better. This can be done by setting up an independent Samaydan team which should consist of youngsters/professionals who want to voluntarily manage this campaign. Apart from volunteering, fellowships in the Secretariat and internships during the summer with District officials for college students can be managed by them. The internships and fellowships would be to give youngsters an idea of governance at grassroots, both in urban and rural Gujarat. 1. Branding Samaydan Youth friendly posters, stickers, internet presence through social networking websites, regular interaction with the media and targeting college leaders are some of the approaches that need to be adopted to make it more appealing. The programme can also give career skills through volunteering with Samaydan: a recognised experience for job applications. 2. Samaydan Webpage and Call Centre Samaydan needs to have a separate web portal where photos of previous activities from each region, from each activity set can be showcased. This page will be very helpful in generating more traffic online and also publicizing Samaydan. A more active helpline call centre for Samaydan is needed. NGO volunteers from organizations like Indicorps can be trained for this and asked to run it. The call centre would address queries and also do regular follow-ups with group leaders of samaydatas and mentor them. 3. Samaydan Kit A Samaydan orientation kit can be made which can be given to every new samaydata who registers online or offline. Upon offline registration, the kit can be given immediately, and upon online registration, it can be sent to the address of the samaydata by post. The orientation kit should contain the following 1. An opening letter with the CM s signature welcoming the Samaydata and thanking him/her 2. An oath that the samaydata should take up which would contain awareness material 3. Stickers with slogans like I am an Active Citizen, I am a Samaydata 4. Phone numbers of zonal offices and civic centres where samaydata can follow up for getting work In conclusion, Samaydan in its current format can be strengthened to increase its potential greatly and make it a one of its kind initiative in the country. 6