OUR PROGRAMS
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Overview The distinctive feature of this thematic area is its constituency .i.e. it reaches out to individual citizens rather than to groups or composite communities. Within the citizenry, it concentrates on youth, community leaders, and community workers. Projects are intended to impart not just information, but an actual experience of development issues. The objectives are:
In line with these objectives, two programmes operate under this thematic area: the Voluntarism Programme and the Leadership Development Programme. Voluntarism Philosophy The programme aims to nurture feelings of mutual respect and care among people who belong to different social classes and communities. It focuses on promoting and developing capacities for civic action among the young people in India, catalyzing new ideas for promoting voluntarism in society and attempting to revitalize the existing government institutions like the NSS to work closely with the young people. Activities With the objective of facilitating a process of exposure and interaction between young people from varied backgrounds and the development sector as a whole, for the past seven years NFI has been facilitating the initiative with a multi pronged approach. A school voluntarism program, Youth Internship and Apprenticeship program are elements of this approach. To promote the spirit of voluntarism, each year, on an average, 70 students are placed in different NGOs across the country. Along with the enthusiasm of the students, host NGOs too feel that this is one way to attract and recruit talented and idealistic youth into the development sector. Besides the internship programme, NFI also supports a range of initiatives including seminars and conferences that are designed to make young people more interested and aware of development issues. One of the key focuses of the programme has been supporting Youth Resource Centers that create platforms for the youth to learn and share, enhance their skills and gain confidence to become responsible members of their communities. The work at the adolescent resource centers is geared to inculcate in the minds of the youth a sense of universal responsibility while at the same time help them gain a positive identity in their society. NFI through its initiatives in Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan and Delhi has been working with adolescents and youth to create social awareness among young adults. Various mediums such as informal discussions, art, debates, computer, English and personality development trainings, theatre, seminars, sports, painting, exhibitions, film screenings, debates, festivals, writing and photography workshops are being used to engage with the youth. Till date we have had around 350 young interns who have completed their internship successfully with NFI and partner organizations, 12 youth apprentices and about 15 grants to promote youth voluntarism across the country. The School Voluntarism Programme has been designed as an interactive programme around a photo exhibition, exhibiting development and challenging work and activities of various communities and NGOs across the country. We reached out to 1000 students (together from school and college) through the exhibition cum interaction. Leadership Development Philosophy NFI has initiated a Social Leadership Programme with a vision to promote grass-roots leadership and to strengthen the voluntary sector’s understanding and need for promoting leadership for social transformation. The objectives of the programme are to stimulate collective leadership among the marginalized in order to help them transform from passive spectators to active agents of social transformation. Activities Based on the above vision, NFI has designed its own leadership programme, which has three components: C. Subramaniam award for mid career voluntary workers and community leaders, Fellowship programme and project grants. 1. C. Subramanium Award: This award is given by NFI on an annual basis to select mid career voluntary sector workers and community leaders. Over the last seven years, more than 40 persons were given the award. Nearly half of them are women fellows. In 2008, the C.S. Award programme was decentralized and was taken to Northeastern India for a wider reach in the difficult areas. NFI has taken this initiative to some of the partner organizations in the northeast region. NFI supported four organisations- Synroplang for Social transformation (SST) in Shillong; Tamulpur Anchalik Gramdan Sangh (TAGS) in Kumarikata, Assam; Action Network Trust (ANT) in Bongaingaon, Assam and Tejpur District Mahila Samiti (TDMS) in Tejpur Assam to pilot the leadership awards program at their levels.
NFI has been working with NGOs in the Northeast and Andhra Pradesh on a pilot basis. We want to extend/replicate the programme to all the states, particularly to those where tribal people form a significant portion of the population. Voluntarism: Leadership Development: Ashok Roy ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) |