Skip to main content

Election day at the beach

November 17

November 17, 2005

Today’s was the presidential election in the country. This meant half a day off for Sarvodaya workers. But, since many of the workers live out of town and they have gone to their home to cast their vote. Thus, many of the offices were empty and I couldn’t do much. Early in the morning I met with Mr. Emily Anthony of Sarvodaya Economic Empowerment Services (SEEDS). Mr. Anthony walked me through the various activities of SEEDS. The three main activities that SEEDS is involved, in creating economic empowerment, are encouraging collective savings, providing small scale loans (micro-financing), and conducting entrepreneurship development training. The loans start at SLRs. 20,000 ($200) and interest rate is about 22%. I had always thought interest rate for micro-lending was about 6 to 7%, Mr. Anthony told me it ranges to 30 to 40% internationally, including in Bangladesh.

Mr. Anthony told me that SEEDS is attempting to register itself as a finance company but because of high capital requirement it hasn’t been able to do so. He told me there is a shortfall of about SLRs. 200 million ($200,000) and asked whether Sarvodaya USA could help in mobilizing such fund. I assured him that I will try my best. Given that Gordon, chair of our board, is involved in such activities and had helped setting up the largest micro-finance company in Haiti, I thought he might be interested and willing to help.

Later in the day, I joined a group of foreigners to go to a nearby beach in Mt. Lavinia. I was with three American volunteers, a Japanese volunteer, and a Austrian worker. We went for there at 2 Pm, swam at the beach all day, read books, discussed about Sarvodaya and other matters, had a dinner at beach side restaurant, and returned back in the evening.

Christopher was very critical of Sarvodaya organization. He said that organization is too top down, very Buddhist meaning the organization lacks the fair representation of minority communities especially that of Tamil and Muslims. He wanted me to be aware of discontent and difficulty Sarvodaya faces as competition has ensued in non-profit world in the post-tsunami era for the skilled manpower. He also said that within Sarvodaya there are two factions, one that is attempting to change the organization towards more inclusive and efficient organization and the other that wants to remain as it is and don’t really care much about inclusiveness and fair representation of other communities.

Despite the philosophies of empowering people, Sarvodaya organization seems to be entangled in the same problems that any other organization runs into once it gets larger. According to Christopher organization runs completely against its philosophies of empowering people as every little decision has to clear through the highest echelon of the organization. The mundane matters like changing a panel of window in a district center office first goes of up the chain of command and only when cleared by highest official does can one act. This means inefficiency, centralization, and waste of resources.

However, Sarvodaya seem to have fabulous track record in empowering the poor people in the country. Unlike many of the NGOs that actually end of working with the rich and powerful (richest of the poor), Sarvodaya, even Christopher acknowledged, works for the benefit for the poorest of the poor. It has actually empowered poor people and its social mobilization has been remarkable.

The next challenge for Sarvodaya is how to remain attractive for the qualified and skilled manpower given that many international INGOs have come with lots of monies at hand after the tsunami. The challenge also is in being more inclusive and shading its Buddhist identity. Even though Sarvodaya and Dr. Ariyaratne himself have championed peace as a central to Sarvodaya’s activities, a major roadblock is its Buddhist and Sinhala identity. Despite the rhetoric that Sarvodaya doesn’t condone any religion, the presence of Sarvodaya is in heavily Sinhalese area- in the middle and south of the country. It seems that Sarvodaya is in transition as the leadership has come to young people from the founders of the movement. In the lack of charisma of Dr. Ariyaratne, to survive Sarvodaya would need to transform itself into an efficient organization. The onus to prove is in new leadership.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

विद्यार्थी भर्ना मात्र गर्ने कि टिकाउने पनि !

नेपालमा नयाँ बर्षसँगै नयाँ शैक्षिक वर्ष पनि सुरु हुन्छ। यसैको मौकामा २०७५  साल सुरुवातमै प्रधानमन्त्री केपी शर्मा ओलीले  एक जना विद्यार्थी स्कुल भर्ना गर्नुभयो। अभियान सुरु गर्दै सबैलाई नेताहरुलाई ‍कम्तिमा एक जना विद्यार्थी भर्ना गर्न अाव्हान पनि गर्नुभयो। अहिले शिक्षामन्त्री, प्रदेश मुख्यमन्त्रीहरु, वरिष्ठ नेताहरु, सांसदहरु लगायतले विद्यार्थी भर्ना गराइरहेको समाचारले प्रमुखता पाइरहेको छ।संविधानले सबै बालबालिकासम्म शिक्षाको पहुँच ‍निर्दिष्टता गरेको ‍परिवेशमा देशको नेतृत्वले गरेको यो प्रयास सरहानीय ‍हो। तर नीतिनिर्माण तहमा रहेको नेतृत्वलाई यति कदममै रमाउने छुट भने छैन। शिक्षा मन्त्रलाय तथा अन्य अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय संस्थाको तथ्यांक अाधार मान्दा, भर्नाभन्दा पनि स्कुलसम्म पुगेका केटाकेटी त्यहाँ कसरी टिकाउने र गुणस्तरीय शिक्षा कसरी दिने भन्ने अबको धेय हुनु पर्ने देखिन्छ। अब पहुँचमा भन्दा गुणस्तरमा समय र परिश्रम धेरै गर्नु पर्ने देखिन्छ। शिक्षा मन्त्रालय, युनिसेफ, तथा विश्व बैंकका तथ्यांक अाधार मान्ने हो भने, नेपालमा ५-९ वर्ष उमेर समूहका झण्डै ९७ प्रतिशत केटाकेटी स्कुल भर्ना हुन्छन्। यो द

जसले विक्रेताबाट सामान लिन्छन्, तपाईंको घरैमा पुर्‍याइदिन्छन्

  जुना श्रेष्ठ काठमाडौं, फागुन ११ From Setopati.com गत सालदेखि 'पिक एन्ड ड्रप' ले काठमाडौं उपत्यकामा डेलिभरी सेवा पुर्‍याइरहेको छ। यो 'लजिस्टिक' कम्पनी हो जसले आफ्नो नामजस्तै काम गर्छ- विक्रेताबाट सरसामान लिएर ग्राहकको स्थानसम्म पुर्‍याइदिने। पिक एन्ड ड्रपले अहिले ग्यास, किराना सामान, खाद्यान्न, कपडा लगायत सामग्री डेलिभरी गर्दैछ। यसले 'काठमाडौं अर्गानिक', 'फाल्कन', 'बेबी ब्लिस', 'केक फर यू', 'सागर ग्रुप इलेक्ट्रोनिक्स' जस्ता करिब १६ इ-कमर्स कम्पनीसँगको सहकार्यमा सरसामान डेलिभर गरिरहेको छ।  यसका सह-संस्थापक हुन्- घनश्याम खनाल, नवीन पराजुली र शिशिर खनाल।   घनश्याम र नवीनको भेट २०६८ सालमा भएको थियो। त्यतिबेला उनीहरू एकै कम्पनीमा कार्यरत थिए। त्यसताका नेपालमा फस्टाउँदो इ-कमर्स व्यवसायलाई टेवा पुर्‍याउन सक्ने हिसाबमा केही काम गर्ने सोचमा थिए।  घनश्यामसँग भेट हुनुअघि नवीन एक इ-कमर्स लजिस्टिक कम्पनीमै काम गर्थे। त्यहाँ हुँदा उनलाई ग्राहकको सन्तुष्टि र उनीहरूमाझ पुग्ने सेवाबारे चिन्ता भइरहन्थ्यो। डेलिभरी सेवा उपलब्ध भए पनि त्यसमा प्रायः

Local solutions for education

  To ensure children continue to learn, federal, provincial, and local governments have to find locally adaptable solutions to support the learning opportunity for children.   According to UNESCO, globally about 1.6 billion children, which account for 91 percent of all learners, are currently affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Nepal’s over 7 million school-going children and additional university students have also been severely affected by the closure of educational institutions. When the government started lockdown on March 24, Nepal was already on the tail end of the school year, thus the first three weeks of the closure didn’t have a significant impact on students’ learning activities. However, since the academic year in Nepal starts in mid-April, the continued shutdown of academic institutions are now likely to put most children out of educational activities for several weeks. While children from higher-income families might have the opportunity to engage in a plethora of digital