Innovation for Social Impact – WIN Newsletter
Sep, 2020 Vol.1 No.3
Dear Friends,
Welcome to this 3rd issue of the WIN Newsletter.
The
Covid19 situation remains complex, with increasing number of cases. At
the same time, India is also opening up, with caution and restrictions,
driven by the economic necessities for people, for industries and for
government.
The determined project teams of our partners has been overcoming
serious hurdles to work in many ways. The project teams utilized the
lockdown period on planning, analysis and online interaction with
communities and other stakeholders. It was also heartening to see many
of these poor communities learn and adopt video conferencing and online
learning. Our Institution partners have restarted lab / prototyping
work related to our projects, recently, based on opening their campuses
and labs.
Based on our learnings over last 2 years, in both of our domains, we
are working on a multi-partner / multi-stakeholder approach, for
evolving sustainable models.
In WATSAN, water conservation work by our partners is growing, due to
increased support by government and greater demand from rural
communities. Based on higher awareness of the benefits, many
rural communities have initiated their own projects, with guidance by
our partners. Water conservation in a new hydrogeological zone, Coastal
Saurashtra, got off to a good start, proving extension of
learnings from the PGWM project in Kutch, an arid region. This is
further complemented by innovations from several startups, which are
being trialed in project areas.
In Nutrition, our new initiatives through multiple partners, is aimed
at (i) mobilizing community, (ii) building internal expertise and
capacity through training and (iii) microentrepreneurship for nutrition
products. We have multiple partners bringing their expertise for each
of the above, to evolve a sustainable model.
In this issue, we also cover the WIN WATSAN Webinar Series 2020,
together with leading Institutions and social organizations: (IIT
Kharagpur, Arid Communities and Technologies, CEPT University, IIT
Gandhinagar and IIT Bombay) and the NBEC 2020 launch, where WIN
Foundation is a partner.
In the coming months, WIN Foundation will remain focused on our
initiatives through multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaborative
outreach, for sustainable impact among communities, and overcome
hurdles posed by the pandemic. We welcome ideas and suggestions for
more collaborative work from existing and new partners, researchers,
startups, and other stakeholders.
We hope you enjoy reading this newsletter, and look forward to your feedback (email to info@winfoundations.org) for this issue. We also invite contributory
articles, case studies etc. for future issues.
With Warm Regards
Paresh Vora
Director – India Operations
LATEST UPDATES
The
pandemic situation continues, with prolonged recovery phase coupled
with continuing large number of cases. Our project partners have
restarted project work in most cases, with suitable restrictions,
particularly on travel.
In Maternal and Child Health, we have two significant new projects in nutrition:
1.Spoken Health Tutorial at IIT Bombay:
Accessible
and engaging health education is a cornerstone of health behaviour
change, especially in low and middle income countries, and can
contribute to improved health outcomes. This is particularly true for
education and training for maternal and child health.
The
Spoken Tutorial Project Group at IIT Bombay creates, Health Spoken
tutorial videos for training of master trainers, use by master trainers
to train / counsel mothers, and self-learning. The tutorials,
typically, 10-12 minutes long, cover range of topics on nutrition,
including exclusive breastfeeding tutorials, recipes for complementary
feeding, pre-pregnancy, adolescence, nutrition during pregnancy,
nutrition during lactation, junk foods & health, science of
nutrition and safety & food hygiene. The tutorials are available in
several Indian languages. (https://spoken-tutorial.org/series_tutorial-search/?search_otherfoss=Health+and+Nutrition)
WIN Foundation has recently supported the Spoken Tutorial Project groups for development of these health tutorials.
2. Mother and Child Nutrition through capacity building and awareness
coupled with Microentrepreneurship for Nutrition products: Our partners
MHT, SMDT and REAL have started this new project in nutrition through
building community expertise and capacity in nutrition and hygiene,
together with microentrepreneurship. We look forward to an exciting
journey, again to use multi-stakeholder approach for ground-up
sustainability and scalability.
In WATSAN, our project partner, Arid Communities and Technologies,
after successful completion of two years of project and based on
previous experiences and created opportunities, now continues the
project “Participatory Groundwater Management in Cluster of Coastal
Villages, Mandvi’ for third year for further progress. They have
also established similar project in Dwarka District, lying in another
hydrogeological zone in Gujarat, using processes and protocols
developed in Kutch, with suitable modifications for new region.
Our Innovative Product Market validation support scheme has started
showing results in bringing innovative products and technology from
promising startups to rural/tribal or other poor communities through
NGOs in close touch with them. This aims to enable such communities to
improve their quality of life through understanding of such
technologies and products.
Under the same scheme, Samerth Charitable Trust our new community
partner became an additional implementing partner for the trial
of low cost and field usable Water and Soil Testing Kits by
FFEM, Bangalore, in their project areas
As part of our outreach and collaborations, we launched WIN WATSAN
Webinar Series 2020, jointly with with nationally renowned
institutions:: CEPT University - Centre for Water and Sanitation
(CWAS), IIT Bombay - Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas
(CTARA), IIT Kharagpur - School of Environmental Sciences, IIT
Gandhinagar - Centre for Sustainable Development, and Arid Communities
and Technologies, Kutch, Gujarat, spread over 2 months with 6
sessions.
We are happy to again partner with Centre for Cellular and Molecular
Platforms (C-CAMP) for NBEC 2020 event as a category partner for the
domains of (1) Water and Sanitation and (2) Maternal and child health.
WIN Foundation was the category partner for NBEC -2019 as well.
More information on projects and startups, as well as outreach activities are available on our website at https://winfoundations.org/
In this issue, we cover one of the projects under our Project
Spotlight, while innovative startups are highlighted under the
Start-up support program. We will cover more projects and startups in
our future issues.
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
ANANDSHALA TO JEEVANSHALA VIKSAT, Nehru Foundation for Development, Centre for Environment Education (CEE)
(Association organization: Niswarth Children Foundation)
Project Objectives :
Initiating
a process leading to behaviour change in society and transformation of
village, in 6 villages in Bavla area, through projects with following
broad objectives:
Prepare model village development plans for the selected 6 villages
Zero waste management plan for two project villages
Create
pilot of select technologies like RWH and improving existing school
infrastructure facilities in the government primary schools of the
project villages, as entry point activities
Provide
inputs for improving the quality of the school education through tools,
techniques and strategies to empower educational functionaries for
effective quality education
Creating
multiple levels of engagement amongst community champions in schools
and villages for improving Water and Sanitation infrastructure of the
villages
Activities and outcomes :
Participatory Community Needs Assessment : The Community need assessment was carried out to assess
the need and priorities for implementation of programme activities and
to prepare comprehensive action plan with focus on short-term, mid-term
and long-term interventions in six project villages. These
village need assessment and development plans can be used for future
development in 6 project villages.
Preparation of School Development Plan :
School development plans were developed on
basis of suggestions of the Schools taking into account
present infrastructure, school needs and the innovative ideas and
technology. School Development Plans covered components including –
Solid Waste Management, compost pit, play area, landscaping, drinking
water facility, sanitation blocks, Roof Top Rain Water Harvesting
(RRWH) and ground water storage etc. – including new facilities,
retrofitting of existing structure, etc. Most of these were implemented
and others can be taken up in future.
Roof Rain Water Harvesting structure and Ground Water Recharge in Schools
: Roof Rain Water Harvesting (RRWH) structures, in 5 schools, and
ground water recharge systems, in 2 schools, were constructed in the
project villages. RRWHS process and operational and maintenance
document was developed in local language and circulated to schools’
where RRWHS were constructed. In the process document, need of water
harvesting, design of RRWHS, Implementation, operation and maintenance
were covered. These model RRWH and ground water recharge systems are
also aimed to motivate the village communities to adopt water
harvesting and ground water recharge on larger scale.
Improving the School Environment / Infrastructures
: The improvement of physical facilities like toilets, water
filter and MDM shed were renovated and repaired. The new physical
facilities like Amphitheatre, drinking water stand post, hand wash
corner, paving, Planter, seats, compost pit, stage, RRWHS and bore well
recharge were constructed in the primary schools of the project
villages.
Zero Solid Waste Management : The pilot of zero solid waste management was implemented in Kanotar village.
Capacity building of Students, Teachers and Village community on WATSAN :
Tohelp inculcate behaviour change, improving efficiency
of water use, better awareness and habits of sanitation and hygiene,
among students and teachers, activities like wall paintings on
good habits and sanitation, Rallies on WaSH, School competitions like
Debate, Drawings and Essay writing on water and sanitation issues,
video shows on importance of water and sanitation and Education Kit and
TLM on WaSH were organized. Awareness programs for Village communities
on water conservation, sanitation and hygiene needs were also carried
out.
To know more CLICK HERE for the detailed project report
Interview with Mr. Dilip Surkar Director, VIKSAT
1. How did this project fit into vision of VIKSAT? Since 1977, VIKSAT has been
working with communities towards developing models of sustainable
natural resource management, imparting skills related to institution
building, resource generation, management and networking. VIKSAT has also focused on rainwater harvesting to address water
scarcity, and is now well established as a resource agency for
rainwater harvesting. With a strategy of demonstration models, working
models have been installed on individual houses, large campuses,
housing quarters, industry and in peri-urban villages. VIKSAT closely
worked with Primary School on WaSH issues, improvisation of
infrastructures, involving the students, teachers and community
together for successful implementation of programmes. Anandshala Se
Jeevanshala project gave opportunity to create model for community
development focusing on WASH issues in the project villages and schools.
2. What have been the most satisfying outcome of the project for your team? The village action plan was prepared with all priorities activities
and need for all villages through community need assessment study. The
capacity building of students and teachers on WATSAN and Healthy
hygiene habits are inculcated in all school students and they will act
as catalyst agent to motivate their parents to adopt good habits at
household level. The improved school environment and better
infrastructure and sanitation facilities for students of 6 primary
schools, including RRWHS, showcases the development model
in School, and will trigger similar actions at village
level too.
3. How do you see future extensions to this project? The project outcomes were (i) Village development action plan and
school development plan, (ii) school improvements including RRWHS,
improved sanitation in schools, and (iii) SWM demonstration in 2
villages. Future extensions can include (i) the implementation of
priority activities as per village action plan in project
villages, and (ii) evolving a service charge model of solid waste
management and convergence of Swachh Bharat Mission and Adarsh village
scheme.
4. Your experience of working with WIN Foundation It has been a great learning experience for VIKSAT to work in
partnership with WIN Foundation and Niswarth Children Foundation.
Through this project, VIKSAT was able to identify the needs of schools
and villages and contribute towards the school centred model on Water
and Sanitation. WIN Foundation gave the flexibility in
implementation and changes of programme activities during the project.
The partnership with WIN Foundation gave us the wider opportunity to
reach out to technical and research institutions like IIT. In future,
VIKSAT looks forward for further collaboration with WIN Foundation,
partnership with IITs through WIN, and demonstration of new WASH
innovations in VIKSAT project areas made by start-ups supported
by WIN Foundation.
______________________________________________________________________________ Stakeholder / Beneficiary Voice:
Ms. Parul Ramani
Principal
Jeevanshala, Kesardi Primary School, Kesardi
“We are very grateful to WIN Foundation and VIKSAT for support in
infrastructure development and renovation works like RRWHS, Bore well
recharge, Hand wash corner, Seats, Amphitheater, wall painting on good
habits, WaSH education corner, tree plantation, etc. in school. The
organization has achieved excellent work to reach out the message of
water saving and good habits at household level through students to
villagers.
VIKSAT has developed and showed a model of building a better society
through students who act as a catalyst to motivate their parents. The
organization has organized awareness programme, school competition and
provided the platform to share and present their skills for students
which helps personal hygiene and cleanliness habits developed among
them. A trophy was given to the winners and consolation prizes to all
participated students.
We are thankful to WIN Foundation and VIKSAT for their support to
improve the school infrastructure facilities and contribution to create
values and personal habits among the students. The organization has
provided and developed a very good example for the society."
START-UP SUPPORT PROGRAMS
WIN Innovative Product Market Validation Support Program :
This program
supports Social Impact Startups to reach target user communities
through WIN’s NGO partners and associates. Such potential user
communities may be remote, not easy to approach and cannot easily pay
for new products. Thus the scheme helps startups in the critical
stage for initial product prototype ->trial -> refinement stage
and market validation in the market. WIN Foundation, along with linking
partners, provides support for the products, installation and training
cost.
Thus, the scheme addresses the twin objectives of (i) enabling the
communities to try innovative products to better their quality of life,
and (ii) enable the startups to get critical inputs on product and
market.
We continue to receive good response, in spite of pandemic hurdles.
Following are some recent innovations supported by us and with
more discussions in the pipeline:
1. Smart Retrofit Toilet Kit To Transform Existing Toilet Into Disabled Friendly Toilet, by Oston Technology, Jaipur Supporting Community Partner : Mahila Housing Sewa Trust (MHT) Trial location : Jaipur, Amalner & Ranchi.
Product : specially designed wall mounted foldable commode, with
adjustable height, that could be attached to any toilet to be
accessible for disabled and osteoarthritis patients, thus increasing
toilet usage with better hygiene among disabled within the poor
communities.
2. Soil and Weather Monitoring Stations by Proximal Soilsens Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai Supporting Community Partner : Arid Communities and Technologies
Trial location: Kutch Dist
Product: Soilsens has designed Soil moisture and Weather sensing stations,
at a considerably reduced cost, with capability to transmit data to
cloud through a gsm modem. They can provide raw data plus advisory, in
a dynamic manner, and enable farmers to provide inputs in an optimum
and timely manner and maximize output. Such data over time collected
from many locations, will also enable machine learning based advisories
and enable farmers to practice smart agriculture
Organized by WIN Foundation, jointly with nationally renowned institutional partners
For
sustainable and scalable solutions to India’s huge and diverse
challenges in Water and Sanitation, multiple innovators to prototype,
trial, refine and perfect multiple innovations in technology, products,
services and delivery/business models, are required.
The webinar series brings leading innovator-practitioners, from premier
institutions, leading social organizations and startups, to present
their actual innovation and also provides an opportunity to bring
together the Water and Sanitation community, and interact with various
leaders and experts in the domain, across the country.
WIN Foundation is coordinating and organizing this Webinar series on
behalf of all partners, including outreach, seminar organization,
post-seminar archiving etc.
Highlights of 1st 3 sessions:
3rd Sep 20 (Session-1):Moving towards sustainable sanitation and efficient water use practices Speaker: Dr. M. M. Ghangrekar, Professor and Head, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, IIT Kharagpur
Prof. Ghangrekar presented on the extensive technology development and
piloting work done at IIT Kharagpur, including the project with WIN
Foundation support, which takes 1st stage STP output to
potable level, through modular multi-stage process, in a cost
effective manner, with aim to enable water recycling for diverse input
and output quality requirements and varying plant capacities.
The discussions during Q&A session also brought out (i) need for
recycling at remote locations without sewerage connection, (ii)
selection of suitable recycling stages based on needs, land available,
cost parameters (iii) Need for training /skilling to enable efficient
running of plants over long term, and (iv) need to understand the
true price of water, to make users consider water recycling more
seriously.
10th Sep 20 (Session-2):Water Security: Empowering communities to apply geo-hydrology science, technology and innovation Main Speaker: Dr. Yogesh Jadeja, Founder and Director, Arid Communities and Technologies, Bhuj-Kachchh
Dr. Yogesh Jadeja lucidly described the journey of Participatory Ground
Water Management in Kutch, one of most arid and saline regions in the
country. Dr. Jadeja brought forth the major success factors:
1. Capacity building, consisting of: (i) training of local men and
women as “Bhujal Jankar”with conceptual and practice-based training on
Hydrogeology, Water Security planning, socio-economic profiling,
program coordination. (ii) Farmer and Women’s groups, for institution
building, to adopt innovative practices, thus bringing Science to
Society and Society to Science.
2. Water security planning through Bhujal Jankars, with multiple Demand
and Supply side interventions implemented through community, like water
recharge structures, farming practices, using new technology products
like field level water and soil testing, etc.
3. Knowledge management involving (i) through regular and widespread
data collection and analysis, (ii) developing processes and protocols
for use elsewhere.
Dr. Jadeja detailed the successful outcomes particularly: (1)
Substantial improvement in quality and quantity of ground water
(2) Local capacity building and awareness among surrounding
villages leading to other villages and talukas in Kutch also taking up
such interventions with ACT acting as knowledge partner
(3) Support to other NGO’s in Gujarat and across 8 other states by
ACT to implement this process in their areas (4) Using protocols
and processes in Dwarka district, lying another hydrogeological region:
Coastal Saurashtra belt.
The Q&A sessions saw questions being asked about Bhujal Jankar
selection, training, formalization and certification like NSQF, meeting
complete ecosystem needs vs. just human needs, experience in other
states like UP, impact of recent good rains due to work done in last
few years, water recharge systems and treatment for detergents.
17th Sep 20 (Session-3): Efficient and equitable service delivery for urban water supply and sanitation Speakers: Dr. Dinesh Mehta and Dr. Meera Mehta,
Professor Emeritus and Executive Director (joint), Centre for Water and
Sanitation (CWAS), CEPT University alongwith an international
panel of renowned experts,
Dr. Meera Mehta and Ms. Jaladhi Valavia presented the pioneering
development of Performance Assessment System for Water and Sanitation
system, by CWAS together with TCS. It has been implemented in over 850
urban bodies across 5 states. Over its 10 years of implementation, the
system has provided continuous insights to the urban bodies and other
stakeholders to improve the water and sanitation infrastructure and
operations.
The international panel, with representatives from Portugal, Sweden,
South Africa and India, described the urban WASH issues, evolution of
performance assessment system and its future path.
The Q&A session saw discussions on (i) need for community
involvement from start for WASH initiatives, (ii) success stories e.g.
24x7 water supply pilots in Orissa, (iii) approaches for coastal /
saline urban areas.
The Webinar series has shown a very healthy participation by audience so far.
The video of all sessions conducted are available at (click here) WIN Webinar Series – Session Videos
For participating in the upcoming Webinar Sessions (click here) REGISTER NOW For more information on the Webinar Series (click here) FIND OUT MORE
National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC) – 2020
NBEC– 2020 organised
by Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) on behalf of
Department of Bio-Technology, Government of India and supported by
several national and international partners from industry and social
sector.
WIN Foundation is again a category
partner for NBEC 2020 for the domains of (1) Water and Sanitation
and (2) Maternal and child health. WIN
Foundation was the category partner for NBEC
-2019 as well. for these two domains.
The
Annual NBEC program has emerged as the flagship platform
for bio-entrepreneurs and innovators in India to showcase their deep
science driven ideas aimed at solving country’s challenges through
scalable and sustainable business approaches to achieve societal and
economic impact.
NBEC
2019 received nearly 3000 applications from across the
country, 67 qualifiers to the national finals, a Boot
Camp on11-13 December in Bengaluru. The rigorous jury evaluations
on 13th and 14th saw tough competition among promising startups leading
to selection of final winners. As category partner for (i) Water and
Sanitation and (ii) Maternal and Child Health, WIN Foundation
participated in the preliminary evaluation and then the final jury
rounds, and sponsored the category awards.
The NBEC 2019 winners of WIN Foundation awards were: 1) Water and Sanitation:
Alcheme
- Robotic solution for homogenisation of contents, intervention, and
cleaning in septic tanks by an IIT Madras based innovators (Prof.
Prabhu Rajagopal Professor, IIT Madras and Mr. Divanshu Kumar)
2) Maternal and Child Health:
Blackfrog
Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Founder : Mr. Mayur Shetty CEO Portable
Refrigerator for vaccine transportation Incidentally, this product
is currently being used for safe transport of covid19 test samples.
NBEC
2020 was launched virtually on 7th September 2020 and
addressed by chief guest Dr. Renu Swarup, Secretary, Department
of Biotechnology, Government of India & Chairperson BIRAC. The last
date to apply - 7th October 2020.
utory
articles, case studies etc. for future issues.
basis of suggestions of the Schools taking into account
present infrastructure, school needs and the innovative ideas and
technology. School Development Plans covered components including –
Solid Waste Management, compost pit, play area, landscaping, drinking
water facility, sanitation blocks, Roof Top Rain Water Harvesting
(RRWH) and ground water storage etc. – including new facilities,
retrofitting of existing structure, etc. Most of these were implemented
and others can be taken up in future.
in Schools
AN : 
Ms. Parul Ramani
Supporting Community Partner : Mahila Housing Sewa Trust (MHT) 
