HCL SAMUDAY
INTRODUCTION
HCL Samuday is an outcome of HCL's commitment to uplift rural India.
Established in 2015, Samuday intends to develop a sustainable, scalable, and replicable model – a source code for economic and social development of rural areas in partnership with central and State Governments, local communities, NGOs, knowledge institutions, and allied partners. We do this through optimal interventions across Agriculture, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Livelihood, and WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) in selected villages.
The program is designed to help the local people identify their problems, co-create solutions, and then implement the same on their own with professional support from team Samuday, thereby, lending the dimension of sustainability and ownership to the whole vision of development.
Currently implemented in three blocks – Kachhauna, Behender and Kothawan – in Uttar Pradesh, HCL Samuday is operational in 765 villages from 164 Gram Panchayats, comprising of 90,000 households and impacting around 600,000 people.
VISION AND MISSION
Vision
"We dream of such village life where the local people and administration are able to identify issues, co-create solutions, and then implement the same on their own in a sustained and judicious manner so that everyone is healthy, educated, has a dignified livelihood, and lives in a clean environment."
Mission
"HCL Samuday is working to develop a sustainable, scalable, and replicable model – a source code for economic and social development of rural areas"
WORK AREAS
Following the approach of holistic rural development, HCL Smauday works across Agriculture, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Livelihood, and Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH). Not only do we strive for making the development process participatory by including all the stakeholders – community, local administration, state government, civil society organizations, etc, we also ensure integration at all levels to achieve the desired results.
Our work includes engaging with individuals of all ages, and from all walks of life. With a special focus on marginal households and women, our efforts are to strengthen the community from within so as to achieve such a model of rural development that is sustainable in nature and the community overall is capacitated and motivated enough to carry on their development, on their own, forever.
HCL Samuday aims to increase the farm income of marginal farmers by 25%. This is being done by infusing farmers with knowledge about scientific farming practices that are developed step-by-step through training programs at every cropping stage. Key training programs include Soil testing, Accounting techniques, Integrated Nutrition Management, Integrated Pest Management, and Post-Harvest Management.
Along with the introduction of modern farming equipment and institutionalization of farmer clubs to make agriculture less burdensome and more market-linked, novel concepts like Nutrition Garden, and Bori Bagicha are propagated to help marginal families increase their nutrition intake and further save their household income.
KEY INTERVENTIONS
- Crop Diversification
- Traditional Crop Promotion
- Training and Extension
- Nutrition Garden
- Farmer Producer Company
ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
- 35% reduction in usage of water for paddy cultivation through farm mechanization
- Average HH saving of INR 7,860 per annum through Nutrition Garden
- 36% increase in revenue of farmers engaged in vegetable cultivation
- 13% input cost reduction of farmers through collective purchase of seeds by farmer clubs during the Kharif season (2017)
- More than 10,000 farmers have profited from various interventions in the agriculture sector and also, more than 1,500 families have adopted Nutrition Garden
HCL Samuday intends to ensure that every child has access to quality education in an effective learning environment, and all villagers have functional literacy. This is being achieved by a host of interventions.
First, we have ICT-based initiative SHIKSHA and community mobilisation based intervention Transition that is striving to make quality education accessible to all by helping teachers deliver better the state education curriculum coupled with increase in enrolment and attendance rates of students resulting in augmentation of their analytical skills and learning capacities. Then, Happy School intervention takes care of availability of the necessary infrastructure and its optimal utilisation for making sure that an effective learning environment exists. Finally, SHIKSHA+ intervention is efficiently taking on the battle for eradicating illiteracy.
KEY INTERVENTIONS
- SHIKSHA Initiative
- Happy School
- Transition
- SHIKSHA+
- Strengthening of Panchayati Raj Institutions
ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
- More than 10,000 children of class 1 & 2 in over 200 schools getting ICT-based classroom teaching
- Around 4,000 women learning to become literate at 300 Adult Literacy Centres being run with the help of over 200 instructors
It is HCL Samuday’s earnest desire to reduce Infant Mortality and Maternal Mortality in the region, and alongside make Primary Healthcare services accessible to all in the community. Primary focus in this sector rests on three themes: (1) building the capacity of health workers to help them carry out their daily responsibilities; (2) improving the health-related infrastructure to make better health facilities available and accessible to all; and (3) increasing community engagement for better health. A host of interventions are trying to ensure this.
While interventions like Mobile Mentoring Van equipped with Nurse Mentors, and Aanganwadi Resource Centre help build the capacity of frontline workers, Infrastructural Strengthening of existing health centres along with Process Improvements therein help improve the supply of healthcare services in the area. Community engagement in existing government/community platforms like VHND, VHSNC, and AAA is qualitatively improved leading to growth in demand from community for better healthcare services; Screening Camps for children followed by Nutrition Camps tackle the mammoth problem of Malnutrition; and Mobile Health Clinics are proving vital in making primary healthcare services accessible to all.
KEY INTERVENTIONS
- Upgradation of Community/Primary Health Centres & Activation of Delivery Points
- Strengthening of Community-based Platforms
- Saksham – Initiative for Capacity Building of Frontline Health Workers
- Aarogya – Mobile Health Clinics
- Management of Malnutrition
ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
- Over 3,500 pregnant females have benefitted from the infrastructural development of health centres including introduction of facilities like Ultrasonography, and High-Risk Pregnancy Management Unit, diagnostic tests conducted through mobile labs, etc.
- More than 300 Severely Acute Malnourished (SAM) children managed through community based nutrition camps
- Bed occupancy at Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) increased to 96% (Dec'17) form 55% (Apr'17)
In line with HCL Samuday’s approach of holistic development, it is being attempted to bring electricity to un-electrified habitations; and ensure a non-disruptive supply of electricity in health centres and schools. The former is being done by setting up solar mini-grids whose sustainable operation and maintenance is guaranteed by formulating Solar User Groups (comprising of community members) and the latter task of facility electrification is being accomplished by roof-top solar installation.
KEY INTERVENTIONS
- Village Electrification
- Facility Electrification
ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
- More than 100 kWp of decentralised rooftop solar energy systems installed covering 4 health facilities and 125 schools; Over 75 tons of CO2 emissions reduced since commissioning in October'17
- More than 6,000 households to be impacted after installation of 49 solar mini-grid across 63 villages; total installed capacity if approx. 1,100 kWp
HCL Samuday is trying to ensure that all marginal households have an alternate source of income. This is being done by (1) strengthening existing supply chain of agri-allied income generating activities – Dairy, Poultry, Goat farming, Fishery, Vermicomposting, Cuniculture, etc.; (2) strengthening women institutions: mobilizing, strengthening and federating community institutions and then linking them with financial institutions & economic activities; (3) establishing individual and group based business enterprises at local level for sustained employment, supported by financial and market resources; and (4) skill upgradation of youth to ensure sustained wage or self-employment.
KEY INTERVENTIONS
- Value Chain Development
- Establishment and Strengthening of Self-Help Groups
- Vocational Training and Skill Development of Youth
- Entrepreneurship Development Programme
ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
- Around 200 SHGs facilitated for financial linkages & 1,300 women financially empowered
- Infused more than INR 9,00,00,000 lakhs in the rural economy of the region by helping create livelihood source for more than 7,000 HHs with a range of agri-allied activities that include Dairy, Poultry, Goatry, Fishery, etc.
- Skill development of more than 750 youth and over 300 placed in various trades with salaries in the range of Rs. 8,000 – 12,000
- 107 women trained are selling handicraft products globally and 14 beneficiaries trained are running GMS & E-Rickshaw
Addressing the basic human needs of safe drinking water, sanitation and good hygiene, HCL Samuday aims to ensure completely clean villages with access to clean drinking water for everyone. The focus here is on taking care of both infrastructure and behaviour change related issues.
Working on the human emotional facets of disgust, pride, need, relevance, and ease, the Community-Led Total Sanitation strategy has been adopted for motivating households to build and use toilets. Alongside, an Open Defecation Elimination Plan for the villages is developed and executed in close coordination with local government officials. For making clean drinking water available and accessible to all, wherever possible, chlorination of functional hand pumps is carried out. This is complemented by development of piped drinking water supply system by facilitating construction of Over-Head Tanks in collaboration with the local community.
KEY INTERVENTIONS
- Open Defecation Free Village
- Hand Pump Rehabilitation
- Establishment of Piped Drinking Water Supply Systems
ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR
- 12,000 individuals impacted by behavioural change activities to practice safe sanitation
- 30 villages made Open Defecation Free
- More than 20,000 lives to be impacted with development of piped drinking water supply systems; 1 Over Head Tank (OHT) functional, 5 underway