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>View discussions about this entry Country: India
Organization: Hamara Foundation
Sector Focus - Other
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 1989
YouTube Upload - Place your video embed code here from YouTube, Google Video and other video sharing websites. How to embed a video from YouTube. www.hamarafoundation.zzl.org
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - To protect rights of vulnerable children by bringing about a change in thier lives by providing them with the need –based services and by sensitizating all those concerned who influnce their life.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - Out reach and street presence of social workers is an important intervention strategy to identify street children.
Hamara Foundation is a community-based model in which six contact centers are established close to the living and working places of street children, such as railway station, near temple and dargah, market place and beneath flyover.Children find it easy to avail services provided in these contact centers. Child to child programme through which older children identify arrivels of new children on railway station, involment of volunteers in organising developmental activities for children and employment of ex-beneficiaries,i.e.street youth as project staff are significant aspects of the work.Net working with allied systems of health,education,judiciary,police,labour,municipal corporation,Govt.Dept of women and child development and concerned NGOs makes possible to realise innovative ideas.Organization of workshops on Child Rights from time to time to several social groups fecilitates sensitization process. Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - At each contact centre a team of workers including the social worker,para-professional worker and volunteers is engaged in providing developmental services for about 100 children in Child Rights perspective.Children are involved in the decision making process and their right to participation is ensured. Children are encouraged to display their talents of writing stories, composing poems, drawing and painting in children’s magazine “Balvishwa”,a quaterly issue of which is brought out regularly.Children of all the centers get an opportunity to bring out the magazine by rotation.
Children are provided ample opportunities to mainstream in the society by their participation in cultural programmes, celebrations, festivels, fun fare, picnics and camps. Skills training in suitable handi crafts & trades is provid How do you plan to grow your innovation? - • By maintaining the international standerds for management and administration for effective functioing of the organization.
• By building partnership with international and national organizations for betterment of streeet children. • By making more child friendly environment within the organization and in surroundings such as in municipal schools, hospitals, police stations and the society as large. • By recruiting more qualified, competent and committed staff in the organization.This will be possible only if funding provision of the organization is improved. • By obtaining continuing and assured funds to improve the financial possion of the organization. • By developing volunteer bank of college students for improving scholastic perfomance of street children in Mathes, English and Computer activities. Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how do you create them? - Yes.
Currently, Hamara Foundation has partnerships with few funding organizations, such as Save the Children India (STCI), CHILDLINE India Foundation (CIF), Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) and Promise to Act for Children Today (PACT), Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (L&T) and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL). The accomodation for running contact centres in two municipal schools is obtained from the Education Dept.of Mumbai Municipal Corporation.The funding organizations are not only giving funds but are also actively involved in the activities of the organization. The partial staff salary of the Street Children Project is funded by STCI; the CIF provides funding for CHILDLINE collaboratove and supportive organizations; Balwadi programme is sponsored by BCPT and PACT provides financial assistance for the Adolescent Girls Development Centre.The child health centre is a collaborative project of Hamara Foundation and L&T.The VSNL. sponsors several activities like residential camps for children,celebration of festivels and recreational activities.These partnerships are created with great efforts for obtaining funding from them, by giving them regular feed back and by organising joint meetings regularly . Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - The health status of children is considerably improved, their educational level is increased and they are empowered to enjoy their rights.
How many people have you served or plan to serve? - Hamara Foundation has served for more than 10,000 street and working children during the last 20 years.Now it plans to organise developmental and rehabilitative services for 1,200 street and working children directly every year.
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation? - Regular staff meetings for review of work and planning future activities help the organization to develop qualitative services to the beneficiaries. Innovative ideas emerge from such meetings to develop appropriate strategy for provision of suitable services for children. .
Beneficiaries are involved in the process of prepration of annual action plan, annual review and budgeting. Some indicators such as improvement in health status of children, ability to read and write, succesful completion of educational and vacational training programmes, development of self- confidence, savings of earned money, disciplined behaviour, etc. are developed to measure the impact of the organisation.
Exactly who are the beneficiaries of your innovation? - • Children living and working on the streets of Mumbai.
• Child Workers (Child Labour) • Children of pavement dwellers. • Girls in the undreprivileged families. • Community of underprivileged people in selected area. • Slum Children How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - Each of the projects of the organization is funded by separate funding body. Two CHILDLINE projects (Collaborative and Supportive) are financed by CHILDLINE India Foundatioan and funds are inveriably delayed .The organization does not have corpus fund and it is difficult to run project activities when funds are delayed. There is no assured and continuing funding for street children project and activities are conducted with meager income from donations, sale of products and sponsored programmes.The organization is in the process of obtaining a Certificate undrer FCRA, till then no foreign funding is possible. It is fourth year of funding from Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) for Balwadi programme.PACT is finacing Adolescent Girls Development Centre. In case funds are not availble for Balwadi and Adolescnet Girls Development Centre in future these projects will have to be handed over to suitable agencies.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization - Annual budget;
Annual revenue generated; Number of staff: The organisation was entirely funded by Save the Children Canada (SCC) from its inception in 1989 till 1995.Later on, the funds were received from the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt.of India till 2002. Thereafter the organisation has no continuing and assured funds for its street children project. The total budget including all five projects is Rs.20,00,000/-. However, currently the funds of Rs.11,50,000/- are only avaiable from all the funding organisations. Approximately, the amount of Rs.50,000/- is collected annually through donations and sale of articles . The organisation is going through financial crisis and hence many activities and programmes for street children receive set back. Number of staff (3 boxes: full-time, part-time, volunteers) No.of full-time staff No. of part- time staff No. of volunteers What is the potential demand for your innovation? - We need adequate funding to sustain our innovations. With continuing and assured funding it will be possible to engage more qualified and competant staff for effective service delivery.At present the project staff is paid poor salary due to financial crunches. As a result there is high turn over of grass root level workers.Street youth can be provided with financial assistance for self-employment and group homes with availbility of additional funds.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - Some of the barriers include lack of foreign funding, partial grants from funding agencies while ,our proposals demand adequate funds,no timely release of funds from the Govt.,lack of corpus fund for the organisation ,non-availbility of funding for staff salary,and lack of adequate marketing facilities for articles prepared by children.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - Street children is a growing urban phenomenon – a consequence of the growth in size and complexity of the cities all over the world.The street children is a symptom of a deep and disturbing trend in society.Among all catogories of children in difficult circumstances street children are the most vulnerable group because of the way they are forced to live homeless, roofless, rootless and alienated from the society.It is estimated that Mumbai has arround 1,00,000 street children.
Hamara Club meaning “our club” was established by Prof. Asha Rane as field action project of TISS in July, 1989 in response to the emerging problem of street children in Mumbai.The genesis of this project may be traced to a one- day workshop on “Street Children: Experience of Bombay” organized by Prof.Asha Rane in January 1989.As a follow up action of the recommendations of the workshop this project was launched.Later on, this project became as an independent NGO as “Hamara Foundation”in 2002. The major issues of street children are lack of access to basic services of shelter ,health care, nutrition, education and training, lack of opportunities for employment and financial assistance for self-employment,harrasment by municipal aouthorities ,city and railway police , lack of societal acceptance and legal status,lack of parental control and supervision due to which victims of street culture of drug abuse,gamblings,drinking , vagrancy ,thieving and prostitution.They are also high risk group of HIV/AIDS.They are denied the rights of survival,protection,development and participation.Considering the plight of street children and understanding their problems and needs the organization thrives to work with them so as to give them a better life. With initition of one contact centre for 50 children in 1989 the organization now provides various services to nearly 500 children through six contact centers in two municipal wards (D & G South) in Mumbai. Ours is the only street children project with a contact centre enclusively for 100 girls and preschool education programme for 30 underprivilaged children in the age group 3 to 6 years. With launching CHILDLINE (Helpline 1098) support organization in 1996 and CHILDLINE collaborative organization in the premises of Nair Municipal hospital in 2006, the organization provides emergency services to 8 to 10 children in distress every day. Hamara Foundation is one of the reputable organizations working for the cause of street children which has established linkages with accademic institutions like Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), S.N.D.T. Women’s University and business schools like Nursee Monji Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) and S.P.Jain Institute of Managament Studies (SPJIMS) in Mumbai.It provides good learning experience to students of social work and business manegement. Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material - Prof. Asha Rane, retired professor in TISS,Mumbai and a renowned Social Scientist is recipient of several awards including Govt. of Maharashtra Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Award for meritorious and outstanding service in the field of Women and Child Development and Bhaskar Karve Award for outstanding contribution to Social Work Education. Received prize as Content Expert for production of the Film by the EMRC Pune: “Give us back our lost Childhood”.
Prof. Rane is author of two books including “Street Children – A Challenge to the Profession of Social Work” and more than 100 papers on issues related to children in need of care and protection, child labour, child abuse, destitute children, street children, youth, women development, the disabled and adoption. She has extensively traveled in several countries for participation in seminars, workshops and conferences. Prof. Rane was invited by the Department of Social Work, University of Missouri, U.S.A. under the visiting International Scholar Programme in 1990. She is currently working on State Level Committee on the Juvenile Justice Act 2000, and Board of Control under supervision and Control of Orphanages and Charitable Institutions Act, 1960.She is the member of Secretary of the Adoption Coordinating Agency (ACA), Mumbai. Currently, Prof. Rane is the Managing Trustee of Hamara Foundation, to which she gave birth and nurtured it like her own child for the last 20 years.She is offering her expertise and time purely honorary. Contact Information:
asha rane
Managing Trustee Hamara Foundation (NGO) Discussions about this entry
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Hamara Foundation
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Dear Asha Rane;
I just finished reading your entry and it sounds as though the Hamara Foundation is doing great work.
It seems as though you have good monitoring systems in place and that you have a plan for how you would like to expand with strategic indicators. I was wondering however if you can you tell us more how you evaluate the impact of your program activities. For example you say that through the work of the Hamara Foundation: The health status of children is considerably improved, their educational level is increased and they are empowered to enjoy their rights. What methods do you use to measure these impacts?
Your program has a number of interesting components that I would be interested to learn more about. First, you mention a child-to-child mentoring aspect of the program- where older children help to identify new children that may need assistance. Can you expand on this component of the program? For example- how are these mentors chosen, are they/and if so- how are they trained, what are their roles and responsibilities as mentors?
Second- you mention that you provide non-formal education classes? Can you expand a bit more about the types of classes offered?
Finally- you mentioned that children are often brought in, as partner-, which I think, is great- are involved in decision-making processes—can you explain this aspect of your program a bit more?
Thanks!
Laura Cardinal
Public Health and Human Trafficking Specialist