Case study: Institute of Rural Research and Development – Communicating Progressively

India Social Case Challenge – Edition 1

Category – Long term initiative

Title-Communicating progressively

Share a little about your organisation

Institute of Rural Research and Development (IRRAD) is an initiative of S.M. Sehgal Foundation established as a Trust in 1999 to envision rural people across India motivated and empowered to make their lives more secure and prosperous through better education, health, improved skills, and supportive governance. Mewat, one of the most backward districts of Haryana, India is inhabited by Meo Muslims, who have remained backward despite being in proximity to the millennium city of Gurgaon.

Executive Summary

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family. Kofi Annan

Asymmetry of information is the essence of poverty — that is why people are poor. One way to address this is to feed them with information. Lack of access to information is the chief reason behind backward communities.

Not knowing about their rights, the rural communities are unable to access services, plan for their areas, or choose from options to tackle certain problems. As a result of which, the poor remain at a disadvantage and this also adds to their vulnerability.

Quick-fix solutions, one-size-fits-all, central directive approaches fail when applied to complex human and social problems. Poverty with self-reinforcing dynamics has to be treated with accuracy, consistency and reliability of the information content, processes and systems.

Background

Information can help transcend socio economic and cultural barriers. World as a global village has strong underpinnings of information. IRRAD’s initiative is inspired by the able leadership of a forward looking visionary and an action-oriented implementer, Dr. Suri Sehgal who always had a dream to change the tattered sketch of rural India, an India which has around 600,000 villages with many unmet needs of human life such as social equality, justice and path to vertical mobility.

IRRAD’s mission is to implement Integrated Sustainable Village Development (ISVD) in select village clusters, through its four Centers, Program Implementation, Capacity Building, Rural Research and Policy, Governance and Advocacy has propelled the organization to deploy social media for development of marginalized communities.

Approach/ Strategy

Development communication is a field of activity that is a mixture of disciplines: it is part science, in that it draws heavily on social and behavioral sciences, psychology, and diffusion theory; it is part art, in that draws on the talents and skills involved in media production; and it is part craft in that it uses a wide variety of aids and technical equipment.

This, plus the fact that development communication should cut across and intermingle with all sectors concerned with rural development if it is to yield its full potential, means that there is no one organizational location for development communication that is valid for every situation.

The three domains of social media furthered through solutions deployed all across the organization which strengthen ISVD are:

• Content or Knowledge creation stage: IRRAD’s Programs Implementation and Capacity Building Center form the pivot around which the content generation for the grassroots, and for internal as well as external audiences happens. Trainings and direct implementation of programs at the grassroots create a lot of knowledge. The soft areas like attitudinal change, receptivity, participation form the basis for further research and the hard areas come out as facts that are used as starting points for various issue based studies that probe deeper into the problem and devise appropriate solutions.
• Process or Knowledge synthesis stage: Knowledge synthesis happens through rural research center at IRRAD who constantly search for social and economic strategies for combating poverty. This begins by studying the socio-demographic profile of the community before any interventions are done, assessing impact of programs, determining key indicators of progress, monitoring and evaluation of impacts both at micro and macro levels. The synthesis involves collecting new data and giving the already generated content a shape and form which can be shared by the external audiences through studies, academic papers, and statistical data.
• System or Knowledge dissemination stage: The Policy, Governance and Advocacy center at IRRAD creates a platform to empower rural communities and sensitize policy makers. It works for the dissemination of the knowledge created at the grassroots by preparing a skill pool of trained people who can affect good rural governance. It lends a voice to the marginalized such that they understand existing policies and demand their entitlements.

Stakeholders

There is a general feeling among the donors that in the not-for-profit sector there is a lot of wastage and lack of accountability. Also the communities whom the not-for-profit sector works for are also skeptical initially. The organization thus has to walk the tightrope in order to create a fine balance between the two. IRRAD has tried to do justice to both by applying good business principles to achieve results for the organization. In order to create a multiplier effect of the development interventions, IRRAD formulated an integrated model for sustainable development of the villages called ISVD.
The key issues of trust building, non-availability and inconsistent information are addressed through four centers at IRRAD which specifically follow the knowledge dynamics. According to William Pollard, “Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit.”

To put forth a concerted effort to provide accurate, consistent and reliable information to our stakeholders, IRRAD uses a number of mediums to share information. Few of the information dissemination tools used by IRRAD are:

• Publications like Annual Reports, newsletters-Vikas Patrika (printed newsletter in the local language)
• Electronic
• Website, an e-newsletter called IRRAD Connect
• Information Education Communication (IEC) materials
• Posters, Training Manuals, Recknors, project information models, charts.
• Case Studies
• Videos, before after change photos.
• Awareness Rallies
• Presence in mass media
• Facilitating feedback
• Seminars and workshops
• Street theatre

About the initiative

Tools for grassroots:

• Vikas Patrika: A development quarterly which highlights the stories of change and important developments at the grassroots.
• ICTs for development:

1. Mobile telephony for the Project Implementation Team has abridged the gap between the core team and the field team.
2. Computer literacy at the grassroots for rural youth

• IEC Materials: Information-Education-Communication, the multi pronged approach to development has been instituted all across the programs. Each new intervention is introduced through proper groundwork, supplying project literature to the beneficiaries and preparing promotional material to ensure multiplier effect of the information.
• Trainings and meetings: Effective tools to empower people. Trainings are an integral part of the development dynamics. IRRAD lays special emphasis on training grassroots people and build their capacities in such a way that they catalyze, plan and manage their own agenda for change.
• Exposure visits and demonstrations: Building on the premise of Seeing is believing, the beneficiaries are taken on exposure visits to see for themselves the impacts of interventions and subsequently adopt the same in their households. Demonstrations are set up at community centers to showcase the possible impacts that interventions could have.
• Resource and Training Centers: Farmers Resource centers provide accurate and timely information to farmers relating to agricultural practices, seeds, cropping patters.
• Life Skills education centers: These centers train adolescents on how to make informed choices for a better future by giving them basic reading and writing and stitching and embroidery skills.

A holistic framework: Cross cutting issues relating to information dissemination leading to transparency and credibility are also served through the four centers of IRRAD.

• Trainings: for village champions, social scientists, volunteers, and other NGOs.

1. Scope: The scope of trainings spans through a wide spectrum of subjects ranging from Trainings of Village Champions on ISVD, ToTs on NREGA, RTI, research methodologies, documentation, gender sensitization, water management technologies like bio sand filters, recharge wells, roof water harvesting, Training of health volunteers, instructors at Life Skills Education centers to vocational training of youth in computers, electronics, mobile phone repairs.
2. Approach: Sincere efforts are made to make the trainings participatory and open feedback is encouraged from the trainees, which is again ploughed back into making the trainings more effective in future.

• Project Implementation at grassroots based on Integrated Sustainable Village Development (ISVD)

1. Scope: ISVD has five programs ensuring holistic development of a village viz. water management, income enhancement, life skills education, rural health and alternative energy.
2. Approach: All the five programs are backed by Community Mobilization which begins by listening to the villagers, encouraging them to take initiative. A bottoms up approach is followed and all interventions are affected by blending traditional knowledge with technological innovation. A detailed blueprint is discussed to suit the local needs subsequently. Once the buy in from the community is ensured, the community comes forward to contribute either in cash or kind in the project.

• Rural Research: undertakes research and injects innovation into ISVD

1. Scope: Assessing impact of ISVD programs, determining key indicators of progress, and monitoring them regularly and analyzing the socio-economic and demographic indicators that influence rural development and poverty, at both micro (household/village) and macro (state and national) levels. It promotes action research with a people centered approach.

2. Approach: Constant search for social and economic strategies for combating poverty at the grassroots level that are both creative and feasible. These strategies are backed by authentic data collection from the field which is pilot tested in the first phase to incorporate corrective action if any, verification of the data thus collected and interpreting the same for formulation and effective implementation of development programs.

• Policy, Governance and Advocacy: a leading information resource for policy makers, based on hands-on experience, for wider impact.

1. Scope: To affect good governance at the grassroots, the policy center conducts trainings to prepare future leaders in the community who are aware of their rights and can get access to those entitlements.
2. Approach: Participatory, task driven. The trainees are given time bound tasks to actually get things done at the village level by engaging in dialogue with the government representatives, create awareness in the community and build capacities of fellow villagers such that things happen to change.

Impact – Outcome

With a strong belief in integrated models of rural development, IRRAD’s ISVD model impacts 17 villages through water management, income enhancement, education, health and alternative energy. As a result of these interventions, 32000 people in the villages across Mewat are on the path of becoming self sufficient. Water harvesting structures (30 check dams, 24 recharge wells, 20 new wells, 17 roof water harvesting units) have quenched the thirst of many villagers; 2526 farmers gained better access to inputs, support and markets; 2000 girls who had never seen the inside of a classroom graduated from skill centers and access to better health services have given a new lease of life to the apathy in the villages.

Implementing an enterprise-wide social media architecture that cuts across all issues can go a long way in building visibility for the organization and unleash opportunities. Other related social media deployment benefits are:

• Forming rewarding and mutually beneficial partnerships
• Attracting additional resources for expansion of project
• Catalyzing new initiatives that scale up the established model to new area
• Meeting organizations objectives
• Monitoring, verifying, and correcting information errors to sustain the flow of information
• Enhancing security and control

We quote the website as an example to know the measurable outreach of the medium:
Time period of reference: June 14- July 14, 2009
Visits: 98
Page views: 545
Pages/visit: 5.56
Average time on site: 4.04 min
New Visits: 89.80%
Bounce Rate: 28.57%
Traffic Sources Overview:

• Search Engines 61.00 (62.24%)
• Direct Traffic 26.00 (26.53%
• Referring Sites 11.00 (11.22%)

Most viewed pages: About Us, Team, Work locations

Learnings

Tradition of Tolerance
Meos of Mewat depict a tale of sheer neglect. The inhabitants, mostly the Meo tribals are agriculturalists and have distinct ethnic and socio-cultural features. Though the Meos had converted to Islam during the Tughlak dynasty in the 14th century, they have preserved many social and cultural traits of the Hindu kshatriyas. Historically, the region has been subject to many invasions and plundering. It has remained one of the ‘most under-developed regions’ of India; even though it is located within the prosperous state of Haryana. Mewat represents some of the lowest social indices whether infant mortality, literacy, male-female sex ratio, or development indices, such as, availability of clean water, physical or electronic connectivity, etc.
All the historic upheavals led the community devoid of even the basic amenities and the dignity and quality of life guaranteed by the Indian constitution. When we started out to work in the villages, initially four, we were clear that we would be catalysts for programs for which the government has the primary responsibility, such as, curative health and education.

Second, for our own programs, we thought it is important to prioritize based on what the community wants, mobilize the community and involve them in the implementation of the programs.
The challenges faced by IRRAD while implementing social media tools passed us through a set of learnings, which made us look back and take recourse or amend our existing approach. Any development intervention can be a success only when the community believes in it and is capacitated to sustain and take it forward. Social media can play a convincing role in building favorable rapport with the community members such that they come forward and extend their supporting hand to all development interventions.

Situation Analysis and Communication Research
No communication activities can be expected to succeed without a prior understanding of how the people to be affected by a project perceive their own problems and the development options being proposed, what they aspire to, how they obtain and exchange information, which media sources and interpersonal channels enjoy the most credibility, and so on.

Such information may already be available when a project is being formulated, but if not, it will need to be obtained, for it is this information which determines many of the features of a communication plan, including the message design, the most appropriate media and channels to use, and how and when to use them. Part of the research may consist of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) survey regarding the innovations being proposed by the project.

What matters and what doesn’t: When IRRAD began its work in 1999, its team had rather naively considered focusing only on agricultural improvements and population issues. However, after talking to villagers, it quickly realized that the farmers and their families faced myriad problems. First and foremost, they were desperate for water. In some villages the female literacy was only 2%. In one typical village, only two out of 200 households had toilets. The average woman had seven children with hardly any healthcare facilities…and the list goes on and on. The above issues gave a completely different picture of the needs in the society and accordingly the social media strategy underwent a change.

What Next

IRRAD will continue to strengthen the ideals of information integrity and empower the village communities by providing them with information that can create awareness and further their well-being in society. The gap between “India” and “Bharat” can be bridged by effective information inclusion of people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Reasoning

No single medium is better than any other. Circumstances and the requirements of the development project dictate which should be used. Audience research concerning what media the people have access to and which enjoy credibility, and what is actually available or could be realistically established, greatly influence the choice. However, it should be remembered that a message arriving in a slightly different form and through different channels has the most impact in helping people towards behavioral change. Hence, multi-media approaches are usually the most effective.
It should be stressed, however, that behavioral change is seldom the result of exposure to media alone; most people require face-to-face discussion with someone more knowledgeable or experienced than themselves before they can make their own judgment and try an innovation. In effect, any information received has to be absorbed and evaluated for its usefulness and appropriateness in the recipients’ circumstances before they will act on it. Discussion is an essential element in this process.

The main features and steps of implementing social media activity, which makes the initiative unique are:

• Communication process for participatory planning
• Identifying the target audience in each program
• Setting Objectives for the attitude and behavior necessary from each audience
• Audience analysis
• Communication plan for each target audience
• Message design
• Training of field agents –Interpersonal Communication
• Ongoing monitoring and evaluation
• The information resulting from the monitoring is fed back into the implementation.
• Induction about the foundation to the new joiners for the better productivity

Credits Strategy

Self

Credits Execution

Self and external

Testimonials

Awards and Partnerships:
Finalist for Excellence in Information Integrity 2009 by Information Integrity Council’; ‘Distinguished Water NGO 2009-10 Revival of Rural Water Resources by UNESCO and Water Digest’; ‘Best Water NGO 2008-09 in Revival of Rural Water Resources’; ‘Best Water NGO 2007-2008 in Water Harvesting’, Award by Water Digest and UNESCO; premium organization for undertaking water resource management in Mewat, by Mewat Development Agency, 2008; Pinnacle NRI Award 2007, by NRI Institute; member-2007, CII National Committee on Industry NGO partnerships; Golden Peacock Award Finalist, by Institute of Directors, 2006; Samaj Gaurav Samman, National Award 2006, by Manav Dharm Mission; awarded a Consultative Status with United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), ongoing since 2005; member of Clinton Global Initiative, ongoing since 2005; fellows of Jamshetji Tata National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity since 2005; implementing member of UNDP and the Government of In dia’s Endogenous Tourism Program since 2005; member of Credibility Alliance, ongoing since 2005; Bharat Samman Award 2005, NRI Institute; member of IndianNGO.com, ongoing since 2005; recognition for implementing the ‘better life options program’ for adolescent girls in India, by Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), 2005; member of ICRISAT Hybrid Parent Research Consortia on Pearl Millet, Sorghum and Pigeon Pea ongoing since 2004; designated organization of the Institute of Rural Management (IRMA), Anand since 2004; founder member of India Development Coalition of America (IDCA), 2003.

IRRAD’s reviews on Great Nonprofits

Factsheet

Name of the company:Institute of Rural Research and Development
Number of Employees:101-200
Category: Not-for-profit institution
Case submitted by: Arti Manchanda, Communication Associate
Website: http://www.irrad.org

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