It's payback time
- The Hindu Staff Reporter

AID-India, a team of young Indians, works with a passion to bring about social change in the country. SUDHISH KAMATH reports...

SWADES MITR Together for a better tomorrow

About 15 years ago, a 21-year-old IITian in America, raised $3000 to send to organisations working in India at the grassroots-level. It was the start of something big. Something that spread to 40 chapters around the United States. Something that inspired a generation of NRIs to return home and provide electricity to villages in Maharashtra, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. Yes, something that spawned a Shah Rukh Khan film. Something that today affects the lives of seven lakh children in 1000 schools and 10,000 villages in Tamil Nadu. And, something that today raises and spends six crore rupees a year - a long way from the $3000 that started it all.

AID-India is quite something - one of those rare organisations that fights shy of publicity and considers its volunteer base more valuable than money. “When people feel that an organisation is somebody’s baby, they don’t feel ownership. The fact that it is a collective effort keeps people together and helps us get work done,” says Balaji Sampath, secretary, AID-India.

While he was in the United States to do his Ph.D., the Electronics student from IIT found that a lot of his friends wanted to do something for India. “The only thing we could do was raise funds and send money to support organisations. I contacted my friends, their friends and collected email IDs. It was the first SPAM kind of mail,” he laughs. “As we grew, more people got involved from the social sciences and economics backgrounds. If four engineers sit together, they will be looking at the technology, how to do things and the flowchart... An economics or a social science person would try and study the caste equation here and lend a new perspective.”

Balaji used his two-month breaks in India to visit the villages and see how the money raised was utilised by NGOs. He would then prepare a report and send it to donors. He hardly spent time with his parents. “They were angry and very worried” since social work wasn’t a career option back then. He came up with a plan to use the interest of his savings (he saved most of the money from his fellowship by walking to college) to sustain himself while he pursued his passion. He miscalculated and ended up using his savings. “I started my IIT classes, part-time teaching and stopped depending on AID. I wanted to keep my own financial requirement separate from the organisation,” he says. “Some of my students and juniors joined me and it became viable. As we started growing, apart from AID, Asha and Pratham lent support, UNICEF and other corporate foundations contributed.”

Having gained experience in working with children, he realised that education and health were of primary importance in shaping the new generation. “Government schools and public health institutions must be strengthened because it’s their duty to deliver quality education and health. We work closely with the Government. Not by confrontation but in conjunction.”

“Teachers are the ones who improve the quality of education. We see how their work can be made more effective. We do a lot of research and development, and provide them with extra training and material,” he says, talking about AID-India’s Eureka Child initiative. Since Balaji started AID-India in Chennai, it’s considered to be the headquarters. “It’s just quarters,” he laughs. “The head part is not really true because they (the other groups around the country) are all doing things on their own.”

Different places in the country needed different approaches. “In Bihar, we provided solar lighting to 100 villages. In Srikakulam, the group works with the Electricity Board and gives the money as a loan to the family to get electricity meters because the initial set-up cost is high. In Maharashtra, it was hydro-electricity.”

“If I project that we are doing great work, then I am devaluing what the teachers are doing,” he says, explaining why AID stays off-media. “I don’t need the publicity but I need the school-teacher to get the work done. Our strength is that people do not want projection, they just want to get work done. Most organisations break up over who gets more credit.”

The team

Chandra Viswanathan: This BITS Pilani graduate quit her job to work for AID-India on a lesser salary.

Ravishankar Arunchalam: Balaji’s junior in IIT, he quit his MNC job to start teaching in IIT so that he could spend more time with AID-India.

Damodaran Muniyan: Having lost his mother at a young age and born into a landless Dalit family, Damu struggled as a student. But once he joined AID-India, he started writing, went on to do his Masters in Anthropology and complete his M.Phil. Today, he’s one of the key decision-makers at AID-India.

Gomathi: She joined AID-India immediately after college and coordinates a lot of their programmes.

Jayaram Venkatesh: He was working in the U.S., returned to India to join a MNC and then quit his job to join AID-India.

Rajapandian: He had completed only class 10 but later went on to finish his higher secondary after joining AID-India and now works closely with teachers in the Eureka Child programme.

- 9 May 2009, The Hindu, Mero Plus, Chennai.

Online Edition: http://www.hindu.com/mp/2009/05/09/stories/2009050951371200.htm