Teaching poor people to fish also involves enabling them to get to the river. Sangitha explains the processes that MYRADA uses to build institutions.

Capacity building refers to the standard ‘teach a man to fish’ versus ‘giving the fish’. The ‘management’ part of building capacity is helping NGOs deliver their mission better. Some capacity building is standard for any organization – human resources, financial management, leadership, administrative processes, etc. Every one of these areas has a lot in common with how mainstream companies are managed except for one very fundamental difference – the non-profit mission of the NGO.

The tougher part of capacity building is enabling the beneficiary community to become independent. MYRADA’s tag line says it all – building poor people’s institutions. MYRADA thus says that it is not enough to teach someone to fish when they can’t reach the river because of deeply ingrained societal hurdles like caste, class, tradition and gender.

To this end, MYRADA has two kinds of capacity building that they focus on:

Institutional capacity building: Self Help Affinity Groups (SAGs) are assisted with the tools of being an institution (taught to save, keep records, get audited, set an agenda, have productive meetings, etc. in 24 training modules). “We teach them to save and bank their savings, THEY decide how to spend”, says Mr. A Fernandez, Executive Director, MYRADA. Currently, there are around 12,000 SAGs in three of the southern states, including groups of sex workers, watershed area groups and farmer groups. Once the SAG has been in existence for a year, MYRADA assists in getting a loan for the entire group. In order to get banks to lend to these unregistered groups, without asking for the purpose of the loan and without physical collateral, MYRADA lobbied to change banking policy in 1989-90.

“No other country has this kind of a progressive banking policy” says Mr. Fernandez. In 1992, a SHG-Bank Linkage program was put in place by RBI and NABARD to assist bankers in executing the policy. Since the funds are a combination of their own savings, interest from this savings and the bank loan, the group has a personal stake in ensuring utilization and repayment. “The ‘Affinity’ part of the group name refers to internal bonds that members have before they join MYRADA. This is one factor that translates into timely repayment”, says Mr. Meenakshisundaram, Executive Vice Chairman at MYRADA. After 8 years, MYRADA found that the SAGs had progressed enough to be mentored by the Community Managed Resource Centres (CMRCs), registered societies of 100 – 120 affinity groups, or become part of a ‘Federation’ of 10 – 20 groups, which assists in ironing out the group’s problems monthly. MYRADA has around 90 CMRCs and 116 Federations currently. This is the second or middle level of representative peoples’ institutions.

At the third and highest level of institution building are organizations dedicated to the poor. These are institutions that provide loans, training and research. Sanghamitra is a Section 25 non-profit company that only lends to poor self help affinity groups. Ten formal and two non-formal skills training centres train beneficiaries and the MYRADA Krishi Vigyan Kendra provides the research basis for projects. At this level, MYRADA hives off organizations that act like itself, having cloned themselves at the base level, with the understanding that these ‘children’ shall behave like the ‘parent’ ( MYRADA) in their philosophy. The link between MYRADA and its child organization is maintained by having senior management at MYRADA as Chairpersons and 2 – 4 senior staff on the governing board. Currently, MYKAP is a MYRADA child that covers the Mysore area, after 20 years of functioning within MYRADA.

Skill building: The other area that MYRADA focuses on is development of organizational and related skills. Mr. Fernandez with his trademark humour says, “Our training philosophy is very simple, we only train in what we have done!” The training centres are situated in MYRADA’s projects and are augmented by practical experience. The courses are full most days of the year – priced very reasonably, outside the cities with clean and no-frills accommodation and with 5 – 15 employees that train the poor.
The two non-formal training centres deal with skills like welding, tailoring, garment-making and fitting. “In our experience, garment making has been more effective in poverty alleviation than IT!” says Mr. Fernandez, with a smile.

Practising what is preached
The fact that it is a successful organization that models what it trains for is evident in the way things are managed. All entities at MYRADA are set up to be financially independent and self-sustaining. The head office has raised a corpus for its operations (through staff consultancy and matching grants from CIDA and the Ford Foundation) and does not depend on any other entity/donor for its funds. Salaries are comparatively low and the number of full time staff at the head office has remained the same since 1986. “This gives MYRADA the independence to choose what to do and refuse what it does not want to be involved in”, says the management at the head office.
Groups at the base level are independent in funding and management and develop to be able to cover all their costs. The training centres charge reasonable fees yet cover costs as they are situated within the project and do not advertise. The CMRCs charge for all that they provide the SAGs and 35 of the 90 have broken even in operations. Sanghamitra broke even in its third year of functioning, despite keeping interest rates below 15% on a declining basis.

The organization of these institutions within the MYRADA framework is also very interesting with a mix of all kinds of legal entities – for profit companies, non-profit section 25 companies, societies, associations and unregistered groups.

MYRADA calls its self an ACTIONIST NGO and is clear on working at the field level at all times in order to provide the basis for instituting policy changes. Some findings from MYRADA’s case studies are powerful and extremely useful to other Indian organizations that work in development: it is indicated that a member needs at least 8 years in a well-functioning SAG, during which time he takes 15 – 20 loans totalling between Rs. 1.5 to Rs. 3 lakhs to put them above the poverty line and keep them there.

After my interaction with Mr. Fernandez and Mr. Meenakshisundaram I came away knowing that I will never look at fishing the same way again.

Contact
www.myrada.org
Email: myrada@vsnl.com
Head Office:
No.2, Service Road, Domlur Layout
Bangalore 560 071.

Ph: (080)25352028, (080) 25353166, (080) 25354457