Went to GowriPalya this saturday, to meet / interact / contribute with people who are involved in sponsoring poor children for their school fee / books etc, children who otherwise would have been unable to attend schools due to financial constraints. Well, this is something good, and something commendable, but definitely not as exciting or as 'effective in the short term at least' as the other work which was going on there and which I was privileged to witness.

There were people, like Tazayun Umar of Aalim education trust/Human touch NGO, and her team and a set of dedicated volunteers (IT professionals among them), and the very dedicated and energetic Mohammad Shafiullah, who had told me about this and had asked me to come there. The management of this big exercise coming from a volunteer who happens to be an alumni of the famed IIM.
And these people were trying to do to the poor of Bangalore what Mohd Younis did to the poor of Bangladesh. Yes, they have launched a micro credit scheme ... where women are given loans, interest free, and without having to pledge anything for the loan. With that loan the women can start some small business [say getting a sewing machine and with which to stitch clothes] - which would guarantee them a steady income, some part of which would be used for the repayment of the loans. Women were asked to come in groups of 5, and in the beginning only one of them would be given the loan, and loan to others will depend on how the persons of that group, who have been given loans, are repaying it ... So there would be a peer pressure on them to repay it.


It was a really nice thing to witness ... All these days, I used to crib to myself - that most, or (in fact I used to think all of us, including myself) do not do anything on the ground, on the field, we are limited to airing our views in our comfortable drawing rooms over a cup of coffee over a weekend - and feel happy that we thought about the poor, the not so privileged ...

But this weekend visit there changed it ... there are people among us who are doing work in the field - devoting their time, energy, money ...

Salute to them.