Dear All,

As always, it is a pleasure to bring you our WIN Foundation newsletter, and we are happy to share experiences of grassroot innovations in this April-June 2023 quarter issue of the  WIN Newsletter.

The onset of monsoon brings hopes of good monsoon, with simultaneous worries about poor or erratic monsoon, impacted further by the climate change. Large parts of Gujarat faced full fury of the cyclone Biparjoy. While the advance forecast prevented any large scale human deaths, the damage to property is substantial. At the time of writing, July has seen a strong monsoon with flooding in several parts of India. The rains of course have also started filling up reservoirs.

Erratic monsoon and floods, including flooding within cities, bring home the strong need for water conservation in rural and urban areas, to prevent flooding as well as save water for the post-monsoon seasons.

Our continuing partnership with Arid Communities and Technologies has taken water conservation in several new areas, alongside training of village level "Bhujal Jankars", who will act as champions for water in their villages. Our other partner Samerth has implemented RRWH and water body strengthening projects. In all these locations, citizens benefit from rainwater collected through such structures. Nearly 10 MCM water deficit has been bridged in this areas with participatory processes.

Our Science in Action series focuses on Student involvement in Social Impact projects. Our young generation, particularly students, are a major asset for the country. The students can get unique experience of direct interaction with communities and customers through exposure to social impact projects. The communities and NGOs get exposed to new technologies, new ideas and novel solutions from students. WIN foundation offers students from leading universities internships, project visits and short project assignments. A few examples of highly encouraging results: (i) A full communications suite design for our women nutri-preneurs by students from Institute of Design - Nirma University, and (ii) approach to drone application for smart agriculture and water management for marginal farmers by interns at the Robotics and Drone Lab at IIT Gandhinagar. We have just touched the tip of iceberg here and look forward to engage with more students and campuses.

The Vishwakarma Innovation competition is in full swing and WIN Foundation is partner again for Maker Bhavan for water and sanitation track.

On nutrition front, Mr. Ron Mehta, President, WIN Foundation, interacted with our women nutri-preneurs during digital training session conducted at Ahmedabad. Over 500 women nutri-gardeners prepared for monsoon season plantation with a series of learning cum discussion sessions with Mr. Lokendra Balasaria, a reputed architect and Founder of Treewalk group, in addition to support from the NGO partners and bodies like Krishi Vigyan Kendra.

We welcome further collaborative efforts in these domains and look forward to your comments and suggestions at info@winfoundations.org.

Paresh Vora
Director - India Operations

Latest Updates

Water and Sanitation 

Participatory Groundwater Management :

Our partner, Arid Communities and Technologies (ACT),  has pioneered a sustainable participatory approach in mitigating water related issues at the local level and also introduced people centric technological solutions through WIN support. Training and capacity building of 3377 members of Ground Water User Groups participants (2529 men and 848 women), belonging to various stakeholder groups has been done through K-MARC Center of Excellence. Through these interventions the water deficit has reduced from 32.89 MCM to 23.74 MCM over 4 years.   The PGWM process is now introduced in 233 villages of diverse hydrogeological regions. These include 19 Villages of Mandvi and Mundra Block, 34 villages in the Abdasa block, 145 Villages of Atal Bhujal Yojana, 35 Villages of Coastal area of Khambhaliya, and 3 Villages of Dhragandhara.

Our project with ACT and IIT Gandhinagar, in 2 villages of Mehsana district, is progressing with aim for developing Ravine management practices and training to control and scale back erosion due to ravines. Simultaneously, IIT Gandhinagar is working on topographic and climatic impact on surface – groundwater dynamics, ravine land development and socio-economic impact.

An article authored by  Dr. Soumi Roy Chowdhury , Prof. Deepak Singhania, Ms. Shradhda Jain, on a socio-economic study was published on "Down to Earth" and is available at link: https://win-f.org/iitgn-src-ds-sj-article-26jun23

Samerth's new water conservation project in Rapar taluka, Kutch district, aims to create or strengthen water bodies in 8 villages and will provide water to an extremely deprived population for personal, dairy and farm use.  The "Jaldoots" trained under Samerth's earlier project at Samakhiali, are now actively spreading awareness on Rainwater harvesting in the villages and also giving pre-monsoon preparation training and will plan post monsoon activities  to the local villagers.


Mother and Child Nutrition - Health

WIN nutrition projects, based on Local Market Creation strategy, using dual Push (Supply) and Pull (Demand) approach, continue to make steady progress, with over 150 women nutri-prenuers associated with us through Saath, Samerth and ACT. Several of our women nutri-preneurs, having launched their products, are now focusing on learning, up-scaling their sales through schools, stalls and community events, while developing new nutrition products.

Saath Charitable Trust started a new nutrition project at Fatehwadi, Ahmedabad, to add to their current projects at Vasna, Danilimda, Behrampura in- Ahmedabad and one in Jaipur.  WIN has a  Central Kitchen at each of these project areas, and we are continuously upgrading the equipment at each kitchen, to enable women to cook diverse dishes at higher production level. WiN nutrition staff regularly has started knowledge sessions including that on nutrition and safety.

Samerth Charitable Trust has started the accelerator phase (phase 2), which includes (i) taking existing nutri-preneurs to a higher revenue levels and (ii) inducting a new batch of women nutri-preneurs with strong emphasis on adolescent girls.

With emphasis on  the critical area of mother and child nutrition, we have extended our support to SMDT with the  focus on `Training on “Maternal & Child Nutrition”  on the concept of  '1st 1000 days nutrition’ , covering the critical stages including mother’s nutrition  right from conception, newborn nutrition by breastfeeding and subsequently additional food – up to approx. 2 years of age of the child.

Nutri-garden Initiative : 

With partners  Arid Communities and Technologies, Samerth Charitable Trust  and Saath Livelihoods, we are training over 500 women nutri-gardeners, and then supporting them with seeds and bio-inputs, covering the  geographical areas of Abdasa, Rapar, Mandvi, Mundra, Bhuj in Kutch district, and Khambhalia in Dwarka district.  Mr. Lokendrabhai Balsaria from Treewalks led the Pre-monsoon training sessions under this project, providing guidance  for monsoon and post monsoon sessions. The local Krishi Vigyan Kendra centres are also providing support.

Innovation and Microentrepreneurship Support :

Innovative Technologies: 

WIN Foundation continues to support several startups with its product market validation support program.
 

  • WIN Foundation signed an agreement for 8 arsenic removal plants for arsenic removal plants to be installed in rural Bihar, with VAS Bros. Ent. Pvt. Ltd. The plants use a technology developed at IIT Kharagpur. It uses a media processed from laterite, abundantly available in soil in eastern India.
  • In partnership with ACT, we are in process of deploying a plant for sewage treatment plant with 50 KLD capacity from Tellus Habitat (http://tellushabitat.com/), Bangalore, at village Kokaliya in Kutch District. Tellus Habitat won the WIN award at the National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition(NBEC) 2023, for this technology.
  • We have extended our support to Solinas Integrity (https://www.solinas.in/), to help deploy a Septic tank cleaning robotic system in Chhattisgarh, through our project partner, Samerth Charitable trust. This product, developed at IIT Madras, was the WIN award winner at NBEC 2019,
  • We have purchased 4 units of soil-less vertical gardening equipment using coco-ponics from Hydrogreens (https://hydrogreenfodder.com/) Bangalore, to be used by at our partners and WIN with aim to train our women nutri-gardeners to learn and use such technologies.
  • WIN supported and coordinated visit by Dr. Romita Ghosh and her team from MAAP (https://www.maap.tech/), to 3 balghars at Ahmedabad, through our partner - Saath,  to run a pilot test of AI/ML app developed by them for monitoring children growth and height.

Micro-enterpreneursip  support: 

- The 2nd edition of our WhatsApp Business Training for microenterprises, launched on 20th June 2023, saw the participation of around 35 nominations from three NGO partners.
  • - This experiential  training enables our nutri-prenuers to implement their e-commerce presence on WhatsApp for business at no cost, during the 1 month training program and start their digital businesses through this. 
 - The leading implementers will be  facilitated in an Award function which will be scheduled in the month of August'23. 
Science in Action Series - 6

Student Internships and Projects with Communities -
a WIN-WIN for both as well as the country.

Students as the New-Gen leaders bringing learning, ideas, energy to Social Impact projects

An overview by WIN Foundation 

 Mr.Paresh Vora, Shanti Menon, WIN Foundation 

Introduction :

India is blessed with a talented young population. Our students, from diverse backgrounds and with enormous information exposure of today, have strong capabilities to understand complex issues and take informed decisions. So WIN Foundation is confident that is they are introduced to the grass root communities and the social impact world, through our projects, they can develop excellent understanding and empathy for the challenges facing our less privileged communities and contribute towards ideas, strategies and plans in our culturally diverse, democratic society.

Students exposure to communities and social impact projects will:

  • Help them see parts of diverse communities, lifestyle, constraints - which they may not have seen in their own life earlier.

  • Helps them see and comprehend firsthand the complexity and ambiguity inherent in social systems

  • Helps them to see challenges for such communities and also think of opportunities with new generation ideas and solutions, building upon their learning from academic world

  • Build confidence of interacting at different levels in diverse communities across rural, tribal and urban lower middle class areas.

  • Build strong personal and interpersonal development, particularly the ability to work well with others, and hone their leadership and communication skills.

NGO’s and Communities in turn will: 
  • Get new ideas including new technologies, management processes, IT applications etc. 
  • Get opportunity to increase the human resources focused on specific projects for tasks like surveys, measurements, data analysis, etc.
  • NGOs and communities usually do not have access to and cannot afford consultants from the market for above.

In India, knowledge and technology translation to the filed, and particularly in social impact domains,  is lacking due to:

  • Lack of connect between academia and field practitioners
  • Lack of connect between those with strong management and technology competencies and those who implement things on the field either as skilled or as unskilled workers. 
WIN Foundation is actively promoting student involvement in its projects by bringing students at various levels, from bachelors to Phd/Post-Doc, This helps in following ways
  • It helps to transfer expert knowledge and technology to the field implementers.
  • Students take the problems and challenges observed back to their institutions, where with faculty guidance, resources like labs and library, work to develop more mature solutions/approaches. Thus they help build bridges between institutions and communities.
  • Students, due to their sheer numbers, can also help in tasks which require basic skills and knowledge in large numbers - e.g. surveying, trying out multiple solutions, etc. This would be either infeasible or too expensive by normal means

Partial List of student projects and internships:

 
 















Summary:-
This new generation, through skills and knowledge acquired through such on ground experiences, will emerge as innovative problem solvers for myriad challenges facing India and the world. Whether they go on to become employees, social entrepreneurs, policy-makers, or community leaders, they will have the tools and mindset needed to make a meaningful impact on society, and also have fruitful careers.
Students Involvement in Field Projects
ACT (Arid and Communities and Technologies Ltd) 
 
Author- Dr. Yogesh Jadeja, Founder and Director, Arid Communities and Technologies 
(https://act-india.org/)

While working on groundwater management projects, we, at Arid Communities and Technologies (ACT),  strongly felt that the fresh students of geology, engineering and agriculture sectors have very limited field level practical knowledge. Also, the limited  external and grassroot exposure  in our education system results in narrow and restricted mindset among students. This, in turn, limits their output as when they join organizations. On the other hand,  many projects have specific need of data in volume, which is difficult to measure or acquire  due to lack of sufficient human resources within the organization.
 
To resolve these constraints the students have been considered as critical mass. There are many courses at master and bachelor level e.g., geology, agriculture, etc. have field-based activities such as project work, dissertation work etc.  To use this as an opportunity to influence education system and to built capacities of students in integrated manner, ACT has begun to invite students for various activities required for resource mapping and management. University’s geology departments have been contacted and offered student’s field work along with provision of Co-guide and some actual expenses support. This has helped ACT to create huge database and mapping, while the students gained actual field level practical knowledge on groundwater, geology and its social application.
 
Gradually, based on evolution in our projects, we have also involved students from other disciplines . At present ACT is regularly inviting students from universities across state and country.
 
The type of collaboration has also evolved over time. Some of these are:
 
(i) ACT’s members are going as visiting faculty for teaching hydro-geology,
(ii) Institutes like TISS are regularly organizing winter schools in ACT’s field areas,
(iii) NIRMA and CEPT universities students are visiting ACT for studio.
 
In addition to this now ACT is entered in formal MoU with many academic institutes. ACT also has collaboration with Gujarat Vidyapith and is running one 02 credit water resource management course in one of Vidyapeeth’s programs.
 
Students ranging from bachelor, Master and PhD studies get engaged with our projects.
 
The collaboration with WIN has resulted in greater association, including joint projects, with premier institutions like  IIT, under suitable multiparty MOUs. That has also helped bring greater scientific and technology content in our our project implementation and documentation, and creates a larger potential to influence policy as well as training content for scaling up the process.
 
Conclusion
 
The entire process has helped ACT to bring  interdisciplinary and transformational grassroot level experiences to the mainstream education system. Simultaneously ACT and the communities have also benefited by this process in following ways:  
  • Data collection, Mapping of natural resources, Scientific approach and Research
  • Process documentation
  • Evaluation of project and Impact assessment
  • Generation of various training content and material, and outreach activities
  • Cost effective implementation of projects
  • Potential to recruit talented and committed students,  from those who have worked on our projects 
 The students have benefited in following ways: 
  • Understanding grassroot level communities and challenges through practical field experiences
  • Academic gain in terms of Improved ability to convert textbook knowledge to ground
  • Change in mindset
  • Resource support for project work
  • Greater effectiveness in job due to their grassroot exposure and understanding

'It was a very fruitful experience with both WIN Foundation and Technologies (ACT). Throughout my internship, I learnt about ways in which groundwater can be replenished and through the lived experiences of the farmers I realised how important water is for a person! And when small things are done for them, their life changes for good.
Also, unlike other internships I got a golden chance to live with these people, understand their struggle, their life. I was lucky to get such opportunity to work with such wonderful team which would indeed help me in my future goals. One should definitely experience such moments of simplicity, satisfaction and serenity in life'
- Rudra Shukla,3rd year Student of Bachelors of Urban Design.  CEPT University 
An Interview with Dr.Sangita Shroff, Dean & Director, Institute of Design 
Nirma University (IDNU)
                     (https://design.nirmauni.ac.in/author/sshroff/)

1. How does Nirma and particularly IDNU see the Importance of social impact work with grassroot interaction with communities and NGOs for students during their program?
 
Social Design is a significant discipline of design. Being a human centred profession, design professes innovation and creativity. In recent times, the start up movement has witnessed the coming together of technology, business and design.

Design for startups that work towards social and economic transformation, is an important mandate of the Institute of Design. Bringing in projects related to this in the classroom, makes students empathetic to communities, where Design strategies have to address social and economic issues as they are important parameters.

Students world view enlarges and they get sensitised to another paradigm of communication requirements.
 
2. How does IDNU try to build this into their programs - in courses, internships, NSS and other means? What are some major challenges involved in this?
 
The Institute of Design, at Nirma University has multi-pronged community immersion. Rural exposure and Documentation (RED)
is the first stage of orientation. Here the students of 1st year, get oriented to a rural based social organization that uses design for social change.

The next stage is the immersion with the National Social Service program in the 2nd year and 3rd year, when students work with another social enterprise/organization. IDNU has signed an MOU with WIN India and ACT (Arid Communities & Technology, Kutch). Every year 25-30 students along with 3 faculty members work intensively for a week on field and another 3 weeks on campus, to deliver communication material such as Films, Illustrated books, training materials etc. Students are encouraged to do their 18 weeks Degree/Major Research Project in their 4th year with the MoU partners.

The 3rd stage of engagement is in Classroom projects in the senior years. here Visual Branding strategies, Plans and actual design communication materia is delivered to the partners. This year 12 students worked with WIN India and Saath to create brand identity and packaging and marketing communication for the Nutri- preneurs of the Vasna cluster in Ahmedabad.

3. How does IDNU try to build benefits for the communities into these student projects/internships? How do the faculty and management at IDNU work to ensure this by guiding and motivating students?
 
We worked together with WIN and SAATH in April and May 2023. The collaboration is best expressed in the animation film and jingle created by our students 

“SAATH SAATH sab chale saath, sab milke WIN kare aaj
Nacho laddoo sukhadi khaye, Junk food ko haar giraye
SAATH SAATH sab chale saath, sab milke WIN kare aaj
Har bachha bhar pet khaye, swaad shakti bhar bhar ke paaye
SAATH chale, WIN kare”

This project has been done under the mentorship of Prof. Mona Gonsai (https://design.nirmauni.ac.in/author/monagonsai/)  and Prof. Sushil Yati (https://design.nirmauni.ac.in/author/sushilyati/)

Live projects come with expectations and great responsibility for the mentors to ensure good quality deliverables for the client and good quality learning and application of learning by the students. To guide students for such a live project has been a wonderful journey. We could sense the enthusiasm of students where they could get the firsthand experience of meeting with client, meet the nutri-prenueus and understood their requirements. Students could understand the intention of WIN foundation and they could gather prompt response. Students were guided to keenly observe and study the target audience and explore creative ways to create effective communication that the target audience understand and can relate to. They were highly encouraged to write content for social media, packaging, content, and caption for posters along with visuals and to create jingle and song in Gujarati for the animation film. Students received the exposure of how to interact with clients and various stakeholders and how to make presentations. Towards the end students also learnt how to organize the deliverables and share them with the client.

4. How has WIN - IDNU MOU  your team and students to get opportunities and social experiences? How do you see this association growing in coming years?

We are committed to the spirit of the MOU with our social partners. We have already done two projects with WIN India in 2022 and 2023. With ACT also supported by WIN, we have worked twice, developing 4 illustrated books, 2 short films, training materials in the form of technical posters, jiff images,  Power point presentation to showcase their work to donors etc.
 
We want to complete our 3 year MoU similarly having demonstrated the power of creative thinking when many creative minds collaborate together. We would like WIN India to incubate a cell at the Institute of Design, Nirma University.
WIN Nutri-preneur Communications suite development project
 
- written by participating students, with guidance from Prof. Mona Gosai, Institute of Design, Nirma University. (https://design.nirmauni.ac.in/author/monagonsai/)

Branding and Brand communication is a course taught at the Institute of Design, Nirma University in Semester VI of Communication Design. The course explores Brand Building and teaches communication theories for strategic communication in the form of campaigns, case studies and advertisements.


Under this course, our group of 13 students of Batch 2020-24, got an opportunity to work on a project with WIN Foundation and social organization SAATH and the women ‘nutri-preneurs’ to design the branding and communication material for their home-made nutritious snacks. To understand the clients and their requirements better, we visited one of the project locations at Vasna, Ahmedabad, where we interacted with project coordinators and a few women ‘nutri-preneurs’. From the initial interaction we got an idea that their main aim is to provide community children with homemade nutritious snacks instead of junk snacks like wafers, biscuits, Kurkure etc. by which are harmful for their health, but children get easily influenced  to eat them.


According to the requirements indicated and discussions , the deliverables of the project were narrowed down as below:

  1. Design of Packaging and Posters  of the nutritive products – keeping children as the primary target audience

  2. Social Media posts – to create awareness in society

  3. Short animated video advertisement, highlighting the importance of consuming nutritious food which is engaging for children

To achieve the deliverables, 3 groups were made for focused work and better outcomes. To understand the eating habits, behaviour and what attracts the children, we visited the ‘Balghar’-creche, located in Narol Gam, Ahmedabad where we interacted with preschool children, their mothers, and teachers. From the visit we got some idea on how we should start with the campaign and promotional materials. After discussions, we came up with a Mascot named Tesu, which was going to be the face of the visuals and for the labels – a cartoon character representing the product, e.g. If nachos is a product then on a label nachos is showed with a happy face which may attract children to buy the products. The community women were very clear with their vision and what they wanted the children to see. This helped us to achieve the relevant results.  

Saath and WIN Foundation were very helpful with the whole process and wanted the students to design the collaterals, the way the community women envisioned. This synergy boosted the students’ spirit and helped them stay on the same page as the women. Brainstorming and discussing different ideas with each other helped us a lot with the design outcomes. Everyone supported and helped each other. Working in a team was the greatest strength in completing this project. 

Before our final submission we had to present our work to our Professors, WIN and SAATH team and the ‘nutri-preneurs’. We got genuine feedback from everyone. The feedback of the Nutri-preneurs was important for us as they were the ones to use the final material. They were so clear with what they required and what would be appealing and attractive for the children. We had a ‘good-feel’ working for the community women and got many new ideas from them. 

The final collaterals designed were packaging label designs, standees, Tesu female and male mascots, social media posts, an animated video in Gujarati and Hindi and a radio jingle. All of this was done over a span of 3 weeks. At the end of the project our learning and understanding of various aspects of branding, strategies and brand campaigns were clear and we also understood the value of teamwork and co-design to enhance a ‘real-life’ brief.


Animated Video link : https://win-f.org/Saath-WIN-nutripreneur-prodcuts
Audio Jingle Link      : https://win-f.org/Saath-WIN-Nutripreneur-audio-jingle
'Interaction with  Nirma University students made us realize the different types of marketing materials.  The students created full range of materials in a short time  for my brand 'Sanvi Udyog'. The discussions with them, together with their faculty and WIN Foundation made us understand how to use different materials for communicating effectively about our nutrition focused products. This has  helped me to make my own colourful branding packages to sell nutritious product.  Also,  now I am using animated videos and jingle for explaining and educating  our community members and children on nutrition.  It was fun to interact with the young students I would like to express my gratitude to Saath and WIN Foundation for supporting me to set up my own enterprise and to become a Nutri-preneur, and also contribute to this fight against malnutrition'
   -  Nitixaben, Nutripreneur - Sanvi Udyog
 
WIN Foundation - Events and Programs
VISHWAKARMA PRIZE - 2023

Vishwakarma Awards for Engineering Innovation 2023 was launched in May 2023 and closed registrations on 20 June 23.

It is an exciting opportunity for students in Indian science and engineering colleges to develop a working physical prototype with funding and mentoring support. The participating teams will have the opportunity to find innovative solutions in Water & Sanitation, Clean Technology & Smart Mobility and win cash prizes. WIN Foundation is the partner and co-organizer in Water and Sanitation track.

Over  110+ student teams from science and engineering colleges across the country applied. In the water and sanitation track, 26 teams were selected for the first round to work on a prototype of their solution. 10 shortlisted finalists will showcase their innovative solutions for water and sanitation challenges to a distinguished jury panel at the Grand Finale which will be held on 6th Jan 2024 at IIT Delhi

For more details,  please visit:  https://www.winfoundations.org/vishwakarma-award-for-engineering-innovation-2023/ 

 Edited by: Shanti Menon, Paresh Vora
- For feedback and suggestions write to: info@winfoundations.org

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