Challenges of an NGO and overcoming them

Working in Isolation : There are many stakeholders when we talk about NGOs , most of them however work in isolation as they don’t have a well established mechanism by which they can coordinate and work with each other.
Facing the resistance : In a meeting with Unicef Mumbai head Mr. Gopinath Menon and local NGOs one of the major issues which we noticed was resistance from some of the local groups ( some of them are NGOs and some of them call themselves NGOs). Many of these groups do not like the idea of other groups getting recognition .

Change in mentality : Working with NGO , I learnt one major thing , Funds are not an issue , govt is spending more then what is required in different development sectors but the main problem is the mentality of people who are supposed to use it. The first action point should be to make the information available to the people and an effort to change the mentality. I was attending a workshop with education department where I came to know various facilities government is giving to the people to come school , they are even provided with school attending allowances but still there are children who are out of schools in rural areas and NGOs are trying hard to change the mentality of these people.
One of the other mindset which we have seen during visits to villages was government should provide subsidies to us , people want to be dependent on government , they would form SHGs if and only if they are being told that bank will provide subsidized loans . It is very difficult to get their participation in areas where no direct benefits are given to them by third party , for example building toilets at their home . This mindset also need to be changed , what NGOs try to do is to make them independent , self sufficient but because of this mentality they again push themselves to a beggars position where they want someone else to do things for them.


Sustaining the process : Upto now there has been so many SHGs formed in Latur district in fact some of the NGOs are forming 200-300 SHGs a month but what happens to these groups afterwards, once formed there is no followup process and because of the lack of attention they stop functioning , some of the organization like UNICEF not only form these SHGs but also do a regular follow up to make sure they are functional and growing. Starting a process is still easy but what is more difficult to keep peoples motivation high to sustain it.


Struggling with Infrastructure : NGOs work at ground level they are the one travelling across length and width of the country , many of these areas are still remote and not reachable by any transport. NGOs also gather huge data for example UNICEF is collecting tons of data for micro planning , It fills 3 main forms for each household and some of these forms have more then 100 fields , these fields collect exhaustive data from house income to pregnancy status. All of this data is been gathered in physical format which is of no use , no trends can be gathered from it , retrieval is a major issue here and these information’s can not be secured for long time but then there are no computers , no electricity and no internet connectivity . In such scenario dreaming of digitizing such data becomes out of context.



Overcoming these challenges

Working with people and not working for people: In a discussion once a volunteer mentioned to me that people do not feel good about their kids being fed at schools and child development centers , some of they have made statement that “ are we beggars who can not afford food? “ . People should be able to associate with these kind of programs with self esteem and dignity. This will happen if and only if we start working with people and not for the people , there should be more and more people involvement , they should be given a chance to participate in making decisions specially in areas which directly affect them.
Even in Baba Ampte’s Anandwan we have seen that complete system is run by people who use it .

To attract maximum participation from different stakeholders : It is very important for these NGOs to be in the center of the all action and act as a glue between different organizations involved in the process , specially government departments and other NGOs who have similar interests. Once these NGOs are able to position themselves well they will not only get participation but also support in terms of monetary benefit. Many of the UNICEF projects which organize different functions now get constant support from government departments in the respective areas , obviously this happens because of the high quality and commitment shown by UNICEF and partner NGOs.

Complementing the system and not replacing it : In the vision of NGOs it should be very clear that they can only complement the system and not replace it . Be it health , education or livelihood , NGOs will be able to provide only partial support and can never do what can be done by government. Understanding this fact these organizations should be focused on their visions rather then taking on complete responsibility.
Communication strategy : NGOs must design their communication strategies which can appeal local people. Bringing in local speakers , politicians and local authorities not only add credibility to the message but also make people understand easily. Other way is to pickup volunteers from villages who are somewhat educated and have passion for their village and community , train these volunteers and let them convey message to villagers. UNICEF does it very beautifully , it has adopted two methods
1) Picking up volunteers and training them , these volunteers go back and organize different conventions and rallies in their villages to communicate the information.
2) UNICEF also organizes training for adolescent girls , these girls are then expected to go back and spread the knowledge to their family and friend which is long but effective process.