What types of NGO projects is Relief India Trust involved in?

Introduction:

The role of the NGOs in the society is even bigger today, which wasn’t too notable a couple of decades ago. The progress of the NGO sector has helped a lot of communities worldwide. A lot of the underprivileged and the deprived people of the society look up to the NGOs rather than the government or anything else to come to their support. It is because the NGOs establish relationship with the people of the community from person to person level and that is where the people of the community feel more comfortable at. The NGOs are also much easier to approach by the common people as compared to the government and this is the reason that the role of NGOs is much more prominent in our society. The ReliefIndia Trust is a renowned NGO in India. It has helped a number of different communities in India, where there are extraordinary efforts done in the social welfare sector of India. The NGO is continuously improving and spanning its operations in far and wide areas of India and people are welcoming them with open hands that are waiting for such help to come to them since a long time.

The different types of NGO projects operated by the Relief India Trust:

There are a number of NGO projects initiated and currently operated by the Relief India Trust in different parts of India. But, following is a list of some of the most notable projects that are part of this prestigious organization and also the credit of all the success goes to them:

·         Education for all – The NGO believes that lack of education is the root cause of all the social problems that exist in our society. So, it is for this reason the educational projects of the NGO are the most notable ones.

·         Poverty – Poverty is one of the most major social problems in India. The NGO is doing extensive work for alleviating poverty by providing people with resources which help them to come out of poverty.

·         Child labor – Child labor is a crime according to Indian law, but still millions of children are victims of child labor. A lot of things have been done by the NGO to help eradicate child labor completely from different regions and encourage or facilitate them to pursue education instead of work.

·         Women rights – Women are still the most neglected classes or gender of our society unfortunately. They are treated differently as compared to men and are deprived the opportunities on a number of aspects of life when they are compared with men. But, women with their power, skills and brain have shown that they are by no means lesser than the men. The NGO is facilitating women in different communities to help them get their due rights.

·         Unemployment – Unemployment is a big issue and even the educated people struggle a lot to get a job. The NGO is doing excellent work for increasing employment chances for people of the community on equality basis.

Why is Accountability an issue for Relief India Trust and other NGOs in India

Introduction:

The NGOs not only in India, but worldwide are growing at a very rapid pace. According to some reliable resources, there are millions of NGOs that are operating worldwide. USA alone has more than 2 million NGOs whereas India has got about a million NGOs which are registered and the Relief India Trust is just one of them. There may be several more which are still not registered, but working in the humanitarian and other sectors. If we talk about China, then it is the country which has nearly 2 million NGOs where thousands of them are still not registered. There are about 40,000 International NGOs which have operations and connections in several parts of the world. As we can see that the growth in the NGO sector is enormous, but at the same time it is challenging and raises a lot of concerns for the NGOs to manage on their own. There are several reasons that accountability is an issue for the NGOs which they are finding a bit hard to address. It became a very hot disputed topic, especially in the 1990s, when the growth of NGOs started to pick up viciously. The Relief India Trust is well aware with this issue and trying hard to come up with a really inspiring accountability structure of their NGO.

Increased amount of funds:

A lot of money is involved in the NGOs sector and many of the NGOs even in India gets millions of dollars in the form of aid. This obviously raises concerns for having a transparent accountability system as where the money is coming from and how is it used. The main challenge here for the NGOs as according to the Relief IndiaTrust is that there are several bodes such as your local and state government and also the donors are very much interested to know that where the funds are used and what are the results that they achieve through their operations. It is always not about just the usage of the money, but the concerned parties are more interested in knowing that what results they produced by the millions of dollars that they received in the form of donations by different national and international donors. The NGOs sometimes which are honest and doing notable work fail miserably to meet the accountability expectations that the stakeholders have with the NGO. This may result in negative impacts and the future funding can be affected big time.

Pressure of the government:

Whether an NGO is working in collaboration with the government or not, they always feel some sort of pressure either directly or indirectly from the government. It is because both these parties share the common interests and also the common goals, especially when it comes to the welfare of the society. This becomes a serious challenge and a war of survival for the NGO as they are bound to prove that they are genuine, loyal and accountable to whatever work they are doing in the social welfare sector.

The Relief India Trust Strategy in Handling Emergency Situations

Introduction:

The emergency or the disastrous situation can be the worst enemy of the underprivileged people. It is a severe issue as there aren’t usually any warnings so that the people could be prepared to face such disasters. The NGOs too on their side are not prepared in the required capacity to help the people in case of disaster or any other emergency situation. The usually emergency situations that India has faced are earthquake or flood issues which have been massive in the past. The Relief India Trust believes that there are a number of things which the NGO can do in advance to counter such emergency situations with much more resources and capacity. No matter, whatever is the nature of the operation of NGO, they must come up with their best efforts in the relief work for countering the disastrous situation of the country. It is because the NGOs are an organized group of people that can work with great courage and dedication to take the country out of such situations in a quick amount of time.

Strategies of the NGOs in the disaster relief operations and emergency situations:

There are a number of things which the NGOs can do to counter disastrous situations and the emergency situation that comes along. The following is a list of some of the most useful things which the NGOs need to do in disastrous situation as according to the Relief India Trust:

·         Prioritize things – The first part of the action plan of any NGO in the emergency situation is to prioritize things. They must devise out a quick plan by setting all the work need to be done according to their priorities. The first priority in the emergency situation must always be to work for saving the life of the people. There is nothing more important than the life of the people who are struggling in any emergency situation.

·         Let the government and military do their job – The government and the military must play their part in such situations and they almost always do that. The NGOs in such circumstances should let the government and the military do their job without interfering with them unless otherwise they ask for help. The resources of the government and the military are always greater than the NGOs.

·         Take help of the locals – The locals can be a great source of help in emergency situations. The Relief India Trust NGO always takes the help of locals to do their rescue operations as the locals almost always have the best knowledge about the area and other related things which can be of great importance in such miserable situations.

·         Work in collaboration – After the initial response, the NGOs must look to work in collaboration with the government, military and other NGOs who are operating in the area. In the next phase of people rehabilitation, the collaboration act can produce really beneficial results for the local people.

The Role of Science in NGOs like Relief India Trust

Introduction:

The NGOs like ReliefIndia Trust are not solely dependent on the funds only, but Science also has a great role to play in their infrastructure, development and in the success of their projects. It is a thankless thing really in the NGOs field because most of the management of the NGOs and the working staff doesn’t count it that much as it is something that is supporting them in the background. The idea here is not to give awareness about the importance of science to the NGOs, but the idea is to give them an opportunity to explore the relevance of science and benefit their NGO to the maximum. This thing will eventually help the people, environment or wildlife for which the NGOs are solely working. It is definitely the high time for the NGOs just like Relief India trust who is paying great heed to the development and advancement of Science to be deployed in their own infrastructure.

The Role of Science in NGO:

The development and progress of science has a great role to play in the existence and also the progress of the NGO. The Relief India Trust well believes that the Science along with Technology has great relevance and a critical role to play in the infrastructure development or expansion of the NGO. The logistics and communication of the NGOs is also solely dependent on Science and technology. Further, the delivering of practical innovations and the critical project evaluation is again something to think about seriously. 

The NGOs also use science and technology to develop some specialized and sophisticated tools and interventions developed from scientific uses and techniques. Much of the knowledge that is used by NGOs in the development of their projects comes from natural sciences. As an example, you can consider the infectious disease research was possible because of the knowledge of hygiene behaviors. The nutrition guidelines and their natural existence also paved way for the science of micronutrients, fortification and the use of food supplements which are used by many NGOs in their Food and Hunger Relief projects for the deprived or those people who are hit by some sort of natural disaster.

 Seeking Evidence for the Use of Science in NGO Development:

It is true that nobody believes in anything unless it is scientifically proven. The main thing to remember here is that the relevance of Science also has some evidence to prove its worth and usefulness in the development of NGOs. The assessment of the effectiveness of the NGOs projects is an integral part in evidence seeking of the relevance of science in the NGO domain. The Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) techniques are used by the NGOs to seek the scientific evidence. The output of M & E techniques are in the form of a report which explains everything about the importance and indulgence of science in the development of the infrastructure of the NGOs. The reports clearly indicate that Science is one big thing in driving the NGOs.