Samruddhi Program for Holistic Development was a John Deere’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative with an overall goal of John Deere’s CSR program to enable solution for world hunger, education and community development. The Centre for Advanced Research & Development (CARD) has been implementing and coordinating the Program with field partner with Mashal.

The Samruddhi project aimed at improving the lives of slum dwellers by providing essential infrastructure, renovating old infrastructure, improving social institutions, and forming a network of communication among stakeholders. It was implemented in 6 slums of Hadapsar area: LohiyaVasti, TarwadeVasti, Shinde Vasti, Mahatma Phule Vasti, GosaviVasti, and Sainath Vasti. During 2015-2016, Samruddhi project included renovation of community halls, schools, Anganwadies and public toilet, organising community meetings, conducting mentor programmers, running special classes and support class in slums.

Vision: “Improve Socio-economic condition of Target Community in a Sustainable Manner.”

Program Mission: To Improve Socio-economic condition of Target Community by upgrading community infrastructure on water & sanitation, double the farmers’ income, ensuring quality education and economic opportunities.

Since 2015 the Samruddh program has been implemented on three objectives. i.e.

1) Improvement in quality-of-life index through access to safe drinking water and sanitation

2) Number of students from government school (schools under the project) pursuing higher education at each level

3) Increase Youth Vocational Skills and Employability

Interventions were carried out to –

1. Improve access to formal and non-formal education and skill building training for slum residents.

2. Train the youth with various vocational courses.

3. Create home-based opportunities for women.

4. Build the capacities of UCD Smart Service Centers.

5. Improve public infrastructure and services in slums.

6. Conduct micro planning processes.

7. Build capacity and utilization of Community Resource Center in each slum.

Challenges for each intervention were identified and recommendations for the same were also suggested.

Through the BSUP mission, MASHAL was able to partially provide sanitation facilities for two slums in Pune. The project for construction of 150 individual toilets is funded by a company named as NOV India. The company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds are utilized for the construction of the toilet units. MASHAL conducted a ground assessment to identify the most vulnerable sections of these two slums in order to allocate funding to the people most in need of sanitation facilities. The project began in May 2015 and was completed in March 2016.

CHF International (Cooperative Housing Foundation) is a, nonprofit development organization that is dedicated to helping thousands of clients each day to improve their economic conditions from the bottom up and has worked in over 100 countries around the world. It is involved in Economic Development, Global Health, Emergency Response and Transition, Governance and Civil Society, Housing and Infrastructure.

UTTHAN is a collaborative effort between the PMC- UCD, CHF International and MASHAL to empower the urban poor communities by adopting a participatory approach for pro-poor program planning and delivery of services and to strengthen the service delivery system by developing a GIS-based governance tool.

UCD is working in 492 slums from 14 administrative wards of Pune city.59 slums were surveyed in the first phase where a socio-economic survey of 128, 115 individuals from 27,365 households is done.GIS mapping was used for analysis and monitoring of the slums. The GIS based information system also helps to collate the information.

Utthan developed a community participatory approach for pro-poor program planning and delivery. The project added to the participatory content of the urban development process through targeted and strategic capacity building interventions.

Interventions were conducted –

1. Orientation and guidance about various departments in PMC to put forth the issues.

2. Presentations on garbage disposal and vermi-compost.

3. Discussions and Speech on Women’s health.

4. Rallies and signature campaigns were carried out to get the support of all the residents in the community.

5. Meetings with Nagar Sevaks for discussing the issues.