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Educating the Underprivileged

Help Them Grow, Inc, also known as Vibha, is a very unique organization. Vibha is an Indian word that loosely translates into English as “,”Ray” like a “Ray of light” and in our case a “Ray of Hope”…….”  It was created to allow people who desired social change an opportunity to do so.   We know that there are many different reasons people don’t get involved, including their location, a lack of confidence, the extremely daunting work, or they lack community support . By “educating”, “empowering” and “enabling” anyone that wants to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged children, Vibha is able to substantially impact the lives of these children in India and the US. So, you have people in North America that want to do something about the plight of underprivileged children in India, and you also have grassroots entrepreneurs in small villages in India who believe they have a solution to a particular problem related to underprivileged children – Vibha is the platform that brings these two groups of people together.

 

Vibha's vision is to ensure that every underprivileged child attains his or her right to health, education, and opportunity. Given such a broad vision, you may wonder, what do we do? We’re nothing but a social venture capitalist. The difference is, our exit is not an Initial Public Offering, but rather when we’ve found a sustainable, scalable, and replicable solution to a systemic problem that impacts the lives of underprivileged children. How do we do this? We seed, mentor, grow and scale solutions that can radically and completely FIX a particular problem across India.

 

This is best explained by example. Take for instance, Sikshana – it’s a fabulous solution that ensures that every municipal school in India provides what it’s supposed to provide, an excellent education to its students. Just because it’s a municipal school doesn’t mean that its results have to be substandard to the private schools. We’re now taking this solution across India’s various states. Sikshana started off with 40 schools, grew to 90 and will soon be implemented in over 600 schools. Unicef now wants to work with Sikshana to take the solution even further.

 

So what did we fix? We found a sustainable, scalable and replicable solution to the systemic problem of underperforming municipal schools. Vibha seeded the social entrepreneur, worked closely with him, brought-in required expertise from the outside, and ensured that the solution was sustainable and scalable.  And now we’re providing that solution to any organization that wants to implement it anywhere.  Organizations can take the formula and run.

 

Vibha isn’t merely a funding agency, it’s a completely volunteer driven platform that brings together people who want to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged children. Funding is only one of the tools we provide to ensure that a scalable cure is found to solve a systemic problem. We also provide exceptional professional assistance.  Through Vibha, Our social entrepreneurs acquire significant know-how in the areas of financial management, Information Technology, and marketing and fundraising, as well as having sustainability and scalability skills.

Vibha’s project screening process is a painstaking one because we are identifying ideas that could possibly SOLVE once and for all a systemic problem related to underprivileged children. Once selected, the social entrepreneur is provided with the necessary seed capital.  They also receive professional guidance along with constant project monitoring assistance through Vibha personnel and staff on the ground. This ensures that the project is meeting its necessary milestones toward achieving a scalable cure. If, after a certain period of time, which is typically 3 years, the project hasn’t achieved its goal, Vibha starts a gradual exit process to ensure that the project continues to benefit its clients with as little disruption as possible.

If the project finds a scalable cure for the problem, Vibha then plays the role of spreading this cure far and wide through various channels.  We notify partner NGOs,other Vibha projects in different geographic areas, government agencies, and impacted communities.

In short, we seed, grow and scale sustainable and scalable solutions for systemic problems affecting the lives of underprivileged children.

 

Till date, Vibha has impacted the lives of over 250,000 children through an investment of $10Million in over 200 projects.

 

Here are some of 2013 highlights:

Our bi-annual conference, Pragati, this year brought together corporates, grassroots organizations, and experts in the field of child development to one platform in Bangalore. In view of the newly passed Companies Act in India, by which it is now mandatory for companies of a certain size to participate in Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR), this was a major step in Vibha's efforts to enable corporates to participate in the scaling-up of our partner projects.

 

Vibha is proud of its role in the growth of Sikshana - a model intervention in the public school system, started in Karnataka, scaled up and later replicated in Andhra Pradesh, and Gujarat. Following up on the philosophy of identifying and scaling up successful models, we are now focused on replicating the success of Door Step School (DSS) - a model for education of the children of migrant construction workers. What is especially satisfying about this project is that we are able change the mindset of the builders - today 75% of the budget of these study centers is taken up by the builders themselves. That is real change, at the grassroots. Thats right - another scalable, replicable and self-sustainable solution to a systemic problem that Vibha helped solve once and for all!

2012 Numbers:

 

Number of Children Impacted: 55,832

No of projects impacted: 32

Total investment in 2012: $738,801

 

92% of every dollar raised by Vibha is used towards projects. Just 8% of every dollar raised by Vibha is is used towards administrative overhead.

Management
Ron Victor
Ron Victor
President, Vibha
Vibha's (Help Them Grow Inc) mission is to educate, empower and enable every individual who wishes to make a positive difference in the life of the underprivileged child. It was founded in 1991.