About the Organization

Hope Foundation
Touching lives............

Origin

The Seed of Hope was sown in an organic vegetable shop in the month of December 2004,
where Ms. Rashmi Wali (Founder) happened to meet Sh. Upendra Patel, Chairman Shree
Dinesh Mills and a well-known philanthropist in the city of Vadodara.

Being aware and appreciative of the developmental work done earlier by Ms. Rashmi, Sh. Patel
motivated her to make a new beginning and encouraged her to take an initiative towards the
welfare of the underprivileged people. He had faith and was convinced about Ms. Rashmi
Wali's commitment and capacity towards developmental work, her concern for the society at
large particularly towards the downtrodden during her professional career at United Way of
Baroda (A World-Wide Movement) where he had been a Trustee.

A brain storming session with friends on the Trust led to "Asha" (or Hope) and then it was
decided to start-a not-for-profit initiative to facilitate and enable harmony, opportunity,
progress and empowerment (Hope) in the simple lives of the underprivileged sections of our
society. The motto of dedicated service with selfless zeal and perseverance forms the core value
system that drives Hope.

Hope foundation up till now was only concentrating efforts of development at Vadodara. It was
in the month of Jan 2010; the need was felt to initiate an opportunity to enlarge its reach to
benefit common masses. Thus, an effort had been made to provide education to the children of
an Okhla Phase 2 slum.

The population of Okhla was mainly a heterogeneous mix of migrants from the states of Madhya
Pradesh, Utter Pradesh and Bihar. The average monthly income was Rs3500-Rs.5000/. Most men
worked as masons or unskilled workers in factories or shops, as small vendors, gardeners or
sweepers with McDonalds. Adolescent girls too worked as domestic helpers besides attending to
their siblings and household chores. Most of the parents were uneducated and unable to help their
children with their studies leading to their slow development. At the ‘Sarathi’ centre for learning,
children attended extra classes in all subjects till class 8th. NGO's support enabled their smooth
integration of studies with the mainstream school education.
Motto of Hope Foundation

Dedicated service with selfless zeal and perseverance to facilitate and enable harmony,
opportunity, progress and empowerment (Hope) in the simple lives of the underprivileged
sections of society.

Mission

To be a charioteer (Sarathi) to those, who are under privileged in society.

Vision

• Evolve strategies to address the changing needs of Women, Children & Elderly living in
communities.

• Usher in community care by connecting Individuals and Institutions.

Social Issues Handled By Organization

The organisation is active in the following areas of work:

1) Senior Citizen Assistance Program (Vadodara and Nurpur)

Geriatric Clinic

Mobile health services are designed to reach healthcare to disadvantaged elders in rural areas.
On - site health care services include doctor consultation, basic diagnostics, medicines and
home visits for bedridden patients. Linkage to local health facilities ensures referrals to
specialist doctors. The team of health care providers consists of a doctor, pharmacist,
paramedic, and is supervised by a qualified social worker.

Sensitization Program

With the growing influence of west, family values are changing. The need was felt by the
trustees for making the school children aware about ageing issues early in life, so they treat
their elders with love and care and understand their issues in depth. The objectives of the
program are to inculcate values of care & respect, to sensitize the School children to honour
the elders with dignity, preparing today's children & youth for their old age, creating an age
friendly society.
2) Women Empowerment (Vadodara, New Delhi and Jammu)

Vocational Training

This program has been initiated from September, 2012 onwards which provides rural women
an opportunity to keep them away from the clutches of poverty. The skill training in Tailoring
& Embroidery has provided these women with income generation opportunities - be it as
micro entrepreneur working out of home or as an employee.

Self Defence

Through this program we are strengthening adolescent girls physically to combat any threat
& helping these slum girls creatively journeying into a better understanding of self and
sociocultural dimensions around. The complete training will help them create safe,
confidential, adolescent girls in life threatening and silent areas of sexuality & violence.

Sarathi Mahila Gruh Udhyog

Generate income for poor/rural women by helping them to achieve a degree of control over
their own destiny with positive steps. Through this activity we create opportunities by self-
trained activity. Gruh Udyog organizes pickle making competitions.

3) Disaster Relief (Vadodara and Nurpur)

Post Disaster Assistance

HFV works towards providing immediate relief and assists in the rehabilitation process of the
affected communities in the aftermath of any calamity. We help communities build their
capacity to better cope with and recover from disasters. Our foremost goal is to build
resilience among the community and various stakeholders in case of any disaster. We work
closely with communities, who have been affected by disasters.

Emergency Response Service

The need was felt by Shri Ashwin Sood for such a program who was concerned with the
difficulties faced by common men in this hilly state due to tough terrain and harsh living
conditions. Disasters witnessed by people in this region are cloudbursts and landslides during
monsoons, blocked roads due to excessive snowfall and winter fires, road accidents, vehicles
falling into gorges from where it is very difficult to help people. We are happy to be playing
our part in saving lives and improving the healthcare services in Nurpur by transporting
patient/victim to hospitals.
4) Health and Sanitation (Nurpur and Jammu)

Saee Sanitary Pads

Around 80% of women in India, do not use sanitary napkins and suffer from problems of
Lukeria. Also, in villages adolescent girls revealed the numerous health problems they faced
due to unhygienic menstrual management practices. ‘Saee’ sanitary napkin is a cost-effective
product offered to adolescent girls and post-delivery women in rural areas to lead a healthy
lifestyle.

Hans Mobile Medical Services

The sole purpose of this initiative is to provide free medical aid at door step of the most
vulnerable women, adolescent girls & elderly from the displaced communities due to one
conflict or other, in border areas of Jammu HMMS works on a planned schedule, devoting a
day per week in each Panchayat. Thus, ensuring that the treatment is completely and properly
provided. At present we are catering to 6 panchayats covering 62 villages.

5) Child Welfare (Vadodara and Delhi)

Navjeevan Balwadi
The Balwadi provides opportunities to the first timers (3+ age bracket) to attend class, give
them basic knowledge of colours, shapes, numbers, alphabets, rhymes. The methodology of
this class focuses on learning through fun, as there is no structured class. They are taught in a
fun manner, sometimes through rhymes and learning through the environment More than one
third of the people living in the Slums of Vadodara are deprived of quality education and
basic health services. One such area is Swad Quarters where we run this scheme.

6) Other Activities
To sustain natural resources, alleviate poverty, and improve quality of life, HFV aims to
focus on needs of small- scale farmers, around Sarthigram. For this a workshop was
organized to promote opportunity and facilitate empowerment. This program provided
knowledge to farmers regarding the means to improve their produce and cause minimum
damage to the environment.
 Project Title
‘Sarathi’- Livelihood Support and Skill Development

Project Description:
Our project ‘Sarathi’ involved working with the administrative staff of the NGO and helping
them realize certain shortcomings in their daily functioning. Hope foundation has a presence
in a number of domains like skill development, healthcare and sanitation, disaster relief etc.

Objectives:
• To study in detail the activities of the organisation and all its branches.
• To raise funds for day to day operations of the NGO and the activities undertaken for
women empowerment and skill development.
• To improve their presence on digital platform.
• To make a presentation and brochure for the organisation which in turn could be sent to
prospective sponsors.
• To develop a business plan for marketing.
• To make project proposals for ‘Sewing school setup’ and ‘Awareness generation on
sanitation’.

Methodology

• Conducting Survey: We went to all the houses in ‘Undera’ village to gather information
regarding the problems faced by women in each household and to also provide them
information about our Sewing School. We told them about the various courses that they
would be taught and how it would provide them an opportunity to stand on their own feet
and supplement their current household income. The timings for these classes were kept
in the afternoon as school going children wanting to learn sewing won’t face any
hinderance with their school timings and rural women doing household chores or
housemakers won’t find it difficult to attend these classes.

• Feedback Interviews: We conducted interviews for all the students (completed or

pursuing the course) in order to understand the value added by this course and how it
made an impact on their lives. Along with this their expectations from the NGO was
asked and what difficulties they continue to face in order to use the skill they acquired.

• Market research: ‘Saee’ sanitary napkins is an indigenous product of Hope foundation.

It was specifically made for rural women to make them aware about the importance of
hygiene and sanitation. The cost of this product was kept low to provide for the large
rural market of India. There are two types of pads- Sanitary pads and maternity pads.
Thus, the existing similar products in the market were analysed in order to understand the
 quality levels required along with the steps required for setting up the supply chain for the
product to effectively reach the market or target audience.

Findings

While making the project proposal for sewing school setup we were conducting primary and
secondary research during which we stumbled upon a similar scheme run by Usha
International Limited (UIL).

Usha Silai Schools

Usha International Ltd aims to work with the women in the villages and believes that helping
women develop their inherent latent potentialities would bring about a holistic development
for the society at large. In the last three years Usha International through their Silai School
Program has reached out to remote villages across the country. This is a community-based
initiative with the aim of empowering village women to become entrepreneurs and teach
sewing and stitching within the precincts of their homes. This programme is necessarily
“inclusive” in character, thereby implying that the programme is implemented for the
economically poor irrespective of caste, class, religion or creed.

As on April 2017, UIL in partnership with 52 NGO partners is running 14,348 Silai Schools
(Classical- 4507, Satellite- 9841) in all the 29 States and 5 Union Territories of India. UIL
has trained (in stitching, tailoring and repairing of machines) all these village women
entrepreneurs, provided them a sewing machine, a syllabus and a Silai School signage and
encouraged them to teach other community women the art of stitching and sewing.
The trainings have been conducted in their vernacular language with the syllabus available
in the same language. More than 110,000 learners have completed their course from Silai
Schools and nearly 10,000 learners continue to get sewing skills training every day from
these schools. The schools are making a marked difference in the lives of the women. The
women, on an average have started earning Rs. 3000/- per month, with the highest earning
going up to Rs. 18,000/- per month. This earning, though small, is working as a catalyst in
building the self-confidence of women and raising her status within and outside the family.
This financial income and increased self-worth is facilitating in creation of empowered
change agents in the villages of India.

The positive results from the Silai Schools in the villages have created a lot enthusiasm
amongst the people in the adjoining Silai School villages too. There is an increased demand
from the community about starting Silai Schools in the nearby villages and hence the concept
of starting the Satellite Silai Schools (SSS) have been started from Aug 2014. Under the SSS
model, Silai Schools would be started by any women knowing sewing and stitching
(preferably a learner from the existing Silai School) in the neighboring village. She would
then start teaching others or doing job work. UIL would do the capacity building of this
women as per need in the village. By March 2015, UIL plans to start about 6,000 SSS across
the country. Hence, by this period UIL would have covered 9,000 villages in all the states of
India.
Usha International ltd recently launched the Usha Silai School Programme in Bhutan in
association with Tarayana Foundation, a nonprofit organization working towards improving
the quality of the lives of vulnerable individuals and communities in Bhutan. After 4400 Silai
schools in India and 100 in Nepal this programme is now being launched in Bhutan to
empower village level women.

This is just the beginning of the endeavor to work towards women empowerment by making
village women financially independent and take charge of their life. This is the first step
towards women empowerment.

Project Deliverables:
1) Designed a social media campaign for sanitary pads.
2) Made a 3-minute video to represent Hope Foundation in the Yes Bank competition.
3) Compiled last five-year annual reports of the NGO into one summary report.
4) Made a project proposal for ‘Sewing school setup’ and ‘Awareness generation on
sanitation’.

5) Developed a catalogue for all the products.

6) Developed a brochure to be used as pitching tool by the NGO.

7) Visited the centres and carried out market research.