Passion, Perseverance & PURE India !!

How was the foundation of PURE India Trust laid?

PURE India Trust is a by-product of Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement. I was working as a corporate leader at Manila in the Philippines during the movement days. I got inspired by Anna Hazare’s self-sacrificing contribution to Indian society hence I came back to India in 2012 and formed PURE India Trust (NGO) in Mar’ 2013 with a mission to provide relevant Education which leads to employment, especially for women and students from a poor economic background.

 You were working with the world-famous corporators, how did you suddenly come to social service?

I grew up in a small village, Manoharpura in Karauli district of Rajasthan. Owing to this, I had first-hand experience and understanding of the challenges faced by children from rural areas especially girl students. With a passion to improve the situation on-ground, I started the Trust in Mar’2013 at New Delhi with my wife Medha Naruka. Though we started it but soon many working professionals, join hands. Now PURE India Trust has multiple development centers across Delhi NCR and Rajasthan and it has been supporting 10,000+ people every year.

How do you make people aware on the subject of development?

We work mostly with Students, Youth & women in rural and urban slums. We engage youth & women in our various activities and motivate them to learn different skills which will make them employable or start own businesses. We encourage women to start their own businesses by providing the funding, mentoring, handholding, market linkages support so the women’s business is profitable every month. Our all programs are outcome-based so we ensure anyone who get engaged with us will get benefitted in some or other forms.  

What kind of friendly strategies does your organization work with to help the poor?

We focus on activities directly linked with employment or it makes them youth employable. The following are our key activities for the benefits of poor families.

·        Generate Livelihood through Women Entrepreneurship Development  

·        Skill Development (In-house & at partner centers) to make youth employable

·        Strengthen Education foundation of children in villages

·        Career Guidance & Mentoring to make youth employable

·        Scholarships for higher education or professional studies

·        Govt School Integrated Development (Education & infrastructure)

·        Relief activities during emergency – Covid-19, Flood, Earthquake etc  

What schemes are run by the institution for skill development among the youth?

We believe in India, unemployability is a bigger problem than unemployment. We have two types of program to improve Employability and generate livelihood: 

Women Entrepreneurship Development: Under this program, we provide seed funding, Mentoring, Market Linkages, Training, Exposure visits, Promotional activities to make them successful.

Skill Development (In-house & at partner centers): We provide skill training based on the requirement of local industries so that after training they get employment opportunities immediately. For the same, we have partnered with multiple skill development institutes and Corporate. We mobilize youth from villages and send them for skill training in different companies/institutes across NCR & Rajasthan. These partner organizations take responsibility of providing skill training, pay them a stipend, and assist them to get employment.

What problems did you face while working in different areas of the country?

We believe that problems are everywhere and if there is no problem than we are not required. However, we face various challenges as follows

·        Women in the villages do not get the required support from the family members to run their business more effectively and expand beyond boundaries

·        Rural youth are not open to exploring opportunities outside their villages 

·        Most of the youth not serious about their future and not willing to do real hard work

·        Most of the CSR companies wants to do their activities near their offices but not ready to help real needy people who live in the remote villages so lack of funds for remote villages is a challenge

·        People are generally not very honest to their work and always look for shortcuts   

Which companies are you currently receiving CSR funds from?

We are working with various corporate organizations and these organizations are supporting our projects at a medium scale. Few companies are MetLife, Colt, Mastek, Gartner, Smartstream, etc.  

By the way, in which areas do you particularly focus more?

From a geography point of view, we are currently focusing on 8 districts of Delhi, UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, MH & Assam

Most NGO funds continue to raise questions, how transparent is your organization?

This is the biggest challenge faced by any good NGO as most NGOs are not compliant to their fund utilization & transparency reporting. However, we have made it our USB (Unique Selling Proposition) as our NGO name is also PURE so we follow the name. We are open to show all our fund's details to all our donors. In fact, before the start of any project we share the previous projects report, decide the budget line items for every project and submit the quarterly report to our donors on progress. We are 100% open for transparency check of all our activities & funds. Our all annual reports are published on our website too.   

How do you see the experience so far?

We are growing year on year as an NGO and we are getting very good support from our funding partners. In fact, our partners are helping us to work with other CSR companies also and recommending us to other based on our work with them. So experience is really exciting and we are looking forward to reaching 1000+ villages in the next 2 years' time and will make 1000+ women entrepreneurs. 

Would you like to count on some of your achievements?

The following are key milestones & achievements

?      National Bravery Award 2017 by Prime Minister of India

?      Finalist of National iVolunteer Award 2018 & 2019 both years

?      Navratna Award 2019 for Women Entrepreneurship Development 

?      National Youth Motivator Award 2019 for improving youth Employability

?      Best Social Enterprise Award 2019 for Women Entrepreneurship Development

?      Betiyan Award 2019 for Women Entrepreneurship Development 

?      Projects being executed                                                      : 6 states 

?      Villages engaged in social development activities             : 100+ villages

?      Operational development centers                                        : 8 NGO centers

?      Successful women entrepreneurs                                         :60+ Women Entrepreneurs

?      Women provided Vocational Trainings                                 : 450+

?      Employment provided                                                           : 150+

?      Scholarships provided for higher education or others     : 500+

?      Career mentoring workshops conducted at                        : 60+ Schools

?      Students provided career guidance & Mentoring                : 125000+

?      Free Computer labs established in villages                        : 22+ schools

?      Book Libraries established in villages                                : 6 villages

How will you advance the Vocal for Local campaign?

Vocal for Local initiative is started by Modi Ji in 2020 and we started our program My Village My Business (???? ????-???? ???????) focusing on “Vocal for Local” almost 2.5 years before (in 2018-19). We have been helping women by encouraging them to start their own businesses and become self-reliant (??????????). Under this program, we provide seed funding, Mentoring, Market Linkages, Training, Exposure visits, Promotional activities to make them successful. The following are the key steps of this program :

?      Mobilize: local skilled women who want to start their own businesses

?      Selection: based on the capability to run a business, family support, local needs

?      Seed Funding:10,000/- per women to start the business 

?      Business promotional: activities to increase the visibility of women business

?      Market Linkages to buy & sell through women network & outside market   

?      Mentoring: support to ensure women get good profit through businesses   

?      Capacity Building workshops to improve business acumen 

?      Govt schemes: facilitate women to get benefits of Govt schemes

 What are your plans next?

Our vision is to create an environment which will inspire youth to become an entrepreneur or get skills to be employed hence we want to Help 1000+ Women to become Entrepreneurs and provide Career Guidance to 100,000 Govt school students by end of 2022.