Dear Friends,
Trust you are well and taking care. A few updates from us.
We have received our Provisional 12A & 80G certification!
Funds received from Mekin Maheshwari of Udhyam Learning Foundation, Rainmatter Foundation will help our cash flows till December 2022. Thanks to this we are now finally able to go to the field to do our workshops, meet other wonderful folks doing some great work and learn from them.Yay! As an early stage non profit - We are starting to realise the difference between funding agreements & cashflows.
Nisha & Mausam have completed their immersion internship with the Association of Persons with Disability. Their classes have started and we have asked them to focus on getting their learning routine for the first two months. We have partnered with https://thelistenerscollective.org/ to help nisha and mausam navigate through some of the tough situations at college, personal life and internship with us. This will be a monthly engagement for them for the first 12 months. We are learning to get better at supporting them through this journey. We need to do much more.
Co-creating solutions to increase Citizen engagement in gram sabha activities/programs:
Anode Governance Labs & T4G Labs were recently at Gonur Gram Panchayat in Chitradurga for a half day workshop with Gram Panchayat members and guiding them to co-create solutions to increase citizen engagement in gram sabha activities. We trained Anode team members on our co-creation methodologies and were happy to see the engagement
Pre workshop with 3 Anode team members and leadership [5 sessions of 2 hours each online/offline]
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Stakeholder mapping
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Power mapping
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benefits vs features mapping - Assumptions
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high level ideas on what the broad tech solution could look like (demo of existing tools, training)
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Preparation for workshop to co-create, flow, agenda and facilitator notes, test/refine solutions
During workshop with Anode Team, 18 Gram Panchayat Members, Panchayat Development Officer, other stakeholders. [1 workshop of 4 hours at Panchayat office]
The objective was to activate co-creation in a multi stakeholder group
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Empathy Talk (Appreciative inquiry to ice break and help them build trust and respect for each other)
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Reconifm Intent (Is there really a problem) - Work in groups to draw/show what the current flow of information about gramsabha activities/schemes is. Each group shares and takes inputs
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What could a solution look like - Work in groups to come up with how information flows can be unblocked, amplfied, how can we change formats of gramsabha meetings, etc. present to the group
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Each group asked to Record a “Information Snippet” on phone and send. Demo of IVR with their own voice. All tech work was done by Anode (non tech staff). We were on standby
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Agreement on next steps [Deeper co-creation workshop to include frontline workers & more from vulnerable communities in the pachayat, Follow up with Panchayat Development Officer to build their capacity to do co-creation workshops like these for other engagements/solution also]
Interested to see how the group moved around during the session? 
We have mapped it for you Draft - The Path to getting everyone to high engagement, deep Co-creation Zone - Google Docs Let us know what you thought and share your insights too.
Some Insights from participants
- “never have i seen so many panchayat members so engaged and speak so much!” ~ Panchayat Development Officer
- Broken & Boring Dialogues - current structure of dialogue between stakeholders of gram sabhas in the panchayat are broken. Gram Sabha meetings are boring. Making them more interesting will also draw more people into it.
- Focus on process and not product - tech again is only 2% of the solution. The idea needs to be co created by the community. takes time and effort.
- Radical Crediting - We are setting up a simple Digitally Verifiable Certificate platform to recognise their participation as tech for good co-creators level 1/4 to participants, level 2/4 for 2 Anode staff for successfully conducting the workshop.
Thanks Anode for allowing us to be a part of this journey. We are big fans of the work you do and the facilitation skills of the team.
Some workshops, people we participated/met to learn
KochiFOSS - A Free and Open Source Conference held in Kochi, Kerala by the FOSS United Community. Kochi and Trivandrum have a very active FOSS community in colleges. Was wonderful to connect with students and learn about their aspirations. We are joining them as Community Partners for ongoing events.
TinkerHub Foundation
I met with Mehar and spent a few days with their amazing team, community in Kochi. i wanted to learn more about their methods, approach and how they have built such a large active community across Kerala. They are a community of tinkerers, makers, policy geeks & students and are working towards mapping and empowering people who share a passion to innovate. (If you are in Kochi visit them… its inspiring and energetic space - wish we had similar spaces in Bangalore)
https://tinkerhub.org/
and Link to their Latest report 2021-22 Tinkerhub Impact .pdf - Google Drive
Sajhe Sapne: Development & Tech Fellows
We are speaking with Sajhe Sapne to hire for T4G Fellowship - Their mission is to ensure rural women can launch their careers in modern workforce
Epiverse from Data.org Epiverse - data.org
A global collaborative working to develop a trustworthy data analysis ecosystem dedicated to getting ahead of the next public health crisis.
Learning opportunities for us coming up in the next few weeks:
Meeting with the team of the following 3 initiatives and spending some time with them.
GDC Engineering Fellowship is a national programme to identify the top 40 Indian students for an industry-led training to become full-stack developers and get a six month internship for open-source contributions to create digital public goods.
Coronasafe
Leveraging tech to reimagine the delivery capabilities and experience for every district in India.
Tele-ICU - Providing Specialist Intensive Care to the Rural and Remote India
https://coronasafe.network/teleicu
If you or your partners would like to know more about the work we do, or connect with any of the folks we are speaking with, or learn more - please do reach out to us at shemeer@t4glabs.org , arunabha@t4glabs.org
Sincerely,
Shemeer