User:Normanesque/NEED

NEED is a microfinance institution founded in the year 1995, by Mr.Anil Singh currently headquartered in Lucknow,Uttar Pradesh,India. NEED primarily caters to the needs of women belonging to the economically weaker sections of the society through its self-help groups and its Fair Trade programmes to eliminate the unequal relationships between the producer groups.

The origin of NEED can be traced back to 1995 when it was formed as a Voluntary Development Organisation. In its current form, it functions as professional institute with activists, teams, volunteers, and networking organizations. Their collective aim is to provide process-oriented educational inputs, create demonstrative models, and work proactively to widen the circle of impact on the lives of deprived women and children.

History
Anil Singh, the founder and currently the CEO of NEED in collaboration with Indian Institute of Management,Ahmedabad initiated a specific action research project in remote tribal villages of India in the mid-80s.In 1995, he gave up his job as the head of a premier government-training institute to set up NEED.Anil was elected as a fellow at the Ashoka Foundation in 1998.

Methodology and Approach
NEED's approach involves supporting marginalised people by linking them together in groups and building their capacity to effect change in their own lives and communities. The organisation has 4 areas of focus:


 * Forming Self Help Groups (SHGs) for credit and social mobilisation: NEED aims to work at the grassroots level by helping poor women form SHGs - specifically, by introducing a system of micro-finance and promoting entrepreneurial activities. This involves generating economic wealth in addition to encouraging the community to speak out, challenging social ills and creating community institutions that work to meet the needs of citizens.


 * Microenterprise Development: NEED has defined a training model what is known as Entrepreneurship Linked Income Generation for Self Employment Program (EIGSEP). This programme is a series of 6 flexible modules that can be adjusted to meet the needs of village women and men who desire advanced entrepreneurial training. The model is aimed at helping people recognise and use the traditional wisdom and human resources that exist among them. The strategy supposedly represents a movement away from managing quantifiable mechanisms such as credit, thrift, and SHGs to issues of developing human capital. The organisation also offers micro-finance lending directly to deprived and marginalised members of rural society (women, farmers, artisans, micro-entrepreneurs, etc.).


 * Environmental Sustainability: NEED aims at facilitating ecological development through projects to reclaim waste land.As per independent studies many village communities have lost their capacity to use land for agriculture due to industrial pollution. NEED has contributed to forming partnerships between villages and government organisations in which stakeholders can work together toward land reclamation. Through a series of interventions, beginning with growing targeted crops, NEED works with the stakeholders on ways to improve marginal land and farm in a sustainable manner.


 * Capacity Building: NEED publishes learning documentation and conducts training programmes for the functionaries of other NGOs, governmental departments, banks, and leaders of the formed SHGs. Trainees working with the organisation spend extensive amounts of time on on-field activities in an effort to understand the grassroots realities of village life.

Operational statistics
Currently NEED comprises of 215 social entrepreneurs who primarily focus on on promoting women and children and enabling livelihoods through sustainable economic development, micro-finance, healthcare and education.Its grassroots network reaches 4700 villages and 450,000 people in the rural districts in Uttar Pradesh & Bihar, India.