People Speak

Dear Jerry,

Thanks so very much for your mail and kind words. I appreciate the gesture greatly. I am also thankful to you for nominating my name for KVP for the year 2008 and also knowing its acceptance with the jury / committee is a quite satisfying.

You have always been there to witness whatever little I could do over the last 5 years' period in the development sector trying to impact both voluntary sector through policy initiatives and creation of community assets for people in particular. The journey was challenging but invisible motivators like you always made the path easy inch by inch. I feel good at the end of the day though, more at a time when I have been involved with CSR arm of country's largest media house and working very closely with its Chairman, who also founded the Times Foundation 8 years back. She is the fountainhead of all such initiatives and continues to inspire for raising the bar in development sector that has potential to impact lives of people positively and builds a more equitable, sustainable and just world around us.

Teach India, a Times of India initiative, will always remain a very special project of my life as I was associated with the project from the day one and could play an interesting role of bringing various stakeholders including NGOs, corporate houses in addition to bringing on board UN to support the initiatives. Now while we see things change for needy and underprivileged children, we also find the positive acceptance and ready reception of public of the initiative. I am also happy to inform you that the initiative has also been appreciated in writing by those who matter and have world view on critical issues of development. I am pleased to share that UN Secretary General has hailed the program as one of the biggest volunteering initiative by a private sector. Additionally bi-lateral donor like Oxfam, media behemoth like the TIME Magazine and multi-lateral donor like the WORLD BANK are on record to have appreciated and liked the initiative. This along with people especially the youth who reposed their faith in the Teach India makes it very special to me.

RIGHT EVERY WRONG in fact captures the very spirit and vision with which the imitative was think tanked and implemented with vigor, innovation and speed. In this background, Teach India will always remain a hallmark of my professional career.

I know the award would raise expectations from all quarters; I would do everything possible to live up to the faith reposed in me.

As advised, I will be happy to present myself during the award ceremony and have an opportunity to meet you, Meenu and other ICONGO colleagues, who extended all their support and co-operation in helping me complete all formalities of the awards and also in making my day on 26th a very special one.

Best regards,
Pooran, Director-Times Foundation

Hi Jerry,

Ashok visited yesterday. Was impressed. Has given Rs. 22 lakns for a few small projects. Thanks for your receommendations. Now we need your savvy and contacts to deleiver the real big institutional donors. We'll then go change WOTR to teh "Almeida Sashtikar Trust"!!!!

Need to rush,. take care!

Crispino

Dear Sir,

I am a student doing my masters in cooperation and development from the University of Pavia. My basic background is medicine and I have graduated in Physician assistant from India, I am a Indian citizen with 4 years of experience in the field of adult and pediatric cardiology. I have worked in the adult and pediatric intensive care unit for all these 4 years. I have pursued this carrier in the field of cooperation and development so that to fulfill my desire to work for the deserved people who really require tremendous help. I have read across your prestigious non governmental organization doing great work in health sector.

I look forward to work with you to fulfill my ambitions and goals so that ''health sector is an industry but health service to the poor is not an industry''.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
Ruth

Dear Jerry,

Thanks for your very affectionate letter.

Please enlist me as your supporter for all times to come.It was indeed a pleasure being with you during the ICONGO Conclave. It was a nice platform where I could interact and meet with so many good people around at one go. I am sure the event went on very well and was deeply appreciated by one and all.I once again take this opportunity to thank you for inviting me to the Conclave and running a special theme on FCRA. I ardently hope the journey that started must go on aplomb.
Best regards,

Pooran

Greetings from DVAF

Hope you had good journey back to Delhi. The partner NGOs were impressed a lot on your presentation which enabled us to get lots of input, feedback and new initiatives on Fund Raising Strategies / Resource Mobilization which would help us to adopt new strategies in the field of development.

You are most welcome to give suggestions / feedback for the empowerment of poor and marginalized, especially Dalits. Once again we thank you very much for your earnest support in strengthening DVAF.

K.Joji, General Secretary

Dear Team Icongo,
Thanks for your mail, I was impressed to learn that an organisation such as yours supports and encourages noble laureates.If there is anything I can do for you please do let me know. I am an independent film maker based in Delhi and am keen to be associated with you.

George Paul, C/O Channel One

Beautiful
I got into the web-site yesterday, and it made me feel that life can be good. Thank you for a great job done. I look forward to browsing the site frequently for inspiration.
I was honoured to see my article amongst the inspirational essays chosen by you. Thank you for this. Just one thought about this. The title of my piece is given as 'Democracy's Hardware' whereas my piece talks about the importance of democracy's software. Should the title have been, 'Democracy's Software'?
(When we first met Arun Maira at his office to invite him and explained the concept he loved it and said this is the right step towards encouraging citizen social responsibility where we the people work in partnership with Government, Business, Civil Society, Media to lead the change. He felt that in comparison to movie led movements like Rang de Basanti which was extremist and Gandhigiri which was a nice concept, RIGHT every WRONG was a step ahead for building citizen action to take stands, speak out and be the change we want to see in the world- Team ICONGO.)

Arun Maira Chairman, Boston Consulting Group

Dear Jerry,
  Thanks for the invite, sounds like an interesting and groundbreaking endeavor! Unfortunately I can't make it but I wish you all the best.

Daniel Wordsworth Director, Christian Children Fund

" ICONGO has a good set of ideas. We can definitely work together. Had ICONGO been formed earlier and we met them 15 years ago, we could have made the communities rule the world."

Ashok Khosla Development Alternatives

"All power to you and your team for a much needed enterprise. I get the feeling a lot of well meaning people who don't know how to get started will greatly benefit from your enterprise."

Mahesh Dattani

Dear Jerry,

I visited the website. Must appreciate your efforts in this direction. Found the Social Responsibility Conclave and ICONGO concepts very timely, interesting and appealing as well. Infact, I am working with one other faculty member on corporate social responsibility book. We both checked with our schedules, but unfortunately we are not in a position to attend either or send a paper for the same. My appologies.Hope to continue our relationship sharing similar interests.

Wishing you the best for this conclave,

Dr. Ami Divatia Faculty Associate ICFAI Reasearch center, Ahmedabad

Need more workshops just like this one In the future it would be better to involve the other volunteers who are involved in Content is good and thought provoking.

Helen V. Sheila, Rural Integrated Development Agency (RIDA)

This session was very fruitful and I understood the global scenario better. It was evaluative and effective. Associating with ICONGO is necessary in order to network well for our projects and programmes.

V. Isaac RAPID ( Rural Action for Promoting Integrated Development)

An educative presentation

C. Krupa Rao, HELPS ( Health Education Leadership Promoting Society)

The workshop was very informative. It was worth being here. Since this is just an initial presentation, more details in terms of a strategy are required in order to organize campaigns.

V. Sujatha Kumar, RUTHRDS

Subject matter is good. All of this was new to me. Therefore I need more explanation preferably with examples from grass roots.

Wishing you the best for this conclave,

K Lazarus CAMP

Presentation apt for early starters in fundraising Good subject knowledge. Bold and well articulated.

V. Ravindranath FOL ( Fellowship of Life)

A good exercise for NGOs to know the basics of fundraising. The exercise also helps us to understand and improve ourselves As a suggestion you should also try to be in the dalit colony for sometime as that would give you a better understanding of the dalit issues.

D. Gopi Maarpu

Relevant inputs and good strategic planning. Liked the idea of working as a collective Fundraising ideas need to be discussed with the DVAF NGOs

J. Balaswami AWARDS ( Agency of Working Associations for Rural Development Services

Good content and excellent presentation skills. e understood better how to raise funds for our organization

A.J. Haline MLRD Foundation ( Martin Luther Rural Development Foundation)

Good presentation but if made a little slow, would be appreciated. Literature needs to be given alongside.

Wishing you the best for this conclave,

WK. Suseela Annie Owe Memorial Orphanage

Presentation was good but would have been better if more examples were added to it.

Srinivasa Bahadur Srinivasa Educational Society (SES)

Great presentation.but a basic foundation is require for us to understand it better.

K. Jeevarathnam, AREHDS ( Action for Rural Environment Human Development Society

The presentation was simple and spoke of methods that need implementation. Need to understand better the implementation of these methods.

Kalpana, DVAF

Dear Jerry,

This is one of the best workshops I’ve attended. I must appreciate your decision to invest your knowledge and skills for the development of the society. With a ‘resource developer’ like you, I can visualize a more humane and an enlightened society. I learnt many things from you listing a few below:
However meaningful the concept may be, how one takes it to the people is important.
Reaching out to the people in their language sounds good.
Acceptance and community ownership of the process ensures sustainability.
Doing things differently matters.
I would like to collaborate with you for mutual benefit. As you’ve been able to reach out to the group successfully, I could not find any areas to suggest for changes.
I prefer to appreciate the positive qualities of an individual. I will mail you some useful information that will be useful in this endeavor. I feel lucky to have known you and have you as a friend as you give that ‘human touch’ and create a future for the ones who think there isn’t one left.
With love,

JP, CHRD

Ashwini

Allow me to introduce you to Jerry. Jerry heads Icongo (Indian Confederation of NGOs). For many years, they have been helping companies design relevant CSR strategies. E.g. Tata salt developing infrastructure for the salt farmers of Gujarat.

He might be the best person to help you desing a CSR strategy for Kinapse.

Please let me know if I can be of any help.

Thanks,

Gaurav

Hi Jerry,

I am Kumari Vandana. I have gone through the work that you people are doing at iCONGO.

This is a great work that you people are doing and I would like to be a part of this initiative. I was working with Aashayein Foundation at Bangalore for 2 years. Due to some personal reasons I had to shift to Delhi. Now I am looking for similar work in Delhi.

Kindly let me know if I could be of any help to this organisation.

Thanks and Regards,

Kumari Vandana