Based in Mumbai, Touching Lives is a non-profit organization that works towards Learning (Education), Healing (Mental Health) and Expression (Art) of children from vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds. Touching Lives provides opportunities for Learning, Healing, Art, Technology and Life-skills for the holistic development and empowerment of children. It envisages the supported children to lead a better quality life with financial independence and conscious relationship with themselves and the world.

Founded in 2003 by Sonia Mackwani with the value – ‘it is our need to serve than saying we are serving the needy’, the team of Touching Lives is guided by the mantras of Self-work, Seva (service) and Sadhna (practice). Touching Lives started as a spiritual journey towards the path self-evolution and self-work.

Touching Lives offers a range of interconnected programs that provide supplementary education, mentoring, and life-skills training for students aged 6 to 23 years. The organization’s holistic approach includes support for mental well-being, creativity, conscious leadership, and more. In the afterschool project of Touching Lives, students learn not only to improve their academic performance but also to develop their emotional intelligence and resilience. The organization also offers programs for mothers, which focus on healing and self-work.

Education is a long-term process and commitment. Many of Touching Lives’ alumni students have completed their graduation, are currently pursuing degree, moved out of slum communities to rented apartments, working in reputable companies and living a better socio-economic life. Each story of grit, perseverance, success is truly inspirational for fellow children from slum communities and also for the world at large.

Touching Lives also extends its support to organizations working in rural India by providing teacher training, mentorship to social entrepreneurs, and funding for educational projects. Through its Media & Films project, the organization uses cinema as a therapeutic aid in classrooms and teaches filmmaking as a tool for personal transformation and personality development.

It also runs visual storytelling and healing workshops across the globe, working with diverse groups such as schools, organizations, rehabs, and prisons.

The work of organizations working at the grassroots level is extremely important for communities. When a Touching Lives mentor asked one of the students – ‘What drives you to come to Touching Lives?’, the answer from the student was simple and yet it gives us a deep understanding of their world – ‘Didi, in our community nobody speaks to us with respect the way you do’.

Touching Lives’ work provides safe and compassionate space where every child has an opportunity to express themselves.

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In today’s digital-oriented world, the businesses, the governments, the NGOs as well as the civil societies rely on digital data to influence the people. The value of data is highly significant, making the privacy of individuals vulnerable. In such a scenario, it is important for more people to understand the working of computers, operating systems and programming languages.

With the advent of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) tech in programming, a lot of students today are taught programming through drag and drop tools. There is no emphasis on how an operating system works. Such a gap in knowledge can make technology users more vulnerable to cyber-attacks and breach of their privacy.

With an aim to help the users protect their own privacy, maintain their anonymity while using technology and democratize the computer science education, Subhajeet Mukherjee hailing from Kolkata, founded The Programming Foundation (TPF) in February 2020 in Sunnyvale, California that focuses on providing computer science education free-of-cost, without compromising data.

The Programming Foundation (TPF)

The mission of TPF is to encourage the next generation and generations to come to understand, use, and implement computer programming into their knowledge and their lives. With proper education in mind, the foundation focuses on education that is based on written instruction and concise documentation of examples and processes, as well as providing students with hands-on experience working together as a team by developing free and open-source tools for our platform.

To that end, The Programming Foundation aims to meet several goals:

Spreading awareness and Education on Computer Programming

The Programming Foundation has committed to spreading awareness and education on computer programming and operating systems in order to ensure inclusive development for every individual with the advancing world. Therefore, the foundation focuses on ensuring the widespread adoption of new and enhanced curriculum on computer programming and operating systems and for this knowledge to become mainstream in the general population.

Bridging the Employment Gap Caused By Automation

In addition to this, the foundation aims to work at bridging the employment gap that is caused as a result of the advent of automation technologies. The foundation aims at producing a collaborative society that because of their education will be able to apply their collective knowledge toward technological innovations.

To Ensure Inclusive Development of Society

The Foundation has recognised the existence of devices that are smarter than the average human. Considering the fact that this technology is becoming more widespread every day, our lack of proper education on the subject may leave many behind on how it works. In order to keep everyone on the same level and to move society at the same speed as technology advances, it is important to implement far-reaching educational systems to teach and learn how these technologies work. The foundation is dedicated to improving the available solutions in order to make computer programming and operating systems education mainstream.

The conversations and concerns over cybersecurity have increased in recent times with the rise in the number of cybercrimes. Amidst this, more people need to be aware of how the operating systems work in order to protect themselves in a better manner. If people can learn to operate smartphones, they can surely learn to understand how their smartphones work. And to aid that, initiatives like TPF go a long way.

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India is the second-most populous country in the world and home to over 20% of the world’s blind population. Unfortunately, India is also home to the largest number of blind children in any one country.

“In 2000, India had only four comprehensive tertiary pediatric eye care centres. At that time, with a population of 1 billion, India needed 100 Children’s Eye Centers (CEC) as per the WHO guidelines of one centre per 10 million population. Therefore, building India’s capacity for pediatric eye care has been a mammoth challenge,” said Dr. Rishi Raj Borah, Country Director, Orbis India.

He added, “Examining children needs special skills and treatment requires specific training, knowledge and equipment. Thre is a need to build the infrastructure for service delivery including equipping the facilities and supporting community work, along with the development of all cadres of human resources required; having the right people in the right place is the cornerstone of any successful public health program.”

Keeping all of this in mind, in 2002, the India Childhood Blindness Initiative (ICBI) was launched by Orbis to help ensure that India’s children have access to quality eye care for generations to come.

The India Childhood Blindness Initiative began by identifying tertiary level eye hospitals where CECs could be established. Further, a country-wide survey was undertaken to generate evidence for human resource and infrastructure requirements for the elimination of avoidable childhood blindness. This was the first time that such an extensive survey was undertaken in India along with Dr R P Center for Ophthalmic Sciences.

Today, after nearly two decades, we can proudly say that we have played an important role in establishing pediatric ophthalmology as a distinct subspecialty in the Indian ophthalmology landscape thereby making sure that children across India have access to quality care for generations to come.

Today there are 33 CECs that have been developed with Orbis support across 17 states in India, and the good work is continuing at these child-friendly facilities. This is the largest network of CECs in any one country in the world. Besides, some of these centres as well as continue to provide training and support to the eye care system in India and many neighbouring countries. Further, this model has been successfully replicated in Nepal and Bangladesh.

Besides, three of the tertiary level pediatric facilities in the country that existed in 2000 were developed as pediatric ophthalmology learning and training centres (POLTCs) by Orbis, providing infrastructure as well as technical support. This included standardization of the curricula for different cadres of eye health professionals for the CECs and community work. These POLTCs continue to offer fellowships in pediatric ophthalmology, short/long-term training programs and periodically conducted workshops/refresher training as well as continuing medical education (CME) producing more and more able young child eye care professionals who are making sure that children across the length and breadth of India have access to quality pediatric care.

Through the invaluable support of our partner hospitals, we are reaching children in need of care and continue to extend the scope of this network.

With almost two decades of contribution in this field, Orbis has become a trusted name among the ophthalmic fraternity and community at large in their efforts to improve child eye health.

Addressing challenges of childhood blindness

Childhood blindness refers to a group of diseases and conditions occurring in childhood or early adolescence, which, if left untreated, result in blindness or severe visual impairment that are likely to be untreatable later in life. The major causes of blindness in children vary widely from region to region, being largely determined by socioeconomic development, and the availability of primary health care and eye care services. In high-income countries, lesions of the optic nerve and higher visual pathways predominate as the cause of blindness, while corneal scarring from measles, vitamin A deficiency, the use of harmful traditional eye remedies, ophthalmia neonatorum, and rubella cataract are the major causes in low-income countries. Retinopathy of prematurity is an important cause in middle-income countries. Other significant causes in all countries are congenital abnormalities, such as cataract, glaucoma, and hereditary retinal dystrophies.

Refractive errors are the largest cause of moderate and severe visual impairment and this is on the rise. Reduced outdoor play and exposure to the sun are increasingly replaced by indoor activities and game for children. This increases the chances of children developing myopia.

Since children constitute only 3% of the world’s blind population, childhood blindness has not been given its due importance as compared to other causes of blindness and visual impairment. However, if childhood blindness is measured in blind-person-years it is second only to cataract blindness.

Additionally, the divide between the rich and poor continues to increase, leaving a significant portion of the population without access to basic healthcare services — most of whom live either in rural India or urban slums. To further compound the situation, a majority of ophthalmologists in India live and practice in urban areas.

Role of Orbis in India

Orbis India launched the India Childhood Blindness Initiative (ICBI), our flagship program in 2002, to help ensure that India’s children across geographies have access to quality eye care for generations to come. Till date, 33 Children’s Eye Centers (CEC) have been developed across 17 states of the country, and the good work is continuing at these child-friendly facilities

Orbis is fighting the problem of Refractive Error – the largest cause of moderate to severe visual impairment – through the REACH (Refractive Error Among Children) program across 15 districts of India. More information about this innovative model published recently.

Orbis has also worked in the areas of eye banking, diabetic retinopathy and quality assurance. The organisation has developed a Quality Resource Center which is now supporting eye care facilities across India and internationally

As a Founder Member of Vision 2020: The Right to Sight India, Orbis is actively involved in the activities of Vision 2020 – India.

Bridging the gap in training and skilling in paediatric eye care

One of the most critical deficits in global eye health is the lack of an adequately trained workforce. This is the very reason Orbis was founded – to provide ongoing training and support to eye care teams around the world.

Once people were identified for training, ‘where’ and ‘how’ they would be trained continued to remain a challenge when we started ICBI in 2002. To address this, three of the existing tertiary level paediatric facilities in the country were developed as paediatric ophthalmology learning and training centres (POLTCs) by providing infrastructure as well as technical support. This included standardisation of the curricula for different cadres of eye health professionals for the CECs and community work.

POLTCs offer fellowships in paediatric ophthalmology, short/long-term training programmes and periodically conducted workshops/refresher training as well as continuing medical education (CME). Conducting impactful research on child eye health is an integral part of a POLTC.

To aid in continuing education and support, Orbis creates customised hands-on opportunities through the Flying Eye Hospital and hospital-based trainings (HBTs) to increase clinical and surgical abilities of eye care providers. These trainings are tailored to address the requirements of the trainee as well as the community they will be serving. HBTs are especially well-received as they provide an opportunity for the entire clinical staff to get trained and gain experience in their own setting.

In addition, Cybersight, equal parts library, school and remote medicine service, is open to all eye health professionals around the world for training, consultation and research. Also, it keeps professionals who have undergone training connected with their mentors.

These efforts have not only contributed towards building the capacity of various cadres of eye health professionals and their affiliated institutions to provide care and support to children in need but has systematically created a milieu where paediatric ophthalmology could develop and flourish as a distinct subspecialty within the Indian ophthalmology landscape.

The importance of innovation in ophthalmology

Of course, at every step of the journey. For nearly four decades, Orbis has harnessed the latest in technology and innovation to take efforts to end avoidable blindness to an unprecedented scale around the globe.

The organization invented its Flying Eye Hospital – a state-of-the-art teaching facility complete with an operating room, classroom and recovery room – to reach remote communities before the Internet was born. An advanced audiovisual system allows local eye care teams in the plane’s classroom to watch surgeries happening in the operating room live in 3D.

Orbis’s simulation training program uses the latest technology – like virtual reality, artificial eyes, and life-like mannequins – to safely build local eye care teams’ skills.

Orbis’s telemedicine platform, Cybersight, uses the latest internet and mobile technologies to reach eye care teams worldwide, including in remote and conflict-affected areas, with training.

Training activities, including live lectures and surgeries, onboard the Flying Eye Hospital are broadcast via Cybersight to partner hospitals and classrooms around the globe.

A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool on Cybersight examines digital photographs to identify common eye diseases in a mere eight seconds, allowing more doctors in low-resource countries to provide early detection for their patients.

School Eye Health Program

School is the first formal space for learning. Using this space to reach the vast cohort of school-aged children who constitute a particularly vulnerable group because of the high prevalence of refractive error is a common practice. There are several models of school eye health programmes currently operational across India. REACH – Refractive Error Among Children is a model aiming to address challenges in the school eye health space and build innovative, sustainable and scalable programmes.

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A couple who came from a family of manual scavengers did not appreciate these differences and started a non-profit to uplift the lives of their community.

Preeti Pradip Hajare grew up in a family of manual scavengers. While growing was subjected to a lot of misbehaviour from her school teachers and her classmates. She was deterred from studies by her teachers as they believed that it was not going to be of any use for her. They, in fact, asserted to her that she and the people of her community are fit for only one kind of job. She, however, did not believe this and completed not only her graduation but also earned a Master’s Degree.

Preeti’s Husband Pradip Balwant Hajare also had a similar story. He accompanied his mother at times, who worked as a manual scavenger. While he never thought that it was a dirty job, he realized that people around him did. He worked hard and got himself the job of a life insurance advisor. He then supported his family and managed to get his mother to quit the job.

The couple realizing the plight of the members of their community have started a non-profit called the Jan Jagriti Aawahan Bahuuddeshiya Samiti (JJAS) in Nagpur, which they registered in 2010.

JJAS works to empower manual scavengers by running a school/daycare facility for their children and other marginalised communities in Nagpur. They raise awareness about the rights of manual scavengers, conduct skill development programmes for them, organise health camps and clinics alongside other NGOs and government agencies. They also assist youngsters who want to transition from their caste occupation and find alternative sources of livelihood.

The non-profit gives utmost importance to education. Thus, in 2008, JJAS started the Shining Star Convent School in Nagpur, an English medium school with classes from Nursery to KG-2. Currently, there are nearly 50 students in this school.

Apart from educating young children, the organisation also conducts awareness workshops for their parents. The workshops help them understand the bane of untouchability better, the history of their community, how they can address discrimination on a daily basis, the legal tools at their disposal and how they can encourage their young ones to take up different occupations once they grow up.

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TISS AESDII in collaboration with Shantilal Muttha Foundation concluded its Programme and Financial Management Workshop on March 15^th, 2019. The two-day workshop was held in Muttha Chambers II, Pune.

Rohan Sarma, Head of TISS AESDII, Mumbai started the integrated workshop by setting the context for next two days in respect to the current scenario in CSR and how this workshop will help the development practitioners develop a comprehensive understanding in respect to why and how financial and programmatic operations can go hand in hand.

The workshop entailed sessions on various topics. On the first day there were sessions on Workshop on stakeholder mapping, Development Management with Results-Based Management Approach, Frameworks for organizational learning, Change and Partnerships, and What do Funders expect from an NPO within a Dynamic Development Sector. On the second day, there were sessions on Workshop on Financial Management, Fund-Raising Using Change Language in Grant/Proposal Writing, and Finance Clinic.

The session on Workshop on stakeholder mapping was an hour-long interactive workshop for not for profit organizations. It enabled the participants to identify various stakeholders and the influence they have on their organizations’ activities.

The session on Development Management with Results-Based Management Approach was conducted by V Venkataramana, the CEO of Shantilal Muttha Foundation, Pune. The session focused on how to develop and implement programmes to achieve results.

Frameworks for organizational learning, Change and Partnerships was conducted by Rohan Sarma who used an A to Z template to help the participants unlearn and learn, develop new perspectives towards the development sector, and how to bring ‘change’ in what they do to bring a change. He emphasized on how organizations fail to sustain the main reason being their stubborn nature and how a constantly learning organization will enable the organization to achieve the objectives of their organization.

The final workshop on What do Funders expect from an NPO within a Dynamic Development Sector was conducted by Avinash Madhale, Programme Officer, Centre for Environment Education. He conducted an activity for the participants which was to give an idea of an elevator pitch. He said, “Today in the development sector solving problems are insufficient. Instead, we need to identify and solve the right problem. This capacity is what funders look for in those approaching them. Organisations need to be passionate and skilled in an area and should be able to present their ideas to the funders in precise terms over a very short duration. It takes practice and commitment to do this and showcasing your mastery over a short duration not only impresses the client but also highlights the organisation’s case in a compelling way.”

The second day started with the session on Financial Management by Lalit Sethi, Finance Consultant, TISS AESDII. The session covered four topics mainly Financial Management, Good governance, Legal Compliance and Fundraising strategies.

Fund-Raising Using Change Language in Grant/Proposal Writing was again conducted by V Venkataramana, the CEO of Shantilal Muttha Foundation, Pune. After which the workshop concluded with a final session on Finance Clinic in which Expert financial consultants from TISS provided financial advisory through one-on-one personalised handholding support. Non-profit organisations came to the Finance Clinic with their balance sheets, project budgets and doubts.

The programme ended on a positive note with participants taking away valuable insights from the industry experts. TISS AESDII is coming up with the second batch of its 5-day Certificate Training Program, ‘Development Perspectives, Managements and Practices’ from 8^th to 12^th April 2019 in Mumbai.

The CSR Journal is the digital media partner for the event.

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A developing country such as India has a lot of social issues that need to be addressed. Several organisations are constantly working towards it with the support of individuals, government as well as the corporates. This has subjected the non-profit sector to be more accountable and transparent about their actions, which would help in bringing solutions to the social problems of the country and build a renewed social contract between all the entities based on ethics and mutual respect.

Taking a step towards educating more individuals to participate in social and national development at a professional level, The Tata Institute of Social Sciences is announcing a Programme and Financial Management Workshop for Non-Profit organisations, CSR professionals, researchers and students.

In an environment that is so competitive and complex, the non-profit sector must adapt to this need for accountability while retaining the essence of its programs and accountability to their core vision as well as stakeholders. While NPOs are acknowledging these due processes, it is a challenge for some to deliver on these premises. It is critical that non-profits focus on good governance, financial due diligence, robust monitoring, evaluation, learning and documentation.

Entailing a comprehensive schedule that includes takeaways for all partners, the TISS AESDII training program under its vertical TISS AESDII Knowledge Sharing Network adopts a hands-on approach and endeavours to create a convergence based on solutions, build internal capacities of both funders and non-profits to forge new partnerships for development.

The program will bring together academicians, practitioners and thought leaders of various Departments and Faculties from across campuses of the globally acclaimed Tata Institute of Social Sciences and its affiliate institutions as master trainers. Designed to be a joint effort to deliberate and act toward ‘people-centered sustainable development’ policies, this program intends to be a platform for development practitioners for sharing perspectives, enhancing and acquiring skills, validating theories and applying models of practice.

Date: 14^th and 15^th March, 2019

Venue: Level 8, Muttha Chambers II, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune, Maharashtra – 411016

Application Procedure:

1. Please register via this link: https://goo.gl/forms/j95wgkPDvvDwFU302
2. Make the registration fee payment
3. If paying via DD – Send DD to TISS and/or email GST Declaration Form and the Invoice Requisition Form / If via Online Transfer – Email the UTR/ Reference number, GST Declaration Form and the Invoice Requisition Form.

Click here to know the event schedule: https://goo.gl/RCQKgE

The CSR Journal is the digital media partner for the event.

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