Dignity
Foundation
It is a very pleasant realisation for me that
the past 12 months have been an exercise in
partnership building, reaching a crescendo today.
If the year 2006 saw the establishment of newer
services to the 50+, making our service delivery
total to 24, in 2007 we have been applying our
energies to gear up ourselves to the mission
of elder care. Capacity building and strengthening
of management practices through partnerships
has been our prime engagement.
Chai Masti
Commencing October 2006, our year began with
a dynamic spurt in the running of a popular
activity known as Chai Masti. The foundation
for this body-mind-soul enrichment was laid
way back in November 2003 when our Trustee Shri
Ashok Modi brought in the partnership of Lions
Club of Juhu, who along with his own Trust,
the Hiravanti Mansuhklal Desai Trust, contributed
a sum of Rs.7 lakhs for the renovation of rooms
in our Topiwala lane premises. The head start
he gave us spurred us onto dynamic paths of
offering popular activities much liked by the
audience we serve. It is an end in itself to
witness the bonhomie and riotous joy in our
premises everyday between 3 and 7 pm. On December
17, 2006 the members were brave enough to put
up an entry-ticket-show that beat all records
in terms of number of participants, audience
and the quality of cultural performance. Today
we are happy to declare that we have perfected
the skill of running this to success in any
locality you want to set up such a centre. I
invite the audience to come forward to offer
your management skills in running one for other
senior citizens of your locality.
Bonding with
City Chapters
January and February 2007 were devoted to strengthening
of old chapters and developing new ones –
Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad.
Jamshedpur is yet to comply. The chapter management
in each of the cities was restructured. The
Core Committee was made slim to include only
one or two fulltime professionals along the
50+ group of four. The Core Committees were
invited to come to Mumbai to witness the actual
delivery modalities of services being made here
by the professional staff trained in elder care.
While the visiting teams paid for the airfare,
the Head Office in Mumbai paid for local hospitality.
The breadth of the organisational reach in Mumbai
was made visible to members of the chapters
in a five-day workshop. Nine of the Core Staff
members of the Head Office made presentations
to explain each and every service being delivered.
All skills were shared with them in establishing
an effective response system to needs of senior
citizens of these cities. A good amount of bonding
took place with the visiting teams, creating
a climate of mutual trust and support. The responses
of the visiting teams were extremely positive
and will go a long way in keeping the city chapters
integrated with the Foundation mission.
New Day Care Centres for the dementia afflicted
were started in New Delhi and Kolkata in May
and June respectively. From a well known social
organization in Chennai and the Govt in Jharkhand,
we have now received invitations to build and
manage homes for the Elderly in their cities.
Second Careers
A fillip was given to our Second Career Job
Counselling and Placement services to the 50+
who seek re-employment opportunities. An accidental
one page article in a local daily brought in
a huge wave of retirees and employers for work
fitments. Thanks to a big job offer from the
ICICIBank, a retirees call centre was set up
in Thane. We have had a positive response so
far to the work performance of these members.
Dignity Second Careers is also a good revenue
earning service for the Foundation since one
month’s salary is charged as the Foundation
fee for identifying the right candidate for
companies and other NGOs.
Today we have the pleasure of inaugurating
a new dedicated website titled:
www.dignitysecondcareersorg.
Retirees all over the country as well as companies
and social organisations can access the website
to mutual advantage. Thanks to ICICI Prudential
for helping us design the website.
Governance
Matters
With the view to augment the management strength
of the Board of Trustees, in a long term planning
initiative, a young board of prospective members
were invited by us to join the succession line
preparatory board. Thanks to the help given
by Mr Nachiket Mor, Joint MD of ICICI Bank,
we have been able to attract four young corporate
heads of his company and two others to constitute
a think tank to help us build strategy and not-for-profit
business models for effective services to senior
citizens. The latest addition to such individuals
of high proven ability and repute has been the
voluntary joining in of the Head of Lintas India.
We wholeheartedly welcome the partnerships and
the several offers to help us.
An additional effort in enhancing the governance
skills of both our Trusts at the Board level
has been a focused action-project funded by
the Ford Foundation that will help us obtain
highly effective and efficient Boards for innovation
in services to senior citizens.
Lobby and Advocacy
In response to increasing expectations of senior
citizens across the country, Dignity Foundation
is pleased to launch today a determined expression
of our intention to work for the betterment
of the rights of senior citizens. Voice of Dignity
as India’s first monthly newspaper has
the privilege of being launched in a unique
manner at your own hands just now. Kindly take
out the copy from the carry bag we have given
you and open the newspaper to give it your blessings.
This is the launch that will bestow, from our
point of view, the right context to give momentum
to our movement.
Voice of Dignity is made possible by the indirect
support we receive from ICICI Prudential Life
Insurance. It is a movement that will benefit
each month from the “Voices of senior
citizens” that will be mobilised by Adhikaris
appointed all over the country. More Adhikaris
are welcome to join. The Volunteer’s Form
to act as Adhikari, Upadhikari and Mahila Adhikari
in your locality is obtained in the carry bag.
Please fill it and hand it over to any Dignity
Foundation staff you see here in the Hall. Your
locality meetings will be supported by us.
On January 26 of this year, a pilot action
programme titled Senior Citizens Tax Protest
was launched by us, where eminent activists
such as A.N.Shanbag,
Sucheta Dalal, Ameet Patel and Kirit Somaiya
gave us directions to build pressure groups
to work with the government. In March this year,
Petitions were sent to the highest offices in
the country and only one reply was received:
the Chairman of the Planning Commission Shri
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, promised to incorporate
in the 11th Five Year plan the provisions we
had asked for.
The time is therefore right to upscale our
movement to talk to the Govt and bring about
changes crucial to the standard of living richly
deserved by senior citizens.
Collaborations
with the Govt.
The Ministry of Science and Technology, and
its Science and Society Division continue to
evince interest in developing elder-friendly
standards of old age homes in the country. The
Ministry invited Dignity Foundation and Dignity
Lifestyle Township to submit a proposal in the
area. Results are awaited.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
invited Dignity Foundation in May 2007 for deliberating
on the revisions in Grants-in-aid programme
of the Ministry. The official visit to Dignity
Foundation of the Joint Secretary of the Ministry
is slated for October 3, 2007.
Dignity on
Wheels
Across the city, the mobile office of Dignity
Foundation equipped with all its services, has
been making the rounds to poorer localities
and slums for the past one year, thanks to a
generous grant of a bus by the Lions Club of
Bombay Host. The highly energetic volunteers
of Dignity Foundation have been instrumental
in putting to good use the visitations made
by the BUS to their locality. The Lions Club
continue to support the maintenance and running
costs of the bus, a highly commendable gesture
for which Dignity Foundation is most grateful.
Govt of Maharashtra
ID cards for senior citizens
From all available signals it appears we have
effectively covered issuing ID cards to all
the 10 lakh senior citizens in the city. The
state has 75 lakhs population of the 60+ and
that is where our future efforts will lie. Partnership
with UTI Bank, North Kanara GSB Bank, several
NGOs in different parts of the state has rendered
our issuance of cards easy and effective. We
owe our gratitude to the partners. As a result
we have been able to open 2 more centres in
Mumbai taking the total to 16 in Mumbai and
6 new centres in the state, taking the total
to 53. Mobile IC card camps have also been held
in 15 locations during the year.
To Volunteers should go the highest credit for
managing this process with no cost to the state.
The card is self funding.
Dementia Services
At the Dignity Day Care Centre, Mumbai and
the lifetime care facility at Neral, people
afflicted with dementia (Alzhiemer's, Parkinsons
and others) have been the focus of much of our
customized programmes. On September 21st along
with the Rotary Club of Chembur we held a Memory
Walk where members of Dignity Foundation and
Rotary Club joined hands to promote awareness
of the crippling disease.
Dignity Lifestyle
Township
58 cottages have been built, and we have sold
out almost all cottages. The first phase of
the construction activity specially the landscaping
and central utilities will conclude in December
2007.
The staff and the service providers have been
receiving A+ marks in the assessment of the
visitors and residents in the facility.
We are very happy to report the opening in
May 2007 of Dignity Homes in Mira Road for the
economically weaker sections. A very basic fee
per month gets a total care package including
food, shelter, medicals and counselling protection.
Global Ageing
Dignity Foundation and Dignity Lifestyle Township
have had the distinction of being integrated
in the Global Ageing Network formed by the ARRP
of the USA. In Tokyo, Malta and Utrecht, the
Netherlands, we have effectively participated
in the global strategy and policy making for
betterment of senior citizens across the globe.
Funds
Dignity Champions – a direct marketing
drive was carried out through out the year in
a bid to integrate members of the Foundation
to the Dignity movement. The drive enabled some
200 members to show their support to the cause
by sending us donation cheques. Nearly Rs.5
lakhs were garnered from this method.
Support to the cause is the singular trend
we want to see growing. Nothing else can give
us the holistic pleasure as the partnership
that is getting inaugurated today.
In conclusion I would like to emphasise the
fact that as an NGO becomes more widespread
in delivering services to larger and larger
audiences, what takes centre stage are aspects
of governance, management, human and physical
capital resource building and deployment. Almost
50% of the time gets invested in management
and only 50% remains for direct client servicing.
Volunteers are therefore invited to take a bigger
share in the running of our services. We invite
our corporate partners to help us with business
model building for replication and scaling up
of operations on an all –India level.
To ICICI Prudential and Mrs.Shikha Sharma in
particular, we cannot but express our words
of appreciation and commendation for the initiative
to form this partnership. We directly call upon
you to present your vision to our Trustees and
members present here and share with us your
perspectives on how we can take forward the
cause of senior citizens to the national agenda.
We are extremely happy to have as our Chief
Guest a very eminent corporate statesman of
our country Shri Narayanan Vaghul, whose fame
in the financial sector in India has been well
etched over half a century. It is singularly
significant to the senior citizens gathered
here Sir, that your spiritual orientation and
application of the same to work and personal
life are matters of immediate interest to all
of us present here. We deem it our fortune that
you accepted our invitation to preside over
today’s event.
