Thursday 15 November 2012

Whom are we serving?

Two years ago, I left my job to work for the villages. I had a big charm for development and really wanted to contribute to the ongoing social development drive. At that time, I really din't really know what to do in the villages. I just had this vague idea of working for the problems of cookstoves, sanitary napkins, financial inclusion and all. But, I didn't really know how to go about any of these.

Having already taken the plunge, I started exploring my options during my notice period only. I met many people and talked about various ideas, but could not come up with anything concrete. Parental pressure, on the other side, was at its peak, signalling that I need to do something about myself really fast.

Fortunately, I came across this idea of providing potable drinking water to people at very low prices by setting up a water treatment plant in the villages. The numbers looked really impressive on excel sheets. 400 customers and you break even in just two years! And that too by providing water at such a low price! Now, who wouldn't want this water in a village having TDS as high as 2000. The project was bound to be a success and I was too excited about it.

Then came May, the month when we launched our operations. We put up the plant in a village 20 Kms away from Ahmedabad. We had more than 100 customers on day one, out of which more than 90% opted for home delivery service. Two locals were employed to run the show. Everything looked promising with success just a few months away.

Suddenly, after a month, both the employees left their jobs. They wanted high salaries which was not possible considering the nature of the project. We tried to convince them by showing the social impact they were becoming a part of. But, all effort went in vain! We then tried to hunt for others in that village, which was considered full of unemployed people. Still, no one came forward to take a Rs 3000 per month job. Instead, they kept going for Rs 75 per day paying MNREGA jobs that required them to wake up at 3AM. On the other side, customer count fell rapidly from its highest 143 to 26 in a span of only 5 days!

How can such a beautiful, apparently beneficial, project fail? How can people decline to buy purified water at Rs 0.20 per liter when they know that the water they are drinking is full of impurities? How can people leave a job that provides a salary equivalent to a Panchayat clerk? What went really wrong? Wasn't the project meant to serve people? If it was, then why were people not coming forward to take the benefit even when they knew the downsides of drinking water with high TDS?

Now when I look back after two years, I realize one fundamental mistake that I did. I did not ASK villagers whether they really needed pure water or not. May be drinking pure water was not in their priority list just the way building toilets at home doesn't fall in the priority list. It seems that in the entire process, I ended up serving myself by investing my own money. How could I ever serve that community without even asking for their needs? Though we may further brainstorm other explanations of project failure, my gut feeling still points to this fundamental mistake.

Let's now analyze the way we all work in the development sector. Let's think about the policies our government make for societal benefits. Do we ever ASK our supposed beneficiaries about the needs they have? Do we try to look at their lives from THEIR perspective, or we just think and take decisions from our perspectives? In the process, do we keep in mind that a person living in a hut might be happier that one living in a villa? Do we focus our attention on materialistic development or the spiritual one?

My experience suggests that we need to be very good listener. This is the quality we lack the most. We need to listen to people around us, and that too very actively. We need to drop our preconceived notion that people living in slums and villages are unhappy and underdeveloped. We need to understand that development doesn't necessarily mean better jobs, education, house and infrastructure. We need to put our discriminating lenses down and listen to people around us. Someone from a luxury villa may also be crying for help and someone sleeping on the road-side may be willing to offer a solution. Just listen, unbiased!

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