Sumant, a 30 year old migrant from Bihar, lost his job at a local BPO during Covid 19, making it very difficult to fend for his wife and 2 children. He somehow scraped together his savings and opened a small fruit and vegetable vending stall in Islampur. However since there was a significant increase in online payments during the pandemic his in-hand cash orders were quite low. And Sumant quickly realised that he had to learn how to conduct online transactions if he wanted his stall to thrive. It was then that he approached Agrasar for help in opening his own bank account. We supported him in opening a Jan Dhan (Zero Balance) Account at the Indian Post Payment Bank. Additionally we helped him learn about online banking, payment apps, etc. As a result he got a QR code for his account and started to actively take orders and make online transactions. When we met him again, he was happy to report his business was going well and he has managed to purchase an auto-rickshaw with his earnings. While his wife takes care of the stall, he now drives the rickshaw and is able to take care of his family.
Progressing with the community
Agrasar envisions a caring and compassionate society with opportunities of growth and development for all to live a meaningful and enriching life.
Our mission is to enable equitable access to safe and enriching education for children, facilitating gainful and progressive employment for "migrant workers", and basic rights and entitlements for their families.Our Programs
Agrasar Bachpan
Under 'Agrasar Bachpan' Program we teach out-of-school children in Gurugram and help them attain age-appropriate learning levels with a larger goal of main-streaming them into formal education system. We essentially follow progress of each child so as to provide need based support for ensuring continuity in education
Kaagaz ki Kashti
We motivate and empower children, their parents, teachers and other stakeholders to show solidarity against Corporal Punishment in India and apply better, non-violent means for achieving their educational objectives. This initiative to make schools safer is aptly known as 'Kaagaz ki Kashti'.
Agrasar Pravasi
Through our 'Migration Support Centres', we facilitate access to basic rights and services like identity documentation, social accilimitization, employability, financial literacy, legal infrastructure and enterprise building support for people who migrate to urban regions in India for livelihood.
Our Impact
Agrasar Pravasi
A mother's fight against Corporal Punishment
Sunita’s son was studying in a Government school of Gurugram in grade VII, punished regularly by his teachers. His mother got extremely concerned and shared the incidents with our team. We explained the negative long term consequences of corporal punishment, and made her aware of child rights and the laws against the menace. Our team also suggested that she talks to the teachers and have a heart-to-heart conversation with them to bring out the “hidden” compassion that each one of us has as a human being. The mother felt competent and encouraged to go to the school, and had a long conversation as suggested. She even brought in creativity from her side and later shared with the team.
We serve 1200 children like Sunita’s son every year through 3 Agrasar Centres.
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Our Impact Philosophy
Even though we understand that designing scalable interventions is important, we do not believe in targeting numbers. Whenever being asked the question - "How is it going?", our team members would normally talk about students and people - successes achieved or challenges being faced in particular cases. We also try to be fair and objective in communicating about 'impact' to all stakeholders. e.g. you would often hear us mentioning that - "Around 20% of the youth who come to our Employability Centres would have gone in similar jobs had they not joined us. Therefore, we need to find even better avenues of placement." We would also talk about children who we were not able to mainstream. We share our successes as well as challenges so as to attract people and organizations in our journey who mean to make a "real impact".
Our Values
Justice in the present context refers to the philosophical approach, functional schema and operational system by which fairness is managed within the organization as well as with all the other stakeholders. Justice is extremely critical in order to encourage workplace motivation, focus, engagement with ownership and productive workplace behavior on the part of the employees.
A strong sense of team spirit prevails in the organization. All team members proactively assist each other wherever and whenever required. Compassion also includes a fairness and unbiased dealing. Fairness means that all the team members are treated with equity, individuality, based on their preferences, needs and varied contributions.
Honest communication is fundamental to building a relationship of trust. We share not just our triumphs, but also the challenges and failures which we are facing. We strive towards having a transparent and participatory decision-making process. Participation helps in improving the quality as well as diversity of information and opinions which guide the decision-making process.
All team members, including the Agrasar Saathis, have alignment in responses to fundamental questions - What do we do? Why do we do what we do? What is the impact of our work? What are the various challenges and gaps? Each and every member within the organization has an enriching and comprehensive role as per her/his interest, competence and aptitude.
Team members acknowledge each other’s strengths and limitations to work in a complementary manner with each other. We have a willingness to help each other when the need arises. We attempt to understand and put ourselves in the context of the other person in arriving at a solution to any challenge. We strive towards doing this while also being able to provide critical feedback.
The processes have been clearly laid down and documented as far as possible. All the team members have participated in developing the processes and related tools and therefore have a clear understanding about the process and the need to adhere to them. Any new joinee is oriented througoughly on all aspects of culture and processes.
What's New
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