YLTP- Integrated Platform for Rural Development

Each year, aid donors spend billions to enhance the capacity of nations to make and carry out development plans. This commitment reflects their belief that their aid will not succeed unless recipients improve their ability to use the assistance provided. Limited capacity to set development goals, prioritize among them and revise plans and programs in response to results achieved is a major constraint in the development process.

India, with 17% of the world’s population, holds the key to global SDG achievement. But the burden of achieving the SDGs lies with rural India, with 65% of the population living in villages, where lack of infrastructure and connectivity directly impacts productivity, education and health, further exacerbating the poverty trap.

Previous experience shows that economic aid as a means of driving social change has limited impact. For any change to be sustainable, the process of transformation that begins with behavioural change and leads to an integrated approach to development, has to engage the entire community and be driven by inspired leaders from within.

The Challenge

Disintegration and disharmony in local communities: Leading to lack of ownership and leadership in issues related to the community. Absence of value-based vocational skills, both soft and hard, leads to thwarted economic growth and growth at the cost of human values and damage to the planet.

Disillusionment in local government: The performance of Panchayati Raj Institutions has been adversely affected by political and caste factionalism often rendering developmental projects ineffective. Corruption, inefficiency, scant regard for procedure, political interference, parochial loyalties, motivated actions and others have stood in the way of the success of local governments.

Fragmented approach: Most efforts at capacity development remain fragmented, making it difficult to capture cross-sectoral influences and to draw general conclusions. Many capacity development activities are not founded on rigorous needs assessments and do not include appropriate sequencing of measures aimed at institutional change and individual skill building.

Strategy

We help communities address their challenges: We build self-esteem, patriotism, commitment and resilience of our people through our programs and help communities address social challenges including addictions, gender and caste bias, lethargy, corruption and others.

We help communities help themselves: Our flagship program for rural development, Youth Leadership Training Program (YLTP), imparts training to young people to become agents of change and actively lead developmental initiatives in their communities.

We enable community ownership in planning, execution and sustainability of projects: Through dialogue and workshops, we train local teams on project management skills to implement funded projects. We identify leaders, build inspired teams, enable formation of committees and handhold them through the entire project cycle. And after that, we still continue to stay connected.

GUIDESTAR