Annual Report

Dignity Foundation Head Office: BMC School Building Topiwala Lane, Off Lamington Road, Mumbai 400 007 Phone: (022) 61381100 Email: [email protected] Pune Chapter: Savio Villa, 78/4, Divya Nagar, Wanawadi. Pune - 411 040 Phone: (020) 30458092 Email: [email protected] Kolkata Chapter: 20 L, Dhakuria Station Road, P. O. Dhakuria,Kolkata - 700 031 Phone: (033) 24187937 Email: [email protected] Chennai Chapter: Plot 43/44, Flat 8, Sri Kamakshi Apartments, MM Ramasamy Street, Ashok Nagar, Chennai- 600 083. Phone: (044) 24717232 Email: [email protected] [email protected] Bengaluru Chapter: 383, 33rd Cross, 17th Main, Jayanagar 4th T Block, (Opp: BES ladies Hostel). Bengaluru - 560 041 Phone: (080) 4151 1307; 4166 1122 Email: [email protected] ANNUAL REPORT Website: www.dignityfoundation.com www.dignitysecondcareers.org April 2011 - September 2012 Founder President's Message It is my proud privilege to present the Seventeenth Annual Report of Dignity Foundation. Founder President’s Message 2...4 The year under reference starts with the financial year commencement in April 2011 and ending with not just March 2012, but I also give coverage to activities we undertook in the remaining 6 months till Mumbai Activities and Services 5...14 last month – September 2012. Since World Elders Day falls on October 1, a day we have chosen to be our annual day of thanksgiving to the staff and volunteers who have tirelessly toiled the past 18 months. Pune Chapter 15...18 Our annual report narrative covers a span of 18 months. This year also sees the separation of reports of our two Trusts – Dignity Foundation and Dignity Lifestyle Trust – the latter becoming a stand alone Report presented on the Foundation Day of our Township at Neral on April 4 of each year. Chennai Chapter 19...24 At Dignity Foundation my colleagues will bear with me my description of the year gone by as one of intense trial and tribulation. In an endless stream of difficulties – some financial, some social, some Kolkata Chapter 25...27 partnership related – we have seen very difficult days in the entire 17 year span of work Dignity Foundation has undertaken. It is almost like what Henry Kissinger always said: "There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.” Bengaluru Chapter 28...30 Starting with the termination notice of a deeply funded long term programme and shocking betrayals of trusted partners and assistants, we have seen it all in just a year and a half. We learnt painfully that it Photo Gallery 31...32 was not enough to have striven in unchartered territories, breaking records in the mission to serve, and coming up with socially innovative schemes. One had also to provide quantitative values to qualititative change one brought about. The infinite fascination of the corporate sector with monetary successes Dignity Foundation Trustees & Management 33...34 and bottom line emphasis of management has also come to dominate the development sector -- a sector that once used to engage itself wholesomely and entirely, to improving lives, out of charity that was given to it. When the number of NGOs increased making the charity portion inadequate to be shared between all, each NGO had to find its own funds to deal with their mission. The concept of social entrepreneurship gained ground and we evolved our own model of self-sustenance. However in a reverse osmosis as it were, such mission-driven enterprises proved attractive to the profit- driven corporate sector, which has made ‘CSR’ its legitimate field of application. The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement calls upon corporations to act as good corporate citizens and put the welfare of society as a whole over their need to make individual profit. There are calls for a shift from the 2 “Shareholder Model” to the “Stakeholder Model,” a shift away from focusing solely on the return only the same guru, Peter Drucker. In this composition I have been lucky enough to retain dedicated staff, for shareholders to a wider picture that focuses on the needs of all stakeholders: employees, customers, who ran along with me all the mile to realise life cannot sink deeper. These are tough times, but from suppliers, and society at large. So the corporate sector and the NGO sector are today inter-locked in tough times come tough people -- people who know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, how influencing each other in an infinitely nebulous situation of trial and error. to disregard an endless stream of negative news and negative projections, and make good things For sheer survival, hybrids like ourselves, are now compelled to likewise generate revenues more happen out of the ashes of adversity! vehemently than generate social change. I am out of depths really in my search for a wherewithal to One of those perennial wisdoms is that life is composed of dual opposites. For every ‘up’ there must be a attribute monetary value to emotional positives such as loneliness mitigation, self-actualisation and a ‘down’, for black there is white. We see it everywhere, left brain thinking paired with right brain person’s happiness quotient, which senior citizens come to enjoy due to our intervention at the thinking, logic balanced with emotion, imagination in opposition to facts, and form juxtaposed against grassroots. If our services are pointed at delivering such intangible benefits how are we to measure spirit. Just like the head and tail of the coin, complementary and balancing forces create the life we their impact in monetary terms? When life itself has changed for the better, the mere lack of experience. Our lives are created out of these forces and are reflections of their cause and effect. concomitant economic indicators has rendered my mission futile. In our balance sheet projections, we Without opposites, life itself would not exist. For example, without science, we would be living in a world at Dignity Foundation ache for mechanisms to balance emotional and economic wellbeing of the of confusion and chaos. Without spirit, we would be soul-less machines, lacking art, beauty, and the organisation as of individuals whose life we seek to enhance. creative energy needed to manifest life and the results we desire. Up-down, black-white, good-bad, Along the paths of even NGOs, whose prime raison d'être for existence is living for others, science-spirit brings about the balancing of opposites that creates the wholeness of life, like the head characteristics of the commercial sector such as rivalry and one-upmanship have penetrated and and the tail create the coin. raised their ugly heads. Marring the sanctity of working as a Trust in the true sense of Trusteeship, we For the past 17 years I have been at the helm of affairs at Dignity Foundation. The time has come for my find we are short-changed and proven ineffective in the face of cheating and malpractice. The successors to take charge and they will during the coming year 2013. In the same spirit in which Google Retirement Expo 2011 that was the brainchild of Dignity Foundation, successfully showcased in 5 cities co-founder Sergey Brin observed, obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked in 2011 today stands stolen as a concept in the retirement space by fellowmen in Ageing whose back on as being innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a difference in senior ungentlemanly action comes to us as a shock! citizens’ lives. I would like to be remembered as having left an organisation which is not a soulless "God places the heaviest burden on those who can carry it's weight " consoled a senior citizen who was machine of activity but a vibrant, creative, living organisation operating from a deep sense of purpose familiar with the battalion of woes besetting us in 2012. "Whenever you see darkness”, he said “there is and healthy relationships. extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter." True to this dictim, we have indeed become In the pursuit of this mission, to a small number of large companies who extended steadfast financial leaner and have shut down activities that proved unviable in terms of goal fulfillment. Dignity Second support during the year and a large number of smaller companies, Trusts and individuals who gave us Careers has been one such unfortunate casualty, where neither the employee nor the employer found donations in cash and kind we owe our grateful thanks. Without them it is unthinkable how we could attraction and commonality of purpose. Resulting in frustration for all concerned, our mission of have advanced in delivering our mission. On page 11 and 12 we proudly present the list of supporters. wanting to find jobs for senior citizens proved futile and ineffective. Fourteen years of trial and error did At the national level I had the opportunity to share the responsibility of preparing the draft for the not result in commendable placements. It was closed as of this year. National Policy of Senior Citizens 2012 yet to be announced by the Ministry of Social Justice and The Accounts department was yet another area of darkness which we identified for the light to burn Empowerment (MSJE). Several other advocacy efforts were undertaken by Dignity Foundation through brighter from now on. Social workers like myself had to learn it the very hard way to accord highest representations submitted to the Finance Ministry, to MSJE, and by serving on the Advisory Board for priority to the management of this department within the overall canvas of NGO’s mission Research and Monitoring of projects and schemes of the Govt of India in the field of Ageing, Disability implementation.

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