VSSU: Changing Lives in Rural Bengal

 “Making use of unused and underused social resources to develop a self-reliant society”

The Story

Vivekananda Sevakendra-O-Sishu Uddyan (VSSU) was created in 1983 to empower remote riverside villages and vulnerable rural communities in the district of South 24 Parganas in West Bengal, India. VSSU works with people whose lives are dominated by extreme poverty (37.2% of the district population lives below the poverty line), illiteracy, disease and other handicaps. With multifaceted development interventions, VSSU strives to bring about positive changes in the quality of life of the poor people. VSSU firmly believes and is actively involved in building the social, economic and human capacity of the poor.

Siddhant Sadangi gets a chance to meet Kapilananda Mondal (or “Kapil da (brother)” as he is fondly called) , the Founder of VSSU and an Ashoka fellow, and interview him for Youthleader magazine.

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SS: To begin with, please tell us something about yourself.

KM: I am just a high school pass local person who believes that “development can happen without grant and subsidy” just by generating resources from the community and then spending it for the community. Before starting VSSU, I did a variety of jobs including that in a newspaper as local reporter.

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SS: Can you walk us through the events and the set up which led to the inception of this idea?

KM: It all started in 1983. A widow in our village died in acute poverty without any treatment and there was even no money to pay for her cremation. The village came together to contribute money for her cremation. It was then that I realized that had the village mobilized earlier, the lady could possibly have been saved. This inspired me to set up a micro-credit institution which later became VSSU.

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SS: Could you provide a brief outline of your mission and vision?

KM: The vision of VSSU is community development through community resources. The mission of VSSU is poverty eradication and human development through microfinance. The objectives of VSSU are:

• Providing microfinance services
• Enabling communities through livelihood programmes

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SS: What is your primary approach to promoting this concept?

KM: We follow an ABCDE approach. A for Agriculture, B for Business, C for Consumption, D for Development and E for Enterprise. We consider that once an individual or community achieves ABCDE, it becomes self-sufficient and prosperous. To help achieve ABCED, we follow three steps:

• Phase I: Reaching out to the Poorest. We work on the principle of “VSSU serves those rural poor who are vulnerable and lack social security.”
• Phase II: Helping those who want to help themselves. We work for those members of the community who want to grow in life and posses an honest attitude to do so.
• Phase III: Micro Banking: the Future of Micro Finance. We focus on those who have the mentally and ability to repay loan. This is based on the premise that VSSU has to make a profit because it needs money to plough back for social developments. This is required to ensure reaching out to the poor in areas that are not ideal for micro finance operations, by creating an environment. To operationalize the above we now aim to introduce micro banking along with micro finance.

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SS: Playing away from your turf always poses challenges, which were the ones faced by you while establishing and conducting your activities?

KM: A major challenge I faced was procuring loans for our operations. There were problems with SBI saying that our operations were illegal and refusing to provide us loans. A credit rating agency didn’t grant us the credit rating we deserved because we refused to grant them “favours”. This was followed by a court case, but eventually we emerged victorious. Due to this I consider SBI to be the enemy of micro-finance.

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SS: While you battled such challenges, what was the motivation that kept you going?

KM: My only motivation was giving back to the society which has given me so much. Helping individuals stand up on their feet gives me a pleasure like no other.

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SS: Can you provide us a sneak into the activities conducted by you?

KM: We mainly work through three fronts:

• VSSU microfinance (For economic development): This provides savings, credit and insurance facilities. We also facilitate joint initiatives for development.
• Ashok Nilay (For social development): Through this we undertake many social initiatives. Some activities are a home for destitute children, pre-primary education, two medical centres, 1500 free sanitation projects, construction of 9kms of link roads, undertaking roadside tree plantation on 140kms of roads. We have also donated 15 acres of land to the Government of India.
• Jeevika Foundation (For livelihood promotion): This houses the “Oceanic” library, a honey processing unit, a renewable energy centre and a training and skills development centre.

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SS: How is this idea different from the others?

KM: The uniqueness of the of the microfinance programme run by VSSU lies in the fact that we have broken away from most of the popular features of microfinance which have almost become the industry’s norms. For example, we work with both men and women, conducts most of our business with individuals rather than in groups and do not work with poor only. We have not received any significant capacity building assistance from anybody and run mostly with local human resources at all levels. VSSU over the years has generated cross of public deposits, charges a reasonable rate of interest and generates enough surplus from its microfinance activities to do significant community development work.

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SS: Is there any moment, incident, or person that has carved a special place in this journey? Our readers will like to hear about this?

KM: The most satisfying experience for me has been that have met a spiritual mother in my journey. She has always been a source of inspiration for me and has always encouraged me to achieve the impossible.

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SS: Anybody whom you would give credit for supporting (inspiring) you in this mission?

KM: There are many great people whom I consider inspirations. I have already said about my spiritual mother. I also admire Swami Vivekananda and Lenin a lot. Vivekananda’s words “Responsibility comes from love” always inspire me.

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SS: Do you have any future road map for your brain child considering the positive response it has garnered?

KM: We plan to start a Micro Small-Medium Enterprise Part (MSMEP). Also planned are eco-tourism projects to generate employment and educational institutes like colleges, ITIs etc.

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SS: Any breakthroughs or achievements which you would like to share?

KM: The most important achieving has been the granting of Special Consultative Status to VSSU by United Nations , ECOSOC to support the holistic development to the Indian community in a self sustainable manner in particular through Micro finance project & various Community development programmes.

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SS: What would be your message for the youngsters reading this?

KM: “Whatever we learn, we learn from life and our surroundings. Formal education can merely help us earn more, but real knowledge comes from life experiences”.

To know more about VSSU, you can visit www.vssu.in or contact them at vssu.in@gmail.com .

Interview reposted from YouthLeadeR Magazine. Read the original interview at--> http://www.global1.youth-leader.org/2013/08/vssu-changing-lives-in-rural-bengal/