Nigeria Memoirs – 6…. A Peek into a believer’s Journey
Our NGO was registered in 1992 by JM Chanrai’s late father MT Chanrai. The Trust Deed listed all possible areas of philanthropic work as its aim for coming into existence viz poverty, hunger, education, health, agriculture, rural development; virtually everything covered today by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The good work started with cash doles to support, assist and act as catalyst in institutions viz Leprosy Homes, Orphanages, School Scholarships, Prisons, Hospitals and so on. When I joined, we were supporting 24 such institutions and directly administering only 2 projects, one each in safe drinking water and primary health. Confident of carrying forward of eye care experiences in India, a conscious decision had been taken by JMC, that we needed to fine tune our capacities around 3 niche areas of health: Primary Health Care, Eye Care and Safe Drinking Water and wean away from cash support.
Soon after the end of my first year with the NGO, we could see that we were reaching a certain desirable level of achievements in our objectives. On invitation a number of visitors would come, look at our projects and invariably they would be sufficiently motivated. Soon they would follow it up with their executive teams to look at our books and would become willing donors. The momentum was picking up.
Now it was time to seek visibility to ensure more cash flow and that projects are supported over longer duration. This was possible if donors could be made to feel ownership so as to remain committed year on year for at least 3 to 5 years with large sums. Donors could be high net worth individuals/ big companies/ corporates/multinationals/ UN and other International Donor agencies besides Federal and State Govt. We started this endeavor initially in-house and of course, later sought expert professional guidance too. Discussions, brain storming sessions yielded much required results in sorting out the road map.
First, was to decide on the NGO’s logo. It had to be simple and yet catchy. It had to be bright and cheerful. It also must tell in few words who we were and what we stood for. The need was everywhere. Starting from Letter Heads, Uniforms, Caps, T shirts, Project Sign Boards, Vehicle Signages, Health Cards, Prescriptions et al.
Then, this logo had to be matched with the donors and partners on Project Sign Boards.
Next, was enunciation of NGO’s vision, mission, goals and objectives as statements. Each word and each comma had to be carefully chosen. It had to stand the test of time and remain relevant a quarter century down the line, and possibly more. It had to be brief, accurate and clear with no possibility of any ambiguity necessitating amplification/ explanation/ changing course midway/ backtracking in the near future.
The task to prepare each project’s annual reports that presented time lines, supported with data – benchmarks perceived/achieved/planned and testimonials from beneficiaries and prominent leaders was also important. Soon we had a hold on the macro look of the organizational work and hard data that could more than satisfy any inquisitive professional’s micro look.
Lastly, we needed to have a general brochure highlighting our work. We called it a brochure but it was conceived as a 20-30 page thingie which could hold on its own amidst coffee table books. Formatting work statistics and presenting them in interesting diagrams was not much difficult. But nothing is eye catching unless supported with photographs. We then fanned out and shot a wide range of photographs. Some of the ones which I had taken then and later and still with me, reflecting our extensive range of work in Nigeria are given below.
BROCHURE – Cover Pics
Primary Health Care – Health Centers
Primary Health Care – Village Health Posts
Eye Care – Preventable Blindness
Safe Drinking Water – Rehabilitated Hand Pumps
We seemed unstoppable. We were getting good responses. More donors wanted to become partners. By the start of 2006, we embarked on making a 30 min short documentary of our activities in Nigeria. An updated shorter version is available on the link … Tulsi Chanrai Foundation -partners in health (youtube.com). Proud to state that our documentary was a winner, awarded Gold for the Best Corporate Documentary Film Award at IDPA 2006 (Indian Documentary Producers Assn).
Our achievements were presented to the President Gen Olesegun Obsanjo, Governors, Ministers and Donors in Aso Vila, Nigeria in Dec 2006.
in Jul 2019, a state-of-the-art eye hospital in partnership with Aravind Eye Hospital as a one stop for all eye ailments was inaugurated by President Gen Mohd Buhari of Nigeria in Abuja.
A new term Caring Capitalism® was coined and duly registered reflecting the philosophy of JM Chanrai. More is available at.. https://caringcapitalism.in/index.html
…and the believer’s journey goes on with plans to add vocational training for the disadvantaged…
By Colonel Akhil Gupta
