Sambhav… a story close to home!

So here I was further in my quest for great things happening in the world!!

I was at my cousin’s place for the Navratri and I took this as an opportunity to talk to her husband about his social venture “Sambhav foundation”. However, our discussion did not quite go the way I had thought. I got a completely new and fresh perspective of what “making a difference” could mean.

Here is a summary of the discussion…because that is what I can do justice to. He told me so much that it will still take time to grasp all of it and digest….and probably the time wasn’t enough for deeper discussions…so maybe I will do a follow up sometime.

So Rajesh cheta has been through his fair share of ups and downs in the entrepreneurial world (which I was actually not very aware of until we talked and I was impressed). He started off with a background of where he comes from to help me understand why he does what he does…this is important to understand without which one may not get to understand what follows…

He described the time when Lehman brothers had declared bankruptcy and people lost jobs in large numbers…. There were people who had their jobs as the one and only feeding source for their families back in villages and they used to come and literally cry to be accommodated somewhere and he felt helpless. There were opportunities in other sectors, but re-skilling was a problem. This is the point where he thought about skilling people to be ready to take up jobs. He joined hands with some big names but did not work out… and then he joined LabourNet. you should look up for Rajesh AR to know more about him!

He explained to me the differences between an NGO (which is considered more from a philanthropic perspective) and a social enterprise. He talked about how he and the others with the similar vision with him charted out the impact they wanted to make….. they wanted to make an impact and they wanted it to be big….. he was talking about a contribution of a certain percentage to the GDP of our country. Honestly, I never thought I would be discussing impacting the GDP of India…but that was how far his vision was. The LabourNet services today caters to the enablement of livelihood of the informal sector, which means, the enterprise tries to train people, build a network and enable people in the informal sectors of industries…like plumbers, beauticians, automotive and mechanical experts and many more.

One should really go through their website to understand the length and breadth of the enterprise itself…. But where I am coming to is the philosophy that he advocates… his vision is that a country like India needs changes that address masses. Smaller organizations could make a local impact no doubt (of course if done right), but the sustainability of such organizations is very hard as they are purely philanthropic with no business model. Hence the cash flow becomes project based rather than continuous funds. This then creates dependency on project specific funding and continuous efforts in looking for funds every time which could lead to a high risk of failure.

I always knew that fund raising was not an easy task. But I never thought about it from this perspective. It was an eye opener.

He then explained the business model of his company an then came down to the sector which they addressed through Sambhav foundation. This was one area of their upskilling of people with different abilities (mental/physical) enabling them to sustain their own livelihood. This was a completely philanthropic sector where they did not see a revenue model and wanted to keep it that way. Here also, they have a lot of strategies and bring in their business network and ideas to provide high level of upskilling.

I will not do justice to any explanations that I might provide about this as I dint really get the chance to yet to a deep dive. What I saw was, he had a great network, right focus, vision and above all a passion that would simply make it work.

His suggestion was to set a timeline by when you would like to start a social enterprise/NGO, then Go Gemba…which means… go to areas where you would like to work and try out small projects/volunteering etc. to see what it really takes and if your heart lies there. A lot of research and getting your hands dirty within the stipulated period would really give a good sense of what the next steps should be. Once you see your heart in something, then just take the plunge….

As I already said…. We may have a part 2 for this, but for now…. I think the least one can do after reading this blog is to order the Diyas made by the students at Sambhav foundation for this Diwali!! You can get the items by contacting Ph: +91–80–23103853|Mob: +91–8639676043

If you really would like to associate yourselves with LabourNet or Sambhav, you should look into the Get Involved area in their websites.

I am just wondering why it took me so many years to know all this…. Better late than never!!