New Delhi based NGO, Sunaayy Foundation (Sunaayy) partnered with PTC Foundation Trust (PFT) (under CSR funding support of PTC India Ltd.) in the third quarter of 2018. It has been around a year now that the PSU has been extending its support to the NGO (as a part of PTC’s CSR Initiatives).
Sunaayy founded in 2009, has been operating in the thematic areas of education and human rights. It seeks to create a future of hope for under-served children, women and their communities by helping them to build their skills and resources to reduce their vulnerability in a sustainable way.
The Foundation started as a single makeshift setup, working with a group of out of school children from the surrounding areas of Vasant Kunj in New Delhi. Initially, there were just 6 children whom they taught. As the days started rolling, they grew more determined to scale up their work.
But there were obstacles that came in their way just like any other non-profit start up. The community based makeshift learning model sustained as the number of children kept getting enrolled in the program and a significant number got transitioned to formal schools each year.
The initial 8 years were focused totally on basic education but with time, healthcare, provision of clothes, basic food, and other considerations also entered the programme, which was a collective effort of individual donors. Even though the growth was more organic, the increasing number of children and their needs created more challenges in terms of increasing cost.
Even though Sunaayy expanded to more than one center in New Delhi, the cyclical need for providing hygienic nutritional meals, books, stationary, uniforms became necessary. With increasing number of children, came in the demand for a greater number of staff and volunteers and hence an increased cost towards it.
Simultaneously, the need for a sustained corporate funding for the Foundation was slowly growing over the years. The first leap of faith happened in 2018, when PFT partnered in PTC India Limited’s CSR initiative to partly support Sunaayy.
The support from PFT focused on capacitating Sunaayy as an organization through increased teacher training and infrastructure development. This led to a higher quality of delivery which had an immediate impact on the number of enrolments that shot up from 150 to 350 in just two months.
This was a phenomenal increase that Sunaayy had never witnessed before. With 350 children on board, came the need to increase the number of staff and teachers to more than double of what Sunaayy managed each year.
Founder Sunaayy Foundation, Richa Prasant said, “The phenomenal increase of parents who wanted to send their children to our learning centres with PFT’s support was overwhelming.”
Director, PTC Foundation Trust, Amar Prasad said, “We have stepped to support Sunaayy Foundation’s unique model of holistic education and care for the lesser privileged.”
Since PFT started taking care of the basic expenses/costs at the New Delhi centres, Sunaayy could deploy other donor funds for further expansion. Its earlier dreams of spreading its wings came true. In a span of just one year, Sunaayy went ahead to open another centre in Delhi and in Kolkata, which are today successfully running across these cities.”
In short, just through the eyes of a small to medium sized non-profit in Sunaayy, more corporate funding drastically changes the impact this sector makes to the society at large. Hence these efforts from the corporates need to be stepped up with more focus on the activities/initiatives that they so believe in.
