Dream Village empowers communities to lead their village development by working on a holistic 360-degree rural development model.
MUMBAI (India CSR): Zarina and Ronnie Screwvala-led Swades Foundation is aiming to scale up its Dream Village program to transform 750 Villages in rural Maharashtra in the coming years. The organisation has recently announced the completion of the Dream Villages project in 75 villages.
Swades Dream Village
Ronnie Screwvala, Co-Founder of Swades Foundation, said, “We are beyond thrilled to see our vision of creating dream villages at scale moving to plans. This 75 Swades Dream Village in the 75th year of India’s Independence is our first step towards this initiative, and we look forward to scaling this up and building another 750 dream villages across Maharashtra and beyond in the next few years.”
What is Swades dream village?
A village qualifies as a Swades dream village by achieving over 40 parameters bucketed into 5 S’s – Swachh (Clean), Sundar (Beautiful), Swasthya (Access to Health Care), Sakshar (Educated), and Saksham (Self-Reliant).
Monitoring and reporting mechanism
But most importantly is the spirit within the community to come together and work towards transforming their village into a dream village. Swades has also established a monitoring and reporting mechanism to ensure that each parameter is tracked and reported. Swades audits the completion of these parameters before they are announced as a Swades Dream Village.
Enabling to come out of poverty
The philanthropic organisation has been working for a couple of decades to uplift rural communities in the state by enabling them to come out of poverty.
360-degree rural development model
Dream Village initiative empowers communities to lead their village development by working on a holistic 360-degree rural development model.
Sustainable Village Governance
The program aims to create a sustainable governance model by focusing on its four core thematic areas of Water & Sanitation, Health & Nutrition, Education & Economic Development (Livelihood). It enables the transformation that ensures every village or rural household has access to an individual toilet, potable drinking water through taps at home, access to healthcare services, an education that makes learning joyous, and the community has opportunities for a diverse range of livelihoods.
Nurturing community leadership
The initiative also focuses on plastic waste management, convergence, and leveraging government schemes such as building pucca houses, roads, etc. All this is achieved by building and nurturing community leadership through the Village Development Committees (VDCs) formed by the Foundation with equal representation of men & women from the village. These VDCs create Village Development Plans and execute them to transform their villages into a Dream Village.
45 Dream Villages in the Raigad district
With 45 villages in the Raigad district of Maharashtra already declared as Swades Dream Villages and celebrations happening every week, the target of 75 Swades Dream Villages for this year will be achieved soon.
The development organisatoin has set an aim to empower 1 million rural lives every five years, lifting them out of poverty by empowering communities to take charge of their own lives.
The foundation has adopted a model of holistic transformation and works in education, health and nutrition, water, sanitation, and economic development. Its unique 4 E strategy of Engage, Empower, Execute, and Exit, the organisation said.
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