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Dasra Focuses on Girl Power

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Alfred Poon

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S1Dasra concluded the Dasra Philanthropic Week, a strategic philanthropy conference, in March. The conference aims to provide a platform to address India’s societal challenges and collaborate for greater scale and impact.

The theme of this year’s Dasra Philanthropy Week was Girl Power, and it was driven by Dasra’s five-year $14 million strategic alliance with USAID, a US government aid agency that works towards ending extreme global poverty, and Kiawah Trust, a private UK-based family foundation, to achieve systemic change by fostering innovation, improving outcomes and reaching scale to empower adolescent girls in India. This was timely theme for the conference, since according to Dasra, there are 113 million adolescent girls in India, but despite their large number, they are a “largely invisible population” as the existing socio-cultural customs and mores leave them powerless to decide on their future. And this lack of autonomy makes them vulnerable.

This year’s conference had more than 650 professionals in attendance, comprising corporates, foundations and philanthropists, and the topics covered included corporate and individual giving strategies, social change stories, NextGen philanthropy, and issues impacting adolescent girl empowerment.

Since its inception in 2010, the Dasra Philanthropic Week has evolved from being a community of philanthropists committed to alleviating poverty, to India’s largest such convening. Thus far, the conference has engaged more than 500 philanthropists, corporate foundations and multilaterals to create a pool of information and support on social issues such as education, health, livelihoods and sanitation. The conference has also helped directly channel fund commitments of more than $25 million to India’s social sector, according to Dasra.

The next edition of the Dasra Philanthropy Week is scheduled to be held in March 2015. For more information on the conference, please click here.

References

A. Environmental Stewardship
To protect the environment, we organize programmes like mangrove nursery and Reforestation, Coastal and River Clean-Up, Community Based Environmental Solid Waste Management, Environmental IEC Campaign and Eco-Academy

B. Food Security and Sustainable Livelihood
To ensure a sustainable livelihood for the community, eco-tourism include Buhatan River Cruise Visitor Center Buhatan River Mangrove Boardwalk are run by the community. Others include Organic Vegetable and Root crops Farming, Vegetable and Root crops Chips and by-products Processing and establishing a Zero waste store.

C. Empowered Communities
To empower the community, we provide product and Agri-Enterprise Development Training, Immersion and Learnings Exchange Program, Earth Warrior Training and Community Based Social Entrepreneurship Training

Author

Alfred Poon

Head of Human Capital

Alfred Poon is Director of Digital Transformation of AVPN. He is a geek by nature, adman by passion, and holds a Masters in Nonprofit Communications from Indiana University. Alfred spends his time building communications infrastructure that brings people together. Prior to joining AVPN, Alfred has consulted for Social Purpose Organisations in over thirty countries, bringing his unconventional mix of nimble technology to enable data driven communications

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