Roshan
Vikas Foundation promotes community owned and managed financial institutions,
equips women from the most marginalised communities.It transcends the ‘credit
minimalist’ approach of poverty alleviation, emphasizing on capital
accumulation, building capacities of the poor to manage own institutions and to
absorb progressively enhancing amounts of funds, thereby establishing
sustainable livelihoods.

Roshan Vikas believes that:

Ø      
  Capital
generation is a prerequisite for poverty reduction – Poor are extremely
vulnerable to vagaries of life in general and of the market in particular.
Unless capital formation takes place and holding capacity
increases,   livelihood activities cannot be sustainable. Also,
capacity to progressively absorb larger quantum of credit and expand business
increases as the capital increases.

Ø      
Savings is a pressing need for the poor – Mere
credit is not enough for alleviating poverty. Savings is essential for both
capital formation as well as to tide over emergencies. Credit is available
either from formal or informal sources, however, opportunities to save are
limited. 

Ø      
 Economic empowerment of women
should lead to their social upliftment -   Women face multiple
deprivation because of gender, class , caste and religion. They are therefore
worst affected by poverty. This impacts the well being and development of
children as well. Economic independence, enhances their status in family as
well as their society by making them partners in development.

Ø      
 Organisation owned and
controlled by the people builds community stake in promoting peace and harmony
– Vulnerability to communal and ethinic violence increases  in the event
of break down of societal interaction between people of different communities.
“ For peace and harmony, intercommunal engagement is better than no engagement
or only intracommunal engagement ……associational engagement is better than
everyday engagement…… key determinant of peace is intercommunal civic life ,
not civic life per se- "Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life – Hindus and
Muslims in India"
– Ashutosh Varshney

Roshan Vikas Foundation judiciously combines financial services
with social empowerment programmes like education of adolescent girls and
awareness on health and sanitation to ensure all round development of the
disadvantaged sections the society. It lays special emphasis on Muslim Women as
most development indicators in India
point towards the extreme marginalisation of the community especially in the
urban areas.

Sachar Committee Report, data of Census- 2001 and NSSO
survey of 1993-94  very poignantly sketch the economic condition of
Muslims living in cities across India:

Ø      
35.7% of  Muslims live in  urban areas
compared to 27.8% of the over all
population.

Ø      
38.4% Muslims in the urban areas live below the
poverty line against 36.4% SCs / STs and the national average of 26%

Ø      
64% of Muslims are either self employed or
artisans

Ø      
 Participation of Muslim women in
the work force  in urban areas is 18% and  70% of these work from
their homes, typically engaged in sub contracted work with low  levels of
earnings.

Ø      
Access to institutional credit is severely
restricted.

o      
 6% take credit from banks

o      
 1.1% from credit societies

Ø      
 16.2% borrow from money lenders
and about 30% depend on their relatives to tide over difficult times

Ø       
Share in Priority Sector Accounts of commercial
banks is 7.5%

Ø      
 Share in amount outstanding in
these accounts is 2.8%

Lack of access to institutional credit prevents Muslim
Women from exploiting opportunities thrown up by expanding and emerging
markets.  Their Socioeconomic empowerment
 can reverse the cycle of deprivation and
denial that these women today face. It enables them to work for social change,
prevent the outbreak of violence, work with the officialdom on health and
community rights issues, thus alleviating their status in the society. At home
their situation changes dramatically when they contribute to the income of the
household, more so when they are able to chip in at times of emergencies.

Roshan Vikas capitalizes on the opportunity thrown up by
Reserve Bank of India regulations that 25% of loans disbursed by commercial
banks should go to the Priority Sector – poor communities, small and micro
enterprises, to promote education and health care etc.

RVF envisages to scale up this model of urban poverty
reduction across other cities in India
once it stabilizes in Hyderabad.

Hello Ali,

Welcome to the 2008 GSBI application process, and thank you for submission of Exercise 1. I am happy to be the GSBI Task Force member who will provide you comments on each of the exercises.

Your Target Market Statement is extremely clear and complete, an excellent beginning to your application.

I look forward to reading the rest of your submissions.

Regards,
Susan Mandle
2008 GSBI Task Force

Dear Susan,

Thanks for your response. I am encouraged by it and look forward to  further conversations with you. I have posted Exercise No.2 . Pl. comment on it.

Regards

Ali Asghar

CEO

Roshan Vikas Foundation

Hyderabad - India