Deepak Foundation

Deepak Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Vadodara, Gujarat. It was founded by Shri C.K. Mehta in 1982. Deepak Foundation provides development aid in rural and tribal areas of district Vadodara. The foundations's mission is to create an enabling and sustainable environment among rural and tribal communities by setting up a basis of livelihood and an intact healthcare system. Nearly 400 full-time professional staff are sanctioned at 22 different locations throughout Vadodara district; of which women compromise 35% of the total staff, their work helps almost 2 Million beneficiaries.[1]

Deepak Foundation
Founded1982
Vadodara, Gujarat, India
FounderC.K. Mehta
Typenon-governmental organization (NGO)
Focusrural and tribal areas, motherhood, childcare
Methoddevelopment of infrastructure, education
OwnerC.K. Metha
Key people
C.K. Mehta (founder and chairman),
Archana Joshi (director)
Employees
400 professionals
Websitedeepakfoundation.org

Vision

The Deepak Foundation's vision is a world that is free of distress, disease, deprivation and exploitation. Our focus is the woman and the child: they are the vehicles through which the future can be determined and changed.

— C.K. Mehta, The Healing Touch - annual report 2008 - 2009

To approach to that vision, Deepak Foundation set the follow goals to itself:

  1. Promote practices for safe motherhood and child survival
  2. Offer an access to health and pre-school education services
  3. Ensure sustainable livelihood for underprivileged communities
  4. Provide disaster relief and rehabilitation services

History

Caused by the people suffering from floods in Amreli District of Gujarat State in the year 1981, Shri C.K. Mehta decided to become socially active. He is the founder and today the chairman of the Deepak Foundation. The first initiative was a small 15 bedded maternal and child care hospital to provide curative and preventive services for the industrial workers living around 30 villages comprising 40,000 population surrounding the industrial belt, Nandesari, Vadodara. An Emergency Transport Facility was established in 1982. This service assisted government in delivering maternal and child care services in these 30 villages.

The foundation gradually made a foray into sectors like livelihood promoting by setting up first women's dairy cooperative societies and women's self-help groups, disaster relief and rehabilitation, preschool education, HIV prevention and adolescent health.

In the early nineties the foundation started to promote socio-economic development of the communities through Women's Savings, Credit groups and the first Women's Diary Cooperative in 1995. Due to heavy influx of migrant workers in industrial belts, the foundation initiated HIV/AIDS prevention interventions in 1997. Since 2004-2005 the Deepak Foundation is in partnership with the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat provides motherhood and child survival in the entire tribal area of Vadodara district. Today, the Organization has evolved into a full-fledged foundation covering all 1548 villages of Vadodara district in Gujarat. The interventions that initially catered to the needs of only the industrial workers for nearly twenty years today through its multifaced programs reaches out to nearly 2 million population spread over 1548 villages of Vadodara district to provide services in various development sectors through Public Private Partnership (PPP).[2]

Projects

The Deepak Foundation operates several projects. The main-focus is on SMCS and KALP-Project.

Safe Motherhood & Child Survival (SMCS)

The SMCS-Project has been implemented since 2005 in cooperation with the government of Gujarat. The project aims to reduce the infant and maternal mortality in the district by the existing government health delivery systems. The key components of the project are:[3]

  1. Formation and strengthening of Village Health and Sanitation Committees
  2. Behavior Change Communications through village volunteers i.e. Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs)[4]
  3. Setting up emergency transport network and two Mobile Health Units in difficult tribal areas
  4. Establishment of Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (CEmONC) unit linked to a Community Health Centre covering 9 lakh tribal population
  5. Setting up Help Desk at district level receiving referral cases from peripheral areas
  6. Providing a comprehensive package of services for anemia prevention and control

Kawant Livelihood Project (KALP)

Started in 2009, the KALP-Project contains multiple steps to develop livelihood in Kawant. Kawant comprises more than 30,000 households. Holistic development through people's participation calls for integration of services at grass roots level. KALP is an initiative in this direction. The project has been implemented in partnership with the Tribal Development Department, Government of Gujarat. The foundation plans to undertake the following:[5]

  1. Promote livelihood opportunities in conventional and potential farm and non-farm sectors[6]
  2. Generate additional employment through skills development, extension and credit support and micro entrepreneurship promotion[7]
  3. Mitigate distress migration by the creation of a strong social safety net for the vulnerable groups and create fall back employment sources
  4. Promote community participation in the process of development and establish Kawant Development Corporation under section 25 of the Companies Act

Further More Projects

Other projects are for example Deepak Medical Foundation Hospital (DMF), Pre-School Education & Care, Integrated Child Development Services, Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS awareness or Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation.

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References
  1. Deepak Foundation: The Healing Touch - Annual Report 2008|2009 p.12
  2. http://healthmarketinnovations.org/program/deepak-foundation-gujarat Archived 26 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 4 February 2011
  3. Deepak Foundation: Brochure 08-09 Archived 19 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2 February 2011
  4. Indian Express - 'PPP for children: Deepak Foundation inks pact with civic body to upgrade Balwadis' 24 August 2010 Retrieved 4 February 2011
  5. Deepak Foundation: KALP Brochure Archived 19 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2 February 2011
  6. Economic Times - 'Kawant region gets Deepak Nitrite's helping land' , 8 April 2009 Archived 19 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 4 February 2011
  7. Times of India - 'Kawant youths to get jobs closer home' , 5 February 2009 Archived 19 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 4 February 2011
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