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ORGANIZATIONAL UNDERSTANDING

by

ABADESH RUSIA (25001)


ANURAG PRIYATAM (25086)
AJAY CHAUDHARY (25009)
NITIN KOREPAL (25082)

ORGANISATIONAL TRAINEESHIP SEGEMENT


PRM 25

Organizations:
INDICORPS (AHMEDABAD)

Faculty Guide:
PROF. G KRISHNAMURTHI

August, 2005
INSTITUTE OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, ANAND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Thanks to Indicorps for their patience, and making us feel a part of Indicorps family.

Thanks to Prof. G Krishnamurthi for his guidance, evaluation, criticism, and patience.

Thanks to Manavsadhna, ESI, Shramik Bharti, and Sewa for sharing their views.

Thanks to the street children of Tekra for moments and experiences we have come to
cherish.

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“Understanding our culture fosters a sense of self pride. You can say but why

go to India to learn this? Because it is when you experience the spirit of India

— that you see beyond the façade of the dirt, the corruption, the lack of

sanitation and you really begin to see the people — their daily lives, their

strength, and their undying faith in everything around them. You see a place

where: Whenever you are lost — everyone is willing to help you — even if only

30 percent of the people are probably correct. When you go the slums to meet

the children, their families are willing to feed you the only meal of the day

because you are a guest and that is the biggest honor. Where tribal villagers

are willing to walk four miles each way to create a human chain on the river to

help the Indicorps fellows cross over safely.

This is India.

It is through this sort of grassroots reconnection that we see not only what we mean
to

India, but more importantly what India means to us.”

Sonal Shah, founder Indicorps


In her speech on accepting “India Abroad Person of the Year 2003” award.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................7
2. INDICORPS – ORIGIN AND OVERVIEW...................................................................8
3. BACKGROUND OF THE ORGANIZATION ............................................................10
3.1. Organization Size....................................................................................................10
3.2. Stakeholders............................................................................................................10
3.3. Financial Condition ................................................................................................10
3.4. Key Development Phases.......................................................................................10
3.5. Product-Service History..........................................................................................11
3.6. Special Skills...........................................................................................................11
3.7. Organization Folklore.............................................................................................11
4. MISSION ......................................................................................................................12
5. VISION..........................................................................................................................12
6. OBJECTIVES................................................................................................................12
7. CORE VALUES ...........................................................................................................13
8. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE.................................................................................13
9. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ...........................................................................15
10. IDENTIFYING THE NEED GAP..............................................................................16
11. STRATEGY.................................................................................................................18
12. CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE FROM PEACECORPS MODEL..............19
13. PROJECT CREATION BASIS AT INDICORPS........................................................20
14. ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES...........................................................................21
15. INDICORPS – A LEARNING ORGANIZATION.....................................................23
16. INDICORPS FELLOWS – A PHYCHOLOGICAL VIEWPOINT............................28
17. A CRITIQUE OF INDICORPS APPROACH.............................................................29
17.1. Service tourism as an innovation..........................................................................29
17.2. People Centered Approach....................................................................................30
17.3. Focus on Intangibles.............................................................................................31
17.4. Delivering the Promise- Connect to the Roots.....................................................31
17.5. Focus on own learning/experience over Project outcomes...................................31
17.6. Emerging service provider-consumer paradigm...................................................31
17.7. Conflicts with Partner NGOs and ensuring Coordination through creative
solution...........................................................................................................................32
17.8. Appreciating Cultural Context of Development...................................................32
18. EXPANSION FOCUS.................................................................................................32
18.1. Indiserve................................................................................................................33
18.2. Senior corps..........................................................................................................33
18.3. Volunteer Ahmedabad...........................................................................................33
18.4. Ahmedabad Sports League...................................................................................34
18.5. NGOpinions .........................................................................................................34
19. CASE STUDIES..........................................................................................................36
19.1. Indicorps and SEWA Federation: Beginning of a long partnership?....................36

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19.3. Indicorps and Manavsadhna – Turbulent relationships........................................37
19.3. Successful Partnership of Shramik Bharati, Kanpur and Indicorps Ahmedabad..38
19.4. Indicorps - Experiences with Environmental Sanitation Institute, Ahmedabad...39
20.CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................41
ANNEXURE 1 GENERIC DATA.....................................................................................42

Executive Summary
I Title : Organisation Understanding
II Organisation : Indicorps Ahmedabad
III Reporting Officer : Ms. Roopal Shah
IV Faculty Guide : Prof. G. Krishnamurthi
V Student’s Name : Abadhesh Rusia (25001), Anurag Pritam (25086), Ajay
Chaudhary (25009), Nitin Korepal (25082)

Indicorps is a Non- partisan non –profit and non –religious organisation that encourages
Indians around the world to actively participate in India’s progress. People of Indian
origin who live in US and UK and who want to know their country of origin by way of
serving it, are placed in various NGOs across India by Indicorps. Indicorps was
established by Ms. Sonal Shah, Ms. Roopal Shah and her brother Mr. Anand Shah with
their initial savings of $50000 three years back in year 2001. It is a small organisation and
up to last year, it had only one driver and one accountant as permanent employees. From
this year they have recruited two more employees on contract basis. Most of the work is
done by volunteers. In the beginning of the year Indicorps organises orientation
programmes for fellows and in between the project period several retreats are organised
at different places to disseminate information about organisation and to monitor the
progress of projects. Formalisation is very weak and centralisation is very strong in the

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organisation because most of the power is vested in Roopal and Anand shah. Monitoring
is also done by e mail and phone calls.

Indicorps is registered in USA under charities law and also registered in India under
Indian trust act 1882. It gets grants directly from its US branch as subsidiary of its main
organisation. It does not get any fund from any funding agency for completion of any
project. Indicorps has partnership with lots of organisations in the country that floats
projects for Indicorps fellows. Most of the times conflicts with partner organisations are
resolved in an amicable manner but some time they have to leave the projects when
fellows understanding with partner organisation becomes impossible.

Organisation has formal structure but it is not rigid, any one can do others work also. The
organisation is three years old and is in its collectivity stage. External environment is
affecting organisation also this is the reason that they have started some voluntary
programme like Volunteer Ahmedabad (VA) and Indiserve for volunteers residing in
India. Technological changes are also taking place. Indicorps is going to start online
documentation facility for fellows from this year. In this way organisation will be able to
monitor fellow’s progress more easily. Indicorps though do not have any affiliation with
any political parties but it has good reputation in local and state administration. Indicorps
has a floating list of partner NGOs. The strategy of Indicorps till now has been to place
volunteers in other NGOs across India and not get involved with any developmental
project. Indicorps has deliberately avoided creating Income generation or livelihoods
projects for its fellows as they feel that PIOs don’t have sufficient understanding of
India’s socio economic conditions.

Now Indicorps is trying to move to a level where it will create and monitor its own
projects. The first of such projects is Frisbee, where international Frisbee players
volunteer to teach and organize Frisbee games to bring communal harmony between
communities.

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1. INTRODUCTION
Indicorps in a non-profit voluntary organization based in Ahmedabad and has its
registered office in Texas, USA. Indicorps offers a chance to People of Indian Origin to
come to India as volunteers for a year and take part in developmental activities in rural
areas, discover their country of origin, and develop a conceptual understanding of the
country. Indicorps is a very small organization in terms of human resource employed. It
has a very small number of permanent staff and non-permanent base of volunteer which
change every year. Indicorps was founded by two sisters (Ms. Roopal and Ms Sonal
Shah) and their brother (Mr. Anand Shah). Although it is not a placement organization, it
is described as a non-profit organization whose activities involve placing People of
Indian Origin (settled in US, Canada, and UK) in various NGOs in India. We were also
placed in four different organizations by Indicorps and were spread in different
geographical locations. We got a window of four days to understand the organization and
several issues associated with it. Observing the organization, its design, processes and its
philosophy raised a lot of questions. These basically pertained to the rational for
existence of organization, rational for organizational designs and several other related

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issues. Since Indicorps has a lot of recognition and visibility by virtue of its founders and
NRIs who come to join the fellow program of Indicorps, it is also subjected to a lot of
critical evaluation. Many critiques comment on the logic of bringing people from outside
to carry out developmental work in India. But to properly understand the logic, one has to
understand the philosophy, mission and vision of Indicorps and its founders. This report
is an attempt to understand and analyze Indicorps philosophy as against its actions and to
find answers to some of the questions raised above.

In any new organization, a lot of transformations can take place during its interactions
with external environment. We have also tried to capture these transformations in
Indicorps organizational culture, actions, and at the level of conceptual understanding of
India and field of development.

2. INDICORPS – ORIGIN AND OVERVIEW


Indicorps is an international service program for Indify Inc., an NGO registered under the
societies act in USA. It was founded, and is run by three American Indians with the main
motive to connect to their roots and create an identity for themselves. They feel caught
between two cultures;

“Indian-Americans are relatively new to America's melting pot. Some of us have tried
to retain as much of what we know of the Indian culture as possible. Others have tried
to immerse ourselves completely into the "American" way of life. Most of us, however,
knowingly and unknowingly struggle with our Indian heritage and our American
surroundings in an effort to determine who we really are and what we should become.”
Sonal Shah, co-founder Indicorps

They aim to create an identity both at the individual and the community level. They feel
that American Indian should have a separate identity in the US and thus expand their
opportunities in the US. The Indian-American experience we create will set the
precedence for future generations.

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They are dedicated to understanding the Indian-American experience, exploring ways to
strengthen their community, and implementing community-building programs and all this
besides contributing to the world around them. Indicorps is their first year-long structured
service fellowship program for Indian-Americans and other people of Indian origin
interested in building their leadership capacities and reconnecting to India through public
service.

Indicorps is the brain child of Anand Shah who wanted to prove that it is possible for the
people of the Indian origin to come to India and do some community service. Indicorps
was set up to prove this point. The vision was shaped by the three founding members
Sonal Shah, Anand Shah and Roopal Shah. Presently Indicorps has its office at a rented
office space at Vijay Char rasta in Ahmedabad. It has just three permanent staff: an
accountant, Ashish Shah to keep the accounts just in preliminary way of recording
incomes and expenditures, because the organization doesn’t even publish its yearly
reports.; a driver, Prakash Bhai to take them on official tours in and around Ahmedabad; a
project creator, Chandra Shekhar Jha, to work out the details of the projects (which they
finally offer to the fellows) with the partner NGOs. However there no official job
description defined for any of the employees and each one is expected to handle
responsibilities according to his/her capability.

Besides these permanent employees Indicorps does take the help of the services of the
fellows who instead of going for any project work (or their project is delayed) like to help
them in their office work. Presently there are fellows helping Indicorps in their own
capacity. Lakshmi, a graduate in National Development from US and Jena taking a break
from her medicine course are helping them in office work. Priya having a Master’s
degree in computer science is helping them in their computer work.

Indicorps is registered under the Indian Trust Act as a Trust in India. The board of
Trustees has six names on the list. Two prominent figures as Tanmay Mehta and
Unnikrishnan Iyyer also figure in the list

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3. BACKGROUND OF THE ORGANIZATION
Indicorps was established by Sonal shah, Roopal Shah and her brother Anand shah in
USA in year 2001. As an idea it come in existence in year 1997 and became realty in year
2001. Inspiration for establishing such kind of organization came from Peace Corps
which is also an NGO and provides opportunity to volunteers to serve in Latin American
countries.

3.1. Organization Size


Indicorps is a small organization. Until last year, it had only one driver and one
accountant as its staff. From this year Indicorps has appointed three more staff members
for a period of two years. Most of the works in Indicorps are done by volunteers and
fellows. Indicorps has its office in Ahmedabad in India and one in US.

3.2. Stakeholders
Major stake holders in this organisation are Sonal Roopal and Anand Shah; other stake
holders are the fellows who come for service and those NRI people who donate money to
Indicorps. Partner organisations like Manav Sadhna and Environmental Sanitation
Institute with whom they have along partnership are also stakeholders.

3.3. Financial Condition


The organization is a little secretive about its financial details. It has not got published its
annual report since its inception. It is also not forthcoming about its financial reports such
as balance sheet and income-expenditure statement. However, part of its revenue comes
as fees from the fellows and indiserve volunteers. The fee irrespective of the duration is
at $ 500 per volunteer. Apart from this, further income source is in the form of domestic
and international donations. The organization did not divulge its donor details to us.

3.4. Key Development Phases


It is a small organization and is in its collectivity stage. It has completed only three years
of its establishment. In these three years Indicorps has extended it’s fellowship from US
and Canada to UK also. Indicorps is also going to start one another programme named
Indiserve for Domestic Indians. Volunteers Ahmedabad is another programme started by
Indicorps..

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3.5. Product-Service History
As mentioned above fellowship is the flagship programme of the Indicorps. Projects are
designed in conjunction with grass root level development organizations but proper care
is provided to the needs of the fellows who come from other countries. During our
discussions, the satisfaction level of the Fellows seemed very high with their experience
with Indicorps. Each year the number of applicants for this fellow programme is
increasing continuously. Indicorps is also successfully able to establish relationship with
some new organizations.

Indicorps has a good record of successful implementation of projects which were not
related to livelihood creation but in projects related to livelihood creation they could not
make a good success. Projects related to communal harmony and study related to
problems of Childs of sex workers was very successful. Most of the fellows have their
origin from Gujarat so most of the projects are also created in Gujarat. But in last years
several projects are being created in southern states of country.

3.6. Special Skills


Indicorps is very efficient in documentation of all its activities. Each and every thing is
documented by Indicorps fellows. Now Indicorps has started online documentation
facility for fellows. Documentation is done by fellows for each day’s activities. All
experiences and progress of all reports is available for further studies. Indicorps has its
website which is updated time to time.

3.7. Organization Folklore


Kasim Chacha is very famous in this organization. From long time he has been associated
with Manav Sadhna which is the partner organization of Indicorps. Last year one fellow
who was expert of underground water resources was working in near by areas of Kasim
chacha village and trying to dig one well. Kasim chacha used to visit that place he
suggested that well digging at this place will not be successful because of the nature of
the soil of this area and closeness from river which flow from that area.

This fellow was too much confident that he will succeed; he also had discussed the matter
with local officials and scientists of local university. But for every one’s surprise that well

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could not succeed because of too much of salinity in soil. Later Kasim Chacha suggested
one another place for digging of well. From that incident it proved that technical
expertise is one thing and local knowledge is another thing. Without help of any one of
them development can not take place. Local knowledge with technical expertise can
make development efforts a great success. Kasim chacha is still there and his stories can
still be heard in Indicorps.

4. MISSION
Indicorps strives to provide transformational service experiences that encourage people of
Indian origin to participate in India's development, explore their capacity to affect
change, strengthen their leadership potential, and take active steps to contribute to the
world around them. In the process, Indicorps hopes to unite India's global family in
collective contribution towards India's progress.

(1) provide clearly-defined development opportunities created in conjunction with


highly-dedicated, grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India; (2)
promote civic responsibility and help strengthen potent leaders of Indian origin; (3)
encourage the sharing of information and best practices for the development of India; and
(4) promote service, personal reflection, universal spirituality, and tolerance.

5. VISION
To strengthen the global Indian community, so that -- individually and collectively -- we
can make a positive contribution to the world in which we live without marginalizing our
history, culture, and connection with India.

6. OBJECTIVES
Indicorps encourages people of Indian origin to reconnect with their roots through
intensive service experiences in India. Indicorps programs include one/two year
competitive public service fellowships designed to be one-of-a-kind transformational
experiences, emphasizing personal growth, leadership, and grassroots international
development. Selected fellows are given individual responsibility to execute and

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complete projects that are created / defined by local developmental experts. The limits of
their contribution are defined only by the fellows' creativity and motivation.

Indicorps believes in participatory grassroots development and aims to strengthen non-


profit organizations in India by encouraging highly motivated and qualified individuals to
apply their human capital through service. In the process of developing innovative
programs, Indicorps hopes to inspire a self-propagating service culture in Diaspora and
domestic Indian communities.

7. CORE VALUES
“Service for the soul” is the motto of Indicorps. Indicorps wants to encourage a culture
of selfless service among resident and non resident Indians. Indicorps also want to
encourage the civic sense in peoples. Indicorps encourages personal reflections,
Universal spirituality and tolerance among peoples. Indicorps believes that even a single
person can make a difference. Founders of Indicorps have a great belief in Gandhian
principles and thought.

Indicorps is a non –partisan non religious organization and does not discriminate on the
basis of caste creed and sex. It discourages smoking and drinking by prohibiting its use
by fellows in India.

8. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Indicorps is constantly on the look of people with passion and care about the issue. While
our placements we were constantly asked to report to Roopal and her enquires generally
pertained to about are learning. She never seemed to be interested in what our results and
findings were. To her what mattered most was what we could learn from our experiences
in the field. It seemed they concentrate more on living out and experiencing India. It was
also apparent from the way they easily build rapport with the people in the local area.

Individual initiative at Indicorps is quite high. The fellows at any instant were always
ready to go out to the field and render any type of service. This was evident during the

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floods in Gujarat when they had halted all their work and chosen to render their services
for the relief work. It seemed they were focused on their work but never missed a chance
to have the experience on something outside their project. Since most of the fellows
didn’t have any prior experience of any development work, creativity was always
encouraged in the organization. At the retreat the fellows would do brainstorming for any
problem cropped during the fieldwork and they would come up with innovative ideas to
solve the problem. This was done even at the office level wherein they would openly
discuss a problem and try to come to some solution.

Roopal feels that the processes are more important then the ends you achieve. The
fellowship programs have no criteria of evaluation. They maintain a tradition of writing
white papers for their projects wherein they constantly record their own experiences in
the field. The papers are based on social issues fellows directly dealt with or encountered
during their stay in the community. Later these experiences are shared at the retreats
when all come together and share their experiences and learn from each other. They lay a
greater emphasis on learning by experience.

People at Indicorps are particular about the processes of their experiences. They have
certain rules to follow which they feel will help them to experience India in a better way.
The fellows are not allowed to drink or smoke during their stay in India. It was in one
year that one of the fellows had been reported to be found in an inebriated state but
during the non-office hours. The fellows are immediately asked to withdraw. The point
was later taken for discussion during the time of the retreat. They especially questioned
whether the project (the work at the project) was important or the way of life. They found
it was for the experiences they were in India and so the way of life was important. Later
the guy was allowed to rejoin after two months but the rules of Indicorps were made
stricter. Now they don’t think twice before asking someone to withdraw on similar
counts. Roopal feels it is not easy for the new employees to socialize and understand the
philosophy of Indicorps. She said it takes at least three months for the employees to
realize it. The attrition rate at Indicorps is quite high. The office bearers change
frequently owing to the fact that many of them are volunteers from abroad. Indicorps

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haven’t been able to operate with the same staff for more than a year. To socialize them
better she makes it sure that the new employees are a part of the retreats wherein they
interact with the fellows and understand their rationale.

Recently they had recruited an employee named Chandra Shekhar to help them in
creating projects for the employees. While recruiting Shekhar they had made it sure that
he had adequate grassroots experience in Natural Resource Management. They were
counting on him to identify projects that can give the fellows a true experience at the field
level. It was also made sure he was ready to travel to places and get an overview of
conditions and situations in the field to ensure things. More than that being from an US
background and culture the power distance between the employees, top management and
the fellows is small. Roopal is always open to questions and the fellows did never show
any hesitation over anything. They could always point out mistakes that Roopal would
happily acknowledge. The office space was used by all. Anand or Roopal’s cabin or
computer could be used by anyone who needed them. They were open to any discussions
and were always ready to learn.

9. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

Trustees

Management

Project
Accountant Driver
creation team

Fellows from US, UK and Canada

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Figure above – Indicorps organizational design with a functional overview

Indicorps has six members at the Board of Trustees. The names of Anand and Roopal
figure in the list along with the names other names: Tanmay Mehta, Unnikrishnan Iyyar,
Jayesh bhai and Anarben. The trust has a management team working under it.Ms. Roopal
and Mr. Anand are in the management team and are largely responsible for managing the
operations of the Indicorps.

Indicorps is a fluid organization, i.e. without any departments or divisions. To represent


the functions that are performed in the organization by individuals, an organizationsl
chart of Indicorps is shown above. There is a staff responsible to manage the accounts at
the Indicorps. Another person is in the project creation team and oversees the creation of
the projects. Another, the driver is the support staff at the organization. These functions
are actually not the job description of anyone in the organization. Anyone can be doing
any job. At the retreats it was not that everything was done by the employees. Every
fellow was made responsible for some event at the retreat.

However the diagram does show the nature of reporting at Indicorps. Practically
everyone at the functional level reports to Ms. Roopal who practically oversees each and
every activity. The bills and the cheques may be finally approved by Mr. Anand but the
accountant reports all matters to Ms. Roopal. It was basically Ms. Roopal who enquired
into every matter and kept herself aware of everything.

The fellows also reported to the managing team of Roopal and Anand. It was actually
Roopal to whom they sent their weekly reports and made their submissions. Anand was
involved in seeing the external things for the organization.

10. IDENTIFYING THE NEED GAP


The fellows who come to India in the fellow program show high levels of motivation to
work. These fellows are from varied backgrounds and educational disciplines. Every
year, about 15 fellows come to India to work with Indicorps. Spending a week with the

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fellows at the retreat we could actually feel the passion with which they worked. They
didn’t seem to have prior education or knowledge of development but they did try hard to
bring about a change in way they found the things around themselves. They were
excellent at rapport building and did seem to enjoy every part of the Indian life. There
project ranges varied a lot. One of the fellow tried setting up a rural design school at the
Kutchch region while one worked for the rehabilitation of the children of the commercial
sex workers in Andhra Pradesh. The fellows experienced a high level of enthusiasm,
involvement and relatedness to India after their experiences with the communities.

The transformation could be easily seen on the face of Gandharva, a fellow from the US.
He had been working for the rehabilitation of the children of the commercial sex workers.
He seemed concerned about the life of the children with whom he had spent time, and
especially a small girl, who he felt would have to revert back to the profession because of
family pressure after he left India. He was worried if he could return to US and be the
same as before to adjust to the fast paced life there. Some had such strong feelings about
their projects that had planned to prolong their stay by some months.

The fellows do come to experience India. Also Indicorps selects projects that give them
an experiential learning if not an opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills. Roopal
says she does not try in any way to measure the impact of their works at different places.
It’s just what they learn from their stay in India and their field work that is important for
them. They all come together at the retreat and share their experiences. Their white paper
is also a documentation of their experiences.

To quote Anand Shah, co-founder of Indicorps -

“To be Indian as an Indian-American one needs to understand India.’ One has to


experience India in the flesh, know the raw flavor of its heart, its living color and
diversity, all through a unique process of self-discovery.”

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At the retreat we rarely found them discussing the methodology or the approaches used in
the projects. But there were some who were actually interested in their projects and
concerned of the follow up. Gandharva was quite worried and moved by the children and
the NGO he had stayed with. Some had even prolonged their stay to finish their work. To
say, to Indicorps the outcome of the projects did matter a little but the fellows did involve
themselves with the projects to a great extent.

Their desire to serve India and the motivation for it was internal. And of course their
satisfaction was even intangible. In an exercise to express their feelings about the country
they all expressed it in words like mother, identity, love etc. in a way it is so that the
people of Indian origin do have an internal desire to see and experience their country and
possibly when they come to India they come here to know their roots and identity. A
former fellow attempt to express his feelings in the following sentences -

“Mother, you had me, but I never had you. I am of you but not. I am immersed in two
cultures and none. I am neither here nor there, searching for identity in a netherworld,
or squinting my eyes in the face of a beauty too bright to stare straight at. I was glad to
know you. But the fact is I will never be close to figuring it out, because there is simply
no ‘it’ to figure out.”

11. STRATEGY
Indicorps defines its mission and vision as to provide developmental opportunity to the
Indian Diaspora and try to give them an experiential learning to them. Indicorps if treated
to be a part of Indify has the primary goal as to provide opportunity to the American
Indians to develop an understanding of India through community service. In conjunction
to this in the short run Indicorps seems to try to become a gateway to experience India
through community service for the people of Indian origin. They have been able to
quickly connect to all grassroots organizations because most of the NGOs usually love to
have an NRI working with them in the field as it helps them gather support and attention
both locally and nationally. The fellows do come with an NRI tag which could be easily
experienced while working with them in the field. Indicorps seems to have successfully

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used this and has quickly become quite popular among the NGOs and the People of
Indian Origin.

Indicorps is currently charting out future strategies. It is in the process of acquiring land
for a university and campus in Rajasthan. It are aim to open an autonomous institute in
India that will cater to the desire of the people of Indian origin to work at development
projects in India. It will offer courses in the field of development wherein fellows will get
an opportunity to live and work in India and also earn a degree. Though in the short run,
Indicorps is acting as a gateway to the development field in India they also in the long
run want to develop in house capability to work in the field of development and realize
the passion and fervor of the NRIs through its courses and projects.

In the long run Indicorps wants to model itself like Peace Corps of USA. Like Peace
Corps it also aims to open a university for masters programs with an inbuilt opportunity
to work for the cause of the development of a third world nation. In fact Indicorps is
already been clubbed by media as a desi version or chapter of Peace Corps both in India
and US.

12. CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE FROM PEACECORPS MODEL


Indicorps has been labeled to be modeled around Peace Corps, an organization set up by
the late US president John. F. Kennedy in order to promote world peace and harmony by
sharing American human capital to work for the developing nations and hence contribute
to world’s development. Some directly visible convergence in the motives and structures
of Indicorps and Peace Corps can be noted as under:
1. Both aim at sharing the human capital of US for the cause of development of the
developing nations. It’s just that the Indicorps is trying to bring the Indian
population in US to India and work for India. But the basic idea is the same. It’s
just that Indicorps feels that there are enough Indians in US that an organization
on the model of Peace Corps can fit in for India for a similar purpose and vision.
2. It remains a fact that none of the organizations try to post their volunteers for long
to the developing nations. They both offer experiential learning and the People of

19
Indian Origin don’t come with a motive to stay in India. It’s just about
experiencing India. Their identity as US citizens is not disturbed.
3. Indicorps wanting to set up an autonomous university in Rajasthan stems from its
motive to become a figure and attain credibility in the field of development. Its
modeling is around Peace Corps.

However it’s not that Indicorps is simply following Peace Corps. Certain divergences in
between Indicorps can as well be pointed out.
1. Indicorps insist on service for the soul i.e. the experiential learning they have
from the programs matters to them the most. Peace corps aims to contribute to
world peace and solidarity through community service.
2. At the basic outset Indicorps aims to serve only to the people of Indian origin and
India only while Peace Corps seeks to transfer people of any origin to any
developing nation.
3. Peace Corps try to send professionals to work in developing nations. It tries to
find best fit in situation for the volunteers. With Indicorps it’s the volunteers who
select from the floated projects. The fellows at Indicorps come with an open mind
towards development and try to learn from their field work. With Peace Corps
contribution at field work is basic thing because it aims to share the trained human
capital of the US.

13. PROJECT CREATION BASIS AT INDICORPS


Indicorps fellows comes India to serve their country. At the time of arrival in India they
do not have much idea about socio cultural and geographical condition of this country.
Taking care of all these limitations and their desire to serve their country of origin
without any selfish motive, projects are designed in such a manner that these projects
provide them lots of opportunity for community service and a transformational
experience for their life time. These fellows works on their projects with lots of passion
and tries to bring a change in their life and others life by selfless service of society.
Indicorps fellows have made great success in projects like Developing Communal
Harmony between children of Hindu and Muslim religions.

20
Projects related to livelihood creations which demands good knowledge of socio-
economic conditions of society are not designed for Indicorps fellows. Rational for this is
that up to the time they are able to understand the geographical and socio-economic
conditions of the people they have very less time to finish their project. “Service for the
soul” –which motivates these fellows to come India and serve their country forces
Indicorps to design active community service oriented projects. Fellows also have their
say in designing projects so that they can use their skills and creativity at their best and
have satisfaction of accomplishment of doing something good.

14. ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES


Indicorps has some set processes it uses to achieve its short term and long term
objectives. Some of the processes observed in the organization were –
• Selection of fellows is based on the following criteria–
o interest in dedicated service, and in personal growth
o visionary, passionate, and qualified for their particular project choice(s)
o respectful of the diversity of religions, cultures, and traditions in India
o excitement about developing an grassroots experience in their homeland
o Low-maintenance life, resourcefulness, flexibility in adapting to the
environment, and willingness to accept local diet (generally vegetarian),
dress, and customs.
• Selection procedure -
o The fellows are required to submit an expression of interest containing
their motives, Expression of interest with detailed statement of purpose
o Personal interviews in US, and UK offices

Indicorps actively supports its fellows throughout the fellowship year in several ways.
First, fellows are in close contact with the local partner organizations to implement their
projects. Second, Indicorps field representatives, who are actually the office staff or
even sometimes Ms. Roopal, visit fellows at regular intervals between retreats. Field

21
visits provide moral and logistical support, allow Indicorps to mobilize appropriate
resources, and provide a chance for Indicorps to work one-on-one with each fellow to
assess his/her own progress. Third, as part of the Indicorps fellowship, fellows are
required to attend periodic retreats at select locations throughout India. Indicorps
retreats are designed to give fellows a broad view of development in India, encourage
reflection, enable the sharing of best practices, and replenish energy.

Indicorps adopts a structured curriculum which the fellows undergo during their stay of
one year. This curriculum basically includes field stay with the community, retreats,
orientation, and training sessions with partner NGOs. There is no prescribed text or
readings in the curriculum. It basically includes learning from fellows own experience
and experience sharing by eminent people in the field of development.

The retreats Indicorps organizes are also a part of year round continuing structured
curriculum that allows fellows to explore topics pertinent to India. The retreats are
organized once a month and location and logistics are worked out by the Indicorps
office in Ahmedabad. Retreats form a part of performance reviewing of the fellows and
an opportunity for the fellows to learn from each others experiences. The main objective
of performance reviewing process is to bring out problems fellows are facing in their
respective projects, and generate solution by collective thinking.

The activities organized in retreats are suggested by fellows themselves. Activities like
group discussion on experiences, personal reflection sessions, interactive games etc are
organized by the fellows themselves. Most retreats are planned with input from the
fellows. Further, through the retreat schedule, Indicorps fellows have an opportunity to
see and understand each other's projects.

Furthermore, the retreats allow for planned breaks from continuous immersion within
the project community. The retreat structure allows fellows to reenergize, collectively
solve problems, and deepen their understanding of India. Fellows are also encouraged to
share reflective experiences and build a sense of community with each other during
each retreat.

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To create accountability and manage expectations, Indicorps requires fellows to create a
project plan prior to beginning their projects. During each retreat, fellows are given the
opportunity to revise their plans based on field experiences. Indicorps and partner
organizations utilize fellows' plans to hold them accountable to their own personal and
project objectives.

Apart from retreats, Indicorps also organizes orientation program for the incoming
fellows. The Indicorps orientation is a one-month residential program in India designed
to intensively prepare fellows for their projects by providing academic training,
practical lessons from grassroots developmental experts, group discussions, interactive
community activities, and hands-on experience. The orientation program intends to
spark each individual's leadership capacity to mobilize target population for a specific
cause, and encourage them to see all problems as opportunities to make change.
Indicorps also tries to familiarize the fellows with India's recent and past history,
economic, social, political and development-related issues, as well as other pertinent
and interesting topics. Indicorps has designed its own language curriculum to build
basic competencies of reading, writing, and a project-specific vocabulary. This language
curriculum includes lessons in basic Hindi required for oral communication.

Apart from these activities, orientation also involves a competition called Amazing
Race to help fellows build confidence in their language skills, and their ability to use
local transportation and manage everyday tasks in India. It also involves a 5-day trek
through remote tribal villages and partnering with some local NGO and helping it in
some of its activity. For 2004 – 2005 fellows, a 3-day trip with Magic Bus NGO was
organized. For three days the fellows worked together to plan and implement a
recreational camping trip for underprivileged children.

15. INDICORPS – A LEARNING ORGANIZATION


Since its inception, Indicorps has had associations with several NGOs in India. Also,
since its founders are persons of Indian origin, their efforts have been duly acknowledged
and appreciated in India as well as abroad. When Indicorps was founded, its founders had
a conceptual understanding of India and what it stands for. The original idea was of a

23
country fraught with poverty, ill health, and agencies trying to bring about a changed. The
understanding was partly build up due to the emotional attachment of the founders with
India and prompted them to leave USA and establish Indicorps. But this understanding
has evolved from an emotional dimension to a more rational dimension where
development is looked at in more rational and long-term view. This change in idea has
come through its own experiences of grassroots and their interactions with state and non-
government agencies. Not only have these, but the fellows who come from abroad also
shaped the understanding of its founders. The state of non-government development
agencies in India (more than 60% operating at suboptimal level) and the role of state in
development have brought out a critique in Mr. Anand Shah and Ms. Roopal Shah. This
change also is due to founders’ experiences with the processes and approach adopted by
NGOs and state in India, the core issue being the differences in cultures, beliefs, and
working style.

There are simultaneously two transformations happening in Indicorps, one of the fellows
who come from abroad, and the other of its founders. Where the transformations
happening at fellow’s level is more conceptual, the one happening at the level of founders
is more ideological. The transformation happening at fellow level is easier to understand
as it represents a shift in their understanding of India. But at founders’ level, this change
is a bit more complex, and has already been highlighted in previous page. The effect of
the transformations at founders’ level can be seen in the level of acceptance and change
brought about in the organization and its operations. Though the basic design of the
organization has remained same, there is a definitive change in some of the processes
such as project creation, retreats etc. These have been elaborated later in the report.

The change at the level of ideology in the founders has come mainly through Indicorps
experiences with NGOs. It represents a change in the understanding of what development
means in Indian context. Indicorps has had both positive and negative experiences with
NGOs. The main issues which changed Indicorps relationship with many NGOs has been
the processes adopted by the fellows to accomplish the goals and the perceived
preoccupation with their own understanding of what India means to them. At one level

24
Indicorps fulfills its goals with respect to providing enriching experience to the fellows.
On another level, the emphasis on experiences seemingly takes away focus from the
objectives and end goal of the projects. Developmental activities in Indian context has
come a long way from welfare approach in the early 60s and 70s to professional approach
which envisages professionalism in processes adopted and a focused approach towards
achieving goals set for projects. Indicorps seems to have been unintentionally caught up
in the former which provides a feeling of accomplishment by the mere act of carrying out
the processes. Although Indicorps meets its stated objectives of providing enriching
experiences to the fellows, there is very less or no emphasis at all to measure the impact
the processes adopted by fellows has made as against the project goals set at the
beginning of the project. An underlying fact here is that project goals pertain mostly to
social issues, and not towards personal experiences and learning’s of the fellows. This is
the greatest source of disagreement between partner NGOs and Indicorps.

Indicorps encourages their fellows to be creative in using processes so as to increase their


understanding of the grassroots by actively thinking what process will be suitable for the
target population. For example, a project involved building self confidence in school
children and was being managed by an Indicorps fellow. The fellow used his/her own
creativity and designed a game which required children to stand and shout some
sentences to themselves. The fellow perceived that if the children continuously told
themselves that they were confident, it would increase the level of efficacy in them. The
activity also required students to stand in front of the mirror – the idea being it would
increase their self image. The NGO on the other hand believed that teaching school
children English is a better way to build their self confidence. This disagreement in
processes adopted by fellows has resulted in discontinuation of relationship between
Indicorps and many NGOs. Indicorps does not consider this as a major issue as it has a
vast network of partner organizations and can always revert to new organizations. Till
now, Indicorps has not reconciled its relationship with organizations it had disputed with.

Indicorps believes that if the fellows are not given freedom in deciding their own
processes, it takes away a very essential part of their experience. Thus, such

25
disagreements have made Indicorps becoming more focused and clear on project creation
criteria. Earlier, the founders believed in creating projects along with any partner NGO
with community service inclination. But now, after its experiences with many NGOs, it
has included one more criteria in project creation basis – the philosophy of the partner
NGO should be compatible with that of Indicorps. Now Indicorps only partners with
NGOs that have similar inclination and philosophy in a hope that such NGOs will have
similar outlook and help resolve issues without discontinuing relationships.

The founders believe that the idea of letting fellows decide their own processes also helps
the project as most of the times the kind of the projects fellows take up requires out-of-
box thinking. But a basic problem that remains with the fellows is the lack of
understanding of the grassroots. The fellows stay on the project site for a year and spend
a lot of time understanding the community, which becomes a disadvantage in the eyes of
the partner NGO due to project deadlines and comparisons drawn between Indian
grassroots workers and fellows. There seems to be a fundamental flaw in the way
Indicorps has been designed as often the interests of Indicorps and partner NGOs differ a
lot and makes partnerships difficult. This flaw pertains to making partnerships with
NGOs and trying to execute a project with Indicorps and NGO having two divergent
interests and objectives. This is not to say that Indicorps hasn’t had any positive
experiences with NGOs. It is our conjuncture that the positive experiences are more to do
with fellow’s individual knowledge base and level of personal interaction with partner
NGOs.

Indicorps through its interactions with NGOs has also experienced a change in
organizational culture and philosophy. A case in point is Manavsadhna which works on
Gandhian philosophy. The founders of this organization have a close association with
Gandhi ashram. The founders of Indicorps met with the founders of Manavsadhna at a
very early stage of inception of Indicorps and the interactions shaped the personal beliefs
of Indicorps founders. The idea of Seva seems to have evolved from experience of
Indicorps with Manavsadhna. There is a very close association between these
organizations now and they are actively involved together in many projects. But this

26
understanding again has its limitations which show itself over disagreements over ideas
of project management and handling. This has been presented as a case study and is dealt
with later in the report.

There are many critiques of Indicorps who have questioned the basic idea of bringing
people from outside to carry out developmental work in India. Their argument is that
people with inadequate understanding of Indian socioeconomic conditions can at best do
social service that does not require any professional knowledge of project administration.
In its fifth year in India, despite all the criticism, Indicorps is contributing a lot to the
field of development in terms of fellows handling very delicate and sensitive projects.
Projects on issues such as child marriage, sex trade are being handled by Indicorps
fellows and they are providing innovative techniques and processes to attain the
objectives set out at the beginning of the project. It would not be an exaggeration to say
that Indicorps is doing a much better task of fulfilling its objectives than many other
NGOs it partners with. Many of the critiques we have interacted with seems to neglect
the fact that the fellows are very highly intelligent and motivated individuals who along
with rediscovering their roots also want to actively contribute to the community in some
way. That “way” often is in conflict with partner NGOs perspective. Taking a very
humane perspective, it can be seen that the communities with which the fellows interact
have a very intricate and emotional bonds with them. Such closeness comes from the fact
that the fellows are highly motivated and committed beings and are always trying to
contribute to community in some way or other. Such a strong bonding becomes essential
in handling very sensitive issues such as child marriages, sex trade etc. It can be observed
looking at project history of Indicorps that fellows handling such projects invariably end
up forming strong emotional bonds with the community. Such a bond helps them gain a
very close understanding of the issues and think from a multitude of angles.

In our view, the criticisms are misplaced. Instead of criticizing fellows for unprofessional
handling of projects, Indicorps needs to be criticized on its project creation criteria.
Indicorps fellows, in our view, can contribute a lot to the society if they are allowed to

27
handle delicate and sensitive issues; as such issues require the intervener to have a heart
to think and an ear to listen.

16. INDICORPS FELLOWS – A PHYCHOLOGICAL VIEWPOINT


The fellows that join Indicorps every year have a variety of educational background and
interests. But a common thread runs through each one of them. They all feel restless
about the fact that they have no first hand knowledge of the country their parents or
forefathers came from. There is also some hint of mysticism attached to India – where the
fellows perceive India to be full of mysteries and they see their stay here as an attempt of
unravel this mystery.

Indicorps fills the need gap by providing an opportunity to the fellows to come and
experience their India. For some fellows, this experience satisfies that need, but for some,
they are left more restless after looking at the reality at grassroots. Invariably, these
fellows have the most interaction with the community they were staying with. The love
and affection that the community showers on them changes their concept of community
from what they had learned abroad. Some of them worry about their imminent departure
and adjustments they will have to make when they go back. But some make a promise to
themselves to stay back or come back as often as they can.

“In India you can walk into anyone’s life and they will welcome you with open arms,
whereas in US it would be called a breach of privacy. I have lived my entire life not
knowing my next door neighbors. I plan to go back and find out more about them.”
Indicorps fellow 2004-2005

This promise something has to do with how western communities are organized. It is
evident from the statement made by an Indicorps fellow mentioned above. Indian
societies are typically organized in communities tightly bound by some common values
and beliefs that all of them cherish. To be a part of such community means being a part of
a family much larger than the immediate family. Such a feeling, as a fellow puts it, can
only be experienced in India. This is also what draws fellows to India.

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Indicorps invited us to attend the year end retreat of their outgoing fellows. It was
interesting to hear their observations about their stay in India. Fellows have had both
positive and negative experiences living with the community. The negative experiences
mainly pertain to their sense of wrong and right shaped during their lifetime in western
culture. These values often come in conflict with the values espoused by the host
community. But since the experience is meant to impart an understanding of community
fellows live with, they resolve this conflict over time. When the fellows are ready to
leave, they again have to readapt themselves to their original beliefs. This takes a lot of
emotional toll on the fellows as the values they have come to love and cherish need to be
adapted to suit western culture. This need comes from the fact that most of the fellows
have to continue their education and quickly adapt themselves.

Fellows also feel torn between the choices they need to make – with respect to staying or
going back and continuing their studies. Before coming to India, they often plan for the
time after their stay in India. But once they are ready to leave, many fellows are torn
between their future in west, and the emotional bonding they have now with the country.
There is sometime pressure from family that helps fellows to make the choice of
returning to their country. Fellows who leave India sometime also vow to continue
providing support to their projects or to Indicorps in some way. The alumni of Indicorps
encourage young PIOs to experience what they have already experienced. This
experience sharing creates a pool of knowledge that is spreading through the Indian
community living in US, Canada, and UK and is helping other expatriates to rediscover
their roots.

17. A CRITIQUE OF INDICORPS APPROACH

17.1. Service tourism as an innovation


Indicorps has innovated with its concept of service tourism-reaching out to different parts
of the country, with service as the way to connect with the people. Most of the fellows
travel deep into the rural hinterlands and absorb themselves in community norms and
way of living through their projects. For them, villages are the only place where they can
understand and appreciate the Indian culture and tradition in its totality. Indian semi

29
urban and urban space is fast becoming too westernized to actually represent India that an
Indo-American would have in mind and would like to explore. Also, the fact that their
forefathers migrated from villages to America and Caribbean Islands makes it more
meaningful to explore villages.

Service is a recurrent theme in a fellow’s stay in India. Even occasions like retreat are
interspersed with service opportunities like teaching/interactions with students of the
local school, planting trees etc. Also, opportunities for spiritual growth like Yoga and
meditation are emphasized. It also in a way draws from the emerging concept of spiritual
tourism.

17.2. People Centered Approach


Roopal, one of the Co –Founders of Indicorps clearly state that the organization does not
have a strict adherence to any particular ideal or development philosophy. Often enough
the idea of people centeredness comes in their discussion. Also, it is a recurrent theme of
the orientation program and several review sessions as well. Shri Ishwar Bhai Patel, a
noted Gandhian and a regular at Indicorps review sessions emphasize often enough that
human being should be at the center of our development efforts. This apart from an
obvious people orientation leads to a more interactionist approach to development where
empowering interactions are emphasized. The idea is to put a little smile and some
happiness as part of their interactions with the community instead of an overbearing
focus on development as an end result. The fact that their stay of one year is quite short in
the context of organizing for development might have led to the above approach. Also,
they do not suffer from the syndrome of spawning organizations and building institutions
because of their short stay. Noted designer and development activist Dashrath Bhai
stresses that development organization are often obsessed with building institutions.
Indicorps fellows’ is a more’ here and now’ approach to development. It is quite a fresh
look at the process of development, which perhaps is taken too seriously by most of the
development professionals. It has been an area of significant learning for all of us.

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17.3. Focus on Intangibles
The Indicorps fellows typically engage in projects like confidence building of the
underprivileged whose impact is fairly intangible in nature. The tools are difficult to
master and require a lot of community interaction. With livelihood improvement and
other key areas as focus of development approach of most of the NGOs in India, it is
refreshing to see Indicorps fellows focusing on the softer side of development which is
equally vital.

17.4. Delivering the Promise- Connect to the Roots


The central theme of engagement between Indicorps and its fellow is helping them
discover and connect to their roots. Our discussions with the fellows reveal a near
transformational experience for some of them while almost all say that they feel more
connected to their ancestor’s place than before. In a way, this illustrates the fact that
Indicorps has been able to deliver on its promise of connecting the fellows to their roots
and helping them in their journey of self discovery.

17.5. Focus on own learning/experience over Project outcomes


This is a serious limitation we experienced in the approach of Indicorps top management
towards the projects that they take on behalf of the fellows. At times, the experience of
fellows is deemed more important than the outcome of the projects. They are constantly
asked to focus on their own learning which assumes that project outcome and learning are
two different ends, when they should ideally be one and the same. The organization needs
to find a way to integrate the two approaches to carry out a project to mutual satisfaction
of the host NGO as well as the Fellow.

17.6. Emerging service provider-consumer paradigm


With the organization growing and expanding through more programs and number of
volunteers, it is contending with participant expectations bordering on the consumer-
service provider relationships. The expectations may lead towards gradual softening of
the fellowship program and focus on marketing aspect of the service-pandering to the
consumer’s needs. This may have implications for the organization’s goals and overall
strategy.

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17.7. Conflicts with Partner NGOs and ensuring Coordination through creative
solution
There have been instances when Indicorps and its partner NGOs do not see eye to eye
over several aspects of the project including the processes to be followed and expected
outcome. At times, the conflict has been so intense that a complete project has to be
shelved because of the differences. This year, projects being undertaken by two fellows
have to be shelved because of the above reasons. Another major irritant for its partner
NGOs has been the Indicorps reluctance to get into those aspects of its partner NGOs
which focuses on documentation. Indicorps has to redefine its relationship with its
partner NGOs in this light and reflect on future engagements with them with an eye on
seeking a creative solution to some of these problems.

17.8. Appreciating Cultural Context of Development


The Indicorps top management is slowly getting abreast with the different dimensions of
development requirements of a developing country like India. Also, along the way it is
challenged on certain aspects of its own development understanding. A case in point is
Indicorps difference in opinion with one of its partner NGOs over whether teaching
English should be an essential part of a program involving building self confidence of the
underprivileged children. Such conflicts have their roots in the cultural context of
development and have to be assimilated as the Organization matures over a period of
time.

18. EXPANSION FOCUS


Indicorps is planning expansion of its services and programs over the next few years.
Some of these projects are in the piloting stage while others are still at the level of
conceptualization. While certain projects like Indiserve can be done at the current level of
resource and competence, taking up all the projects simultaneously would require
expansion in terms of resources. Still others like NGOpinions are very ambitious in
nature and would have desired effect only if Indicorps gains in stature and has a wider
acceptance in the development sector.

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18.1. Indiserve
The Indicorps Short-Term initiative is known as Indiserve, a passive volunteer matching
mechanism that allows potential volunteers to connect with opportunities posted directly
by NGOs across India. The Indiserve web platform was developed as a free service to
enable non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India to reach out to thousands of
people around the world that are interested in investing their time, skills, and resources
for India's development. The process is designed to passively help NGOs articulate their
needs and publicize them to an interested audience.

18.2. Senior corps


As part of a continuing commitment to encourage people of Indian origin to use their
personal resources and skills to make positive contributions to India's development,
Indicorps is currently piloting Senior Corps, a new program designed for older (50+ or
retired) non-resident Indians to give back to India. People of Indian origin with a stronger
linguistic, cultural, and experiential connection to India may not benefit from the
intensive support structure in the proactively managed fellowship program. Senior Corps
offers more tailored opportunities for senior NRIs residing in the United States and
Canada to contribute to the upliftment of India. Indicorps is currently planning to launch
the inaugural Senior Corps program in early November 2005.

18.3. Volunteer Ahmedabad


Volunteer Ahmedabad (VA!) is planned for the local initiative promoting the spirit of
volunteerism in the citizens of the city where Indicorps is headquartered. Indicorps is
developing a model that aspires to transform the face of community development in
Ahmedabad and in India by encouraging common citizens to utilize their skills and
participate in the efforts of community organizations and government agencies.
The project encourages participation through four means:
 Contributing through time and skills
 Independent initiation of a Project
 Management of communication of development efforts
 Replicate it in other cities/towns

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18.4. Ahmedabad Sports League
As part of Indicorps' continuing commitment its local community in Ahmedabad,
Gujarat, Indicorps is spearheading a long-term effort to build community, sportsmanship,
leadership, communal harmony, and the values of constructive teamwork by establishing
a low-cost, no-contact, active team sports league. Indicorps intends to leverage the sport
to combine and integrate diverse communities while fostering participation by parents
and community leaders, and supported by the municipal government and local
businesses.

18.5. NGOpinions
NGOpinions is a technology-enabled effort to encourage the non-profit and philanthropic
communities in India to participate in a user-propelled effort to catalog and qualitatively
evaluate the voluntary sector. The initiative aims to create a peer, benefactor, and
supporter-driven credibility rating system that mimics the word-of-mouth process that
currently propagates information about India's development sector.

The development, charitable, and philanthropic sectors of the Indian social landscape
are working at an unprecedented pace in their attempts to improve conditions in India.
However, the nature of Indian bureaucracy and legacy organizational structures have
left these sectors remarkably disorganized and lacking effective channels for
communication, resource sharing, and connectivity with supporters and like-minded
institutions.

Although there have been worthy attempts, there is no comprehensively maintained


directory of non-profit institutions within India; there is no widespread platform to
share best practices among organizations; and there is no public effort to collect
knowledge and insight about the voluntary sector. Furthermore, the country’s
decentralized reporting practices limit the government’s ability to accurately track
charitable activities across the nation.

Currently the best way for individual supporters and philanthropic institutions to learn
about good programs and projects is ironically by word-of-mouth. Given the modality,
supporters usually need to make site visits for verification, undermining the overall

34
credibility of the voluntary sector at large. The inability to record observations and
transfer knowledge limits the efficiency of philanthropy: every information seeker has
to independently verify information, usually with multiple site visits, and often find that
they have merely retraced the footsteps of others. NGOpinions aims to fill this gap by
developing a thorough system to encourage individuals and institutions to document
their efforts to evaluate and search for organizations in a way that can be most
effectively utilized by others.

One of greatest limitations to the potential of philanthropy in India is a basic lack of


trust in the voluntary sector. The high cost of evaluating organizations and lack of
general accountability reduces the reach of funds to beneficiaries and makes the act of
giving less attractive. However, in the process of giving, individuals and institutions
gather valuable knowledge that would immensely benefit the greater voluntary and
philanthropic community – increasing the flow of funds into the best programs and
institutions.

NGOpinions is an attempt to collect and organize the vast amount of qualitative


knowledge and observations of the Indian voluntary sector that exists in the experiences
of individuals and files of various institutions around the world. It will provide a
standard format for people to record their observations and allow contributors and
others to read a variety of perspectives, while giving them room to make their own
conclusions. NGOpinions will be a free service that leverages the power of Internet
technology to consolidate information and bring a high standard of legitimacy to the
NGO community that currently does not exist in India.

Although the NGOpinions system will create a standardized format, it will rely on the
user community to create content, including individuals, organizations, giving
institutions, and others who have visited projects or have experience or collected
information about the voluntary sector. By contributing observations about
organizations through a carefully constructed and standardized process, participants
help build a collective and transparent database of impressions and organizational
information. As NGOpinions reaches a critical mass of content, other potential

35
applications for collected information will naturally evolve and be nurtured to better
serve the non-profit and philanthropic communities.

19. CASE STUDIES

19.1. Indicorps and SEWA Federation: Beginning of a long partnership?


Indicorps’ relationship with SEWA Federation is in its very initial phase but with the
possible synergy, promises to be a long and engaging partnership. SEWA Federation is
the co operative organ of SEWA with a mandate to co-operatives the trade involving
women in the informal economy. The organization provides wonderful leadership
opportunities to its trainees and intern. With its emphasis on learning process approach to
development, the organization is a wonderful budding ground for young and uninhibited
minds. There is also some similarity in approaches to development of the two
organizations with emphasis on more intense field experience. The Federation is short on
staff and would benefit with the involvement of Indicorps’ fellow. Also, artisan co
operatives like Design SEWA can benefit with the involvement of Indicorps fellows as
the market of a large chunk of their goods are targeted to export segment having similar
lifestyle and appeal as being represented by these fellows.

Indicorps approached the Federation through one of its links in SEWA Research for a
project with a service co operative of the Federation. The project could not materialize as
the fellow who was to take over the project withdrew because of fear of communal
tension in Ahmedabad. However, working together during the project creation, the
organizations could identify the synergy and promise to work in partnership with each
other long into the future. Also, SEWA Federation has had a positive experience working
with a Canadian NRI for one of the projects and sees involving enthusiastic young people
as part of its future strategy.

A possible irritant in the relationship could again be the reluctance to get into
documentation based projects of Indicorps. The Federation has been low on
documentation and the ensuing period would require a lot of documentation. Given the
limited language capabilities of the Federation staff, the top management of Federation

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wants to involve the volunteers in such activities to start with. How Indicorps manages
the situation would in part determine the depth of relationship as it evolves.

19.3. Indicorps and Manavsadhna – Turbulent relationships


Indicorps and Manavsadhna have had relationship since the inception of Indicorps.
Indicorps shows a strong influence of philosophy of seva in its culture and working habit,
which it seemingly derived from its interactions with Manavsadhna. Both the
organizations have been involved in many projects together. The projects are initiated by
Manavsadhna, and Indicorps provides manpower in terms of fellows to assist in the
projects. This relationship has its base in the strong belief Mr, Anand and Ms. Roopal
have on Gandhian philosophy, to which Manavsadhna also subscribe. Employees of
Manavsadhna share a common belief and work culture of seva by virtue of their close
association with Gandhi Ashram.

Manavsadhna and Indicorps have always had differences in opinion over the best course
of action to be adopted to achieve an objective. For example, when Manavsadhna started
Ludiya project (Manavsadhna adopted a village called Ludiya in Kuchh after earthquake
and took responsibility of restoration and rehabilitation of people and their livelihoods in
the village.), there were major difference of opinion over how to revitalize traditional art
form of the village and make it an income source for the village women. This project was
in a way start of a bad phase in the relationship of both the organizations. It took three
years for successive Indicorps fellows to create a women’s organization for reviving
traditional art forms. These three years saw both the organizations blaming each other for
the delays in start of such an institution. The delay was attributed to precarious state of
housing and other social infrastructure in the village by both the organizations. Where
Manavsadhna was working on all the aspects of restoring the village, Indicorps was
working with it on one project in the village. During our interactions with founders of
Manavsadhna, they openly criticized the inability of Indicorps fellows to mobilize the
community women to take initiative in joining the women artisans group. Indicorps
founders on the other hand defended their fellows and attributed the delay to the lack of
essential infrastructure and services in the village which made mobilizing the womenfolk
difficult.

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Disagreements also showed up again in a project in Patan which involved creating a
Mashru artisan’s cooperative. The issue here was again the delay in organizing the
artisan’s community in the form of a group, which was later to be registered as a co-
operative. Manavsadhna was not happy with the approach Indicorps volunteer was
adopting. It perceived this delay as inefficiency of the volunteer and had several
arguments with Indicorps founders about replacing the Indicorps volunteer. Indicorps
finally decided to actively assist in the project and floated the project in IRMA OTS in a
bid to secure one more volunteer to provide assistance in Patan. The project has been now
completely taken over by Manavsadhna after the Indicorps and IRMA volunteers left
Patan.

After these disagreements with Manavsadhna, Indicorps has now decided not to send any
more fellows as volunteers to assist Manavsadhna in projects.

19.3. Successful Partnership of Shramik Bharati, Kanpur and Indicorps


Ahmedabad
Shramik Bharati which is a Kanpur based well known non-government organization
started entrepreneurship development programmed in slums and rural areas of Kanpur
district. Initially Shramik Bharati started some entrepreneurial workshops and two skill
training programmers, one for Motor cycle repairing and another for Generator
maintenance. Shramik Bharati published advertisements in news papers but could not get
the right kind of response.

In such condition Indicorps asked Shramik Bharati to create some project for its fellows.
Shramik Bharati was already facing problem in implementation of entrepreneurship
development projects in Kanpur and it floated the same topic for the Indicorps fellows.
Mr. Ankur Shukla joined this project in September of year 2004. Ankur took some time to
understand the situation in slums in Kanpur. First he made reputation with youths by
playing cricket and later discussed about their career and job aspects. Quickly he was
able to make friendship with youths in two slums Haiku Purvey and Deviant. Ankur did
lots of works for entrepreneurship development. He also made arrangement for

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vocational training programmers in Haiku purvey which was sponsored by DUDA
(District Urban Development Agency) a government agency. At the end of his fellowship
in Kanpur he arranged one Friendship Cricket Match between youth of all those slums
where he had worked. Ankur was successful in creating good image of Shrmik Bharti and
shramik Bharti got benefited from his efforts.

On the other hand Ankur also wanted to see the different colours of India and also wanted
a satisfaction that he has done some good to country of his origin. Shramik Bharti
assisted Ankur during his stay in Kanpur and provided proper guidance and made his stay
in Kanpur memorable. Mr. Ganesh Pandey Ji the head of the organization wanted Ankur
to stay in India and work in development sector because he felt that Ankur has a lot to
contribute the field of development.

19.4. Indicorps - Experiences with Environmental Sanitation Institute, Ahmedabad


The ESI was added to the list of the partner NGOs of Indicorps during the year 2003. The
ESI has been working in the field of sanitation for more than 50 years. The institute was
set up by the name of Safai Vidyalai for the cause of the upliftment of the Harijans and
for spreading awareness about sanitation, and was a sequel to the Harijan Sewak Sangh
established by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932. This institution was established for education of
the less fortunate section of society, upliftment of sweepers and scavengers and also
removal of untouchability and backwardness.

Presently ESI is working towards bringing awareness about sanitation among the Indian
population. It is also engaged in motivation and demonstration of appropriate action-
aimed sanitation technology for developing countries. With the focus on the upgrading of
rural and urban health, sanitation and water supply. It generally acts a nodal agency for
execution of various low cost sanitation projects in Gujarat. It is also the government-
appointed key institute for environmental sanitation trainers training.

The ESI is trying to develop a new campus at Sughad near Gandhinagar as a training
centre in sanitation. To develop it into a world class institute Indicorps had placed a
fellow at ESI to link it internationally to other organizations working in the field of

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sanitation. The ESI had no professional among its employees to do this job. So it heavily
relied on the fellow from Indicorps, Priya Shashidhran.

The project as such to develop ESI, Sughad into a world class training institute could not
have been completed in one year duration. Priya has helped the institute set up its web
site and has tried to contact it with several other organizations working in this field. One
such organization was Center for Environmental Education (CEE). Priya had contacted
this institute to develop a common curriculum for certain courses to be conducted at ESI
but with the joint efforts of the ESI and CEE. She has in fact initiated the talks and
brought both the organizations at a table. She has also helped the organization link
internationally with centers such as International Resource Center, Netherlands and has
tried to obtain their support in several fields such as research.

Her efforts have in fact opened new avenues for the ESI. It has several new agendas at its
table to deal with. Till now it had not worked with any professional in the field. Priya was
a graduate in environmental science she brought in several new ideas with her. She was
given due recognition at ESI and her efforts were always praised. She had in fact the
freedom to decide things for ESI and chart out the course for its development. However
she did it with the advice of the senior staff at the organization.

ESI neither had the experience of working in an entirely professional way nor has anyone
who can carry on the work of Priya. It mostly works with the seva motive with a
completely unprofessional mindset. Priya has in fact brought out several issues for the
organization. But she left the organization at the end of July. Her project has ended but
the work she has initiated has to be carried on by the organization.

To say her project could not have had any definite outcome at the end of a year. But it did
provide an Environmental Science graduate to hone her leadership skills and put her
knowledge to use. She said her job was to set ESI on the path of professionalism and then
it was the duty and the task for the organization to move on that and she did exactly that.
Thus Indicorps had provided the organization with a professional to work with for a year.

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This project is typical in the sense that it shows the stake of both the ESI and the
Indicorps. ESI needed a professional to help it professionalize and Priya did have the
capability to do so. Its requirement of human capital was adequately met for the year. For
Indicorps, Priya was placed in an organization where she had the opportunity to do some
service and hone her leadership skills. The outcome of the project was can be said to have
little concern for Indicorps but the environment and the opportunity Priya got was
important. She had her own experiential learning while she also helped an organization
meet some of its objective.

20. CONCLUSION
Indicorps since its inception has evolved through its experiences with fellows, partner
NGOs and government. This evolution had seen a change in many operational aspects
such as project creation. Indicorps on one hand is appreciated for the initiative, sincerity
and dedication of fellows and founders, and on the other hand is criticized on the
rationale of its existence. Disagreements with partner NGOs are becoming common, but
are not considered a major issue by Indicorps. Such disagreements have made Indicorps
selective in choosing its partner NGOs, where by it takes commonality of philosophy as
one of the basic criterion in deciding partners. Projects that are created for fellows in
association with partner NGOs involve active community service and interaction.

Indicorps is trying to diversify its activities in the future. One of the ideas is to start an
educational institution for PIOs and NRIs where they can learn about their country of
origin. It is also trying to create and manage projects of its own in a bid to limit
associations with too many NGOs. Indicorps since its existence has actively tried to
increase its understanding of the socio-politico-economic conditions in grassroots
through fellows and partner NGOs. It now considers itself ready to actively create and
manage projects of its own with minimal intervention from other NGOs; contention being
minimization of dilution of its philosophy of seva to which partner NGOs sometimes
don’t conform.

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ANNEXURE 1 GENERIC DATA

1. Organization Name & Contact Details:


Indicorps Ahmedabad, www.indicorps.org E-mail: info@indicorps.org
India: 304 Aarohi complex
Vijay Char Rasta, Navrangpura
Ahmedabad 380009
Gujarat, India
Tel:+91.79.2791.0270/1
Fax: +91.79.2791.0272
United States: 3418 Highway 6 South
Suite B #309
Houston, TX 77082
United States of America
Tel: +1.202.468.7424

2. Type of Organization (Constitution)


Indicorps is a non-government, non-profit organization registered in United States of
America under charities law. It is a non –partisan and non- religious organization that

42
encourages Indians around the world to actively participate in India’s progress. Indicorps
has also been registered in India under Indian Societies and Charities Act in last year. It is
a small non- government organization which works in association of several partner
organizations situated in all part of the country.

3. Sector in which the organization works


Indicorps is a development sector oriented organization. It has two main objectives. One
is to provide an opportunity to Indian Diaspora to come back to their country of origin
and learn more and more about it and second is to provide human resources to local
NGO’s so that they can use them for benefit of society, mainly for poor and downtrodden.
Indicorps' development-oriented programs provide opportunities for Indians and the
Indian Diaspora to serve India by applying their skills, time, and resources towards
grassroots projects and sustainable strategies for change. The core fellowship program
aims to inspire a new generation of global Indian leaders through structured one- and
two-year grassroots public service opportunities in India. Indicorps projects embody a
firm and demonstrated commitment to promoting peace, inclusiveness, secularism, and
the empowerment of India's people. Indicorps' service initiatives are designed to build
principled leadership, empower visionaries, inspire collective action, and unite India
towards a common vision for the nation by productively engaging Indians around the
world with the development of the country that defines their identity.

4. Governing Body (BOD/ Board of trustees


Indicorps is a registered organization under charities act in United States of America. It
has also been registered in India under Societies and Trust Act in last year. At both of the
places it has different board of directors.
Board of Directors (India): Ms. Sonal Shah, Mr. Anand Shah, Mr. Parag Patel, Mrs.
Bindi Gandhi, Mr. Rishi Sanghvi , Mrs. Stacy Warden.

5. Profile of M.D. and Other Key persons

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Mr. Anand Shah who is the co-founder of Indicorps is a visionary .He completed his
degree in Biology from Harvard University. Before starting this organization he was
trying to establish a high school in US where he also used to teach English and Math.

6. Organizational Affiliations
Indicorps works in cooperation with several other partner organizations, most of which
are NGO. Its major funding is from US but it is also being partly funded by domestic
donors which are sufficed to meet its day to day expenses. Indicorps is working in
cooperation of Manav Sadhna and Safai Vidhalya (Environmental and Sanitation
Institute) which are Ahmedabad based NGO.

It also has collaboration with several development and educational institutes such as
IRMA. Indicorps does not have any affiliation to any organization on the basis of religion
or caste. Each year its partner organizations float different projects after discussion with
Indicorps. These projects are later chosen by fellows who want to serve their country.

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