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Social Entrepreneurship: SVYM

by Dr. R. Balasubramaniam

Dr. Balasubramaniam is a Social Entrepreneur and the founder of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement whose mission is to establish a caring and an equitable society, free of deprivation and strife. The organization, according to him, is “An attempt to facilitate and develop processes to improve the quality of life”. This is done through the programs and efforts in the fields of Medical care, Tribal education, HIV awareness, Sanitation, Healthcare and Women empowerment.

The Stimuli

Inspiration for the movement, as is the case with most social entrepreneurs, came from a mixed bag of events and circumstances. Dr. Balasubramaniam felt strongly for the people in rural India who were deprived of basic medical facilities. For instance, nearly 80% of the doctors attended to only 20% of the population.

His desire to work in the developmental sector was strongly influenced by two other experiences during his college years. The first was when a 43 year old man with no visible complications died at the hospital because of a sheer lack of care and attention. While a doctor visited him every day and prescribed medicines, he did not make the basic effort to find out if the patient was actually taking them. The other incident which left an indelible mark on him was seeing a baby wracked with spasms. The rudimentary precaution of an anti-tetanus shot worth only Rs. 2 administered during the mother’s pregnancy, which would have been sufficient to prevent the horrific spasms, was not taken. To make matters worse, Dr. Balasubramaniam found his fellow doctors stimulating the spasms in the twisted pursuit of medical knowledge rather than trying to cure her. This further strengthened his resolve to do something to alleviate such suffering.

Implementing the vision

To pursue his work in the developmental sector, Dr. Balasubramaniam moved to H.D.Kote in August 1988. Here he set up cost effective healthcare facilities while adhering to the highest ethical standards, as his first step towards serving rural India. As he helped the needy in H.D.Kote and the neighbouring tribal areas, Dr. Balasubramaniam realized that health was just one of the needs of these people and there were several other basic needs that were also neglected. Thus began the first school for tribal children, which grew over time from a small shed into a semi-residential school. He personally taught in the school, while his friends from medical college managed the hospital. The school developed a unique learning methodology for teaching the children. Instead of the children being evaluated, the teachers are evaluated using very strict guidelines. Further a step-up program has been implemented which helps students in class VII and VIII to be integrated into the mainstream education system. The school at H.D.Kote is also unique in the sense that it is the only one of its kind to achieve a 100% pass record in the Class X Board Examination.

Programs for certain other concerns

Another major concern addressed by Dr. Balasubramaniam was the income inequity between the upper 20% of the population which generate nearly 85% of the country’s wealth and the lower 20% of the population which produces just 1.5% of the country’s wealth.

He believes that this divide is the root cause of the extremist behaviour of the poor. Once their suffering reaches a certain threshold limit, they revolt and violence follows. This is a clarion call for strong minded social entrepreneurs who have the ability to innovate to develop a strategy to enable the poor of the country to reach a level of self-subsistence. Electricity and connectivity are the other major problems in rural India. According to an estimate from Dr. Balasubramaniam, most of India’s schemes have huge overheads of nearly 85%! This effectively means that of the Rs.72000 crores set aside by the government for the purpose of alleviating poverty, only Rs. 10,000 crores actually makes its way to the poor. While corruption is a significant contributor to the overheads, there is still a clear need for greater efficiency; for which the governance in the country has to improve.

Most NGOs and Social Entrepreneurs share a common mistaken ideology about their disassociation from the corporate way of life. Dr. Balasubramaniam emphasized that NGO founders should in fact take the lead from corporate CEOs in the running of their organizations. As an example, the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement was funded in its initial years by the Tata Foundation. When the foundation realized that SVYM could be self sufficient, they offered to share their management expertise with SVYM as a parting gift. Although the idea clashed with Dr. Balasubramaniam’s ideology, it helped to bring the overheads down from over 60% to as low as 4%!

The Beliefs

SVYM has also established the Swami Vivekananda Institute of Leadership Development and has begun its own Masters course on NGOs in collaboration with the Mysore University. The 4 semester course is designed to develop skilled managers for the NGO sector. It aims to train and equip people with the competencies needed to successfully manage NGOs. The centre is again based on a unique model and has very low attrition rates, the secret of which the NGO shares with interested corporates.

Dr. Balasubramaniam reinforced some of the teachings of Swami Vivekananda who believed that there are three levels of service to others. It begins at the Physical Level, which is a basic requirement for any human being. Next, comes service at an Intellectual Level, followed by the highest level of service, the Spiritual Level. According to Dr. Balasubramaniam, if one strives to serve mankind at the physical and intellectual levels, the spiritual level automatically gets delivered. He also talked about the 3Ps of success from the sayings of Swami Vivekananda, namely:

1. Purity
2. Patience
3. Perseverance

According to Dr. Balasubramaniam, the three qualities stated above are critical for the success of any social entrepreneur. Purity is in the mind and in one’s intentions. A social entrepreneur needs to commit himself to the cause whole heartedly and selflessly as the efforts might take time to fructify. Dr. Balasubramaniam himself confessed that it took him over a decade to see the good that his work led to. For some other NGOs it may take up to a generation before the benefits are apparent. Lastly, a social entrepreneur needs to be perseverant. Perseverance is the key to overcoming the various political, social and economic hurdles that are typically faced by an entrepreneur.

The Way Ahead

Dr. Balasubramaniam also shared his thoughts on his yardstick of measurement for the success of an NGO. He mentioned that developmental work can be successful only when all the stakeholders involved are committed to the cause. Also, there is a compelling need for NGOs and Social Entrepreneurs to enlist the support of the Government, the community and the corporate sector in order to improve the chances of success.

Profile

The Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) is a development organization engaged in building a new civil society in India at the grassroots level through policy-level action in the Health, Education and Community Development sectors. It particularly focuses on the welfare of the dispossessed primitive tribes in the Mysore district of Karnataka, India. To visit the website, please follow this link: http://www.svym.net/

Dr. Balasubramaniam, the Founder President of SVYM, is a doctor with an MPhil in Hospital & Health System Management. He has worked extensively in the Health, Education and Community Development Sectors, right up from the grassroots level, for over two decades now. Community driven development is his area of special interest. He has also served as a member of various State and National Committees including the Task Force of the Planning Commission of India.