Our last blog spoke about social innovations and how they have the potential to benefit our country. This blog will take a step further and discuss why social innovations matter.
For Desh Apnayen, Social Innovations are special because they ELEVATE.
- E – Enable
These innovations are of the community, for the community, by the community. They give rise to unlikely heroes and leaders, and set positive examples for the children and youth in the community. They give a chance for everyone to take ownership and contribute to a larger cause. They enable better lives for one and all.
- L – Lift
Social Innovations lift people from undesirable states of being to better lives. These innovations generate possibilities. For instance, because of Sugata Mitra’s ‘Hole in the wall’ experiment, poor children have the chance to design their own learning and as a result, lift their lives into something great.
To know about Sugata Mitra’s experiment, watch his TED Talk here.
- E – Empower
Social Innovations empower positively. They place the power to take control and make change in the hands of those who need it the most. Take for instance Armman’s M-Mitra service for pregnant women. mMitra is a free mobile voice call service that provides culturally appropriate comprehensive information on preventive care and simple interventions to reduce maternal and infant mortality and morbidity in urban India. The voice calls are in the local dialect, specific to the womens’s gestational age or the age of the infant and are sent weekly/twice a week free of cost directly to pregnant women and mothers with infants.
To know more about Armman, click here.
- V – Give a Vision
An innovation paves the way for the world to look at the solution to a problem with a new perspective. It gives the gift of a new vision. This is exactly what Desh Apnayen makes possible for thousands of school going children through innovation in delivering civics content – the chance to examine the country and what we can do to make it great in our own small ways.
To know more about Desh Apnayen’s programme for schools, please click here.
- A – Amaze
There is no greater force than that of a self-reliant community. These innovations enable communities to come together and give everyone involved a chance to feel amazed by the scope and scale of what can be achieved.
- T – Tell a story of change
Stories unite and bind us in unfathomable ways. They are a part of our cultural fabric. Social Innovations give a society the chance to tell stories of victories, small and big, to the world outside. These stories boost morale and create the space for emulation. More than anything, they talk of the worth of an idea and how it is worth pursuing with trust and belief.
- En noble
Social innovations lend dignity to the communities they come from. They give community leaders the confidence to scale up, expand and impact more lives.
Truly, social innovations elevate. Desh Apnayen is proud to be one of them.