Journey So Far

Founded by Ronnie & Zarina Screwvala, we operate with a single-minded focus of empowering 1 million Rural Indians every 5-6 years. We are bringing together best global practices, corporate thinking and accountability, highest standards of corporate governance to create a model of sustainable development, which is an industry benchmark and replicable at scale.

The JYMS Foundation which began as SHARE (Society to Heal Aid Restore Educate) continued to progress in small steps; from starting sheltered workshop for the mentally challenged in the Dharavi and Chembur areas of Mumbai to a more focused approach to impact the lives of people in rural Maharashtra.

Our strategy is to Engage, Empower, Execute and Exit. To engage rural communities with corporates, urban youth, NGOs and governments and empower them to co-execute programs that transform their lives which enables our exit, creating role models and change agents for the rest of the country.

Our USP is a 360° intervention inside-out model of development, with a multiplier effect. Our holistic approach covers all aspects of individual and community development through 4 key verticals – Health & Nutrition, Education, Water & Sanitation and Economic Development. Our strength is our 1350+ strong team comprising 1000+ community volunteers and 350+ full time staff (FTE specialists & professionals); 90% FTE work at the grassroots, making us a strong execution foundation.

We currently execute ~70 programmes in our geography and work with partners including Tata Trusts, Reckitt Benckiser, Mahindra & Mahindra, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, UTI, Great Eastern Shipping, HDFC Bank, Australian Consulate, Red Cross, Rotary, Laxmi Charitable Trust, The Teacher Foundation, Room to Read to name a few.

In ~3 years, we have reached out to all of 2,000 villages in our current geography (6 blocks of Raigad dist., Maharashtra: Mahad, Mangaon, Mhsala, Poladpur, Shrivardhan and Tala) impacting over 471,000 people.

HEALTH & NUTRITION

JYMS will create 2500 Community Health Workers (Swa-Raksha Mitras: SRMs). Our focus is on Vision-care, Maternal and Child Health, Nutrition, Cardiac-care for Children and ensuring strong government linkages

• Community Health Workers: 970 highly trained SRMs serving a population of ~471,000
• Vision-care: Screened 208,582 people and provided 38,785 spectacles free of cost. Supported free of cost 7,324 cataract surgeries.
• Children with Special Needs (CWSN): Provided visual aids to 98 and operations of 20
• Anaemia: Screened and tested 13,149 children
• Cardiac-care: Supported operations for 59 children

EDUCATION

JYMS aims to empower 2700 Schools with 200,000 Students and 10,000 Teachers holistically transforming schools via ~17 programs

• Impacting >123,000 children in 1,275 schools, 806 Anganwadis and 39 Junior colleges
• Leadership training to 1,148 principals and in-service training to 2,484 teachers
• Infrastructure upgrades viz. toilets, drinking water facilities, libraries etc. in 1,233 schools
• Career counselling for better prospects to 45,504 students
• Scholarships: 146 Excellence scholarships for professional courses and 3,302 mass scholarships (Grade XI & XII)
• Children with Special Needs (CWSN): Trained 323 teachers and setup one Learning Resource Centre.

WATER & SANITATION

JYMS will build 25,000 household toilets and ensure 200 Litres of potable water/day through the year in 260,000 homes

• Constructed 15,943 households toilets; plan to build ~10,000 more toilets in ~2 years
• Built drinking water schemes with taps in 22,260 homes impacting ~110,000 lives

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION

JYMS will empower 8248 Self Help Groups and 720 Governance Groups located in 4124 villages or hamlets of 720 Gram Panchayats by ensuring deep engagement with the community through monthly Community level meets in every village focusing on gender and financial literacy

• Self Help Groups: Formed 1863 SHGs
• Opened 2 large community learning centres for adult education and training
• Trained 908 elected Gram Panchayat members

AGRICULTURE & LIVELIHOODS

JYMS will uplift and enrich the lives of 200,000 farmers; targeting annual income of INR 2 lakhs per household. To economically empower 2 lakh families by enabling them to live with dignity and make their own livelihood choices

• Capacity Building: Exposure trips, visits and trainings for 20,000 farmers; teaching new farming technologies to enhance yields at low costs and turn small farms into lucrative businesses
• Advanced Paddy Cultivation: 11,351 farmers adopted the technique, leading to average 30% increase in yield & income
• Drip Irrigation & Community Farms: Transformed 583 acres through drip irrigation and 161 acres in community farming
• Poultry (egg & meat): 2,309 households supplemented and 38 brooding units
• Dairy: 1,908 entrepreneurs created with 2,590 milch cattle
• Grafted >80,800 trees and distributed 320,000 new plants for horticulture.