NOTRE

SOCIAL ADVOCACY

For more than 2 decades, NOTRE has been quietly and selflessly working through its NGO , the Notre Organisation for Research, Training and Education (N.O.T.R.E.), to address social concerns on a completely not for profit basis, across many states. Largely, the focus has been on empowerment of the girl child as also mitigating the concerns faced by young urban women.

The city of Jabalpur, in Madhya Pradesh, is renowned for its sculptures, made out of soap stone and other soft stones. This trade on which a large section of a particularly weaker section of society depends, is based on the pain staking sculpting, largely done manually by young girl children in the age group of 9 -16 at home. So impoverished were most of these homes, that most had no electricity, causing these children to work late into the night by candle light, or using oil lamps. Serious eye problems, often resulting in blindness, were the result. N.O.T.R.E.’s advocacy got the MP government to extend the ‘ek batti yojana’ , wherein a free single lamp electric connection was given to every household, to be extended to these homes. N.O.T.R.E also worked with NGOs internationally, to provide internationally desired designs and market access , as also with associates to create logistics and packaging systems, to create a global window for these talented, but less enabled community. Sustainability was the principle and the initiative was successfully pursued for a decade, until the community was largely able to find its feet.

A large orphanage at Pune, run by a global NGO, observed that as their girl children came towards the end of their scholastic education, the realization that they were orphans often undermined their self confidence, impaired their studies and future and their attitude to life. In association with a leading bank, a media house and most importantly, the voluntary assistance of an English Premier League football coach ( an Indian), the senior girls of this orphanage, were trained in football and went onto win the State Championship for 3 years in a row. Five years later many are doctors, engineers and architects. Most come back to this foster home of theirs, to give their younger siblings the faith and confidence they need. For N.O.T.R.E, this was empowerment.

A major survey conducted by N.O.T.R.E indicated that awareness of safe sex amongst Pune’s 100,000 strong female undergraduate to post graduate population, was leading to an increasing incidence of AIDS. Ironically, in a community which was highly literate and financially more secure. An awareness advocacy campaign largely involving fellow girl students, helped mitigate this incidence. Today, N.O.T.R.E proposes to initiate a similar campaign in association with the medical community, to spread better understanding on the use of the emergency pill, as also better understanding amongst naïve patients on the risk of clinical trial participation in new drug discovery.

Also proposed are schools to extend better primary education in the rural parts of Pune.

N.O.T.R.E also works in active association with educational institutions, the authorities and other societal segments to help make a better environment and society. One such association is with the Tree Public Foundation www.treepublicfoundation.org