Impact Stories
Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra
Bhau Katdare, Project Coordinator
Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM) is a leading non-government organization (NGO) in India, engaged in conservation of nature through education, awareness, community participation, and research. In the year 1992, SNM started its work in the pristine region of Konkan on the western coast of Maharashtra state in India. SNM has successfully organized various projects in nature conservation, protection, and education with its limited resources.
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Nayana Rokade
Senior Manager HR, Tata Bluescope Steel
Nayana has 16 years of experience in human resources and participated in ProEngage before, on a similar project requiring her HR expertise. Her first involvement in volunteering was through work - she was assigned to manage CSR in her company. Then she realised there are so many organizations that need professional help and employees, besides providing their skills can benefit from these programs by broadening their horizons, learning to work with different set of people and giving back to society.
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Satish Kolte
Director of HR, Indian Hotels
Satish is a first-time ProEngager, hence he decided to apply for a project that he felt confident about finishing and providing a value. He wanted to learn how this skill-based volunteering program is conducted as before he did only onsite volunteering that involved rain water conservation. He had a bit of knowledge about policies from the past and thought it’s a great idea to help an NGO that doesn’t have anyone to help them with these policies. He wanted to be fully committed and capable for the project.
The Story
Project Execution
Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra is located in a remote area in Maharashtra and there is no good infrastructure in terms of available skills. As the organization is applying for funds, each time there is a higher requirement for all the documentation to be provided. They realised they need to update all the documents to meet the funding application requirements and also standardize on how they are managing their team.
Bhau recollects that the volunteers were so well organized. After the first meeting they have prepared a proper plan around the project along with the timelines, allocation of responsibilities and required information to be provided from the NGO. As Satish mentioned, Nayana had worked on a similar project before so she knew how to go about it and that was really an advantage for him.
The crucial part of the project was a huge questionnaire prepared by the volunteers to collect all the information from the NGO required to draft the policies at once. Although it was not easy for the NGO to fill all the information and it took about a month, Bhau praises their approach: “After the questionnaire they only asked to provide a few more explanations and we received the first draft in mid-April. It was so good, almost all the information was there. We only ask for 2-3 small changes.”
Challenges faced
For Nayana it was a “simple” project: “This NGO was properly registered, and has a very good website, so it was not very difficult to get information. Besides, the NGO director was very helpful, and available.” Also Bhau seconds Nayana: “No challenges at all, both the volunteers were very keen in the project and they did it on time.”
Satish was very happy to work with Nayana as she would review his part of the work and give feedback. He felt very well supported by both Nayana and Bhau during his first volunteering project. “I wasn't sure whether I would get this kind of a response from the NGO, but the NGO was very helpful, I was calling a lot - but they helped me a lot all the time - I didn't expect that Bhau would have given us so much information.” Only thing Satish was missing was visiting the site in person to better understand how they work, as all the communication was online.
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