Building equitable and sustainable rural communities
Trust Community Livelihoods (TCL) was registered as not for profit Trust in year 2011 by four senior social sector development professionals, with over 30 years of experience at the time. They were all engaged in national and international consultancies, after having worked in field. They decided to bring their collective wisdom to ground for social change in Uttar Pradesh and such regions. It was to work for equity and social justice in the society. TCL would develop and respond to the aspirations of the community captures in the word: JEANS - “JUSTICE, EQUITY, ASPIRATIONS, NATURAL, SUSTAINABILITY”. Jeans is also an apparel that has been a great equalizer – worn by wealthiest to poorest.
It was decided to focus on the rural areas, where most of the people live, and on agriculture allied activities, on which most people depend on their livelihoods and sustenance.
TCL is driven by the vision of
“Empowered Society that creates equal opportunities for dignified life to Each and Every Individual.”
“TCL promotes and partners with community institutions to empower women, children and marginalized households to enhance and sustain their economic and social well-being”
Key objective of TCL is to Rejuvenate the Rural Economy so that we can achieve our vision and mission. Hence the emphasis is on small and marginal women farmers.
The current focus of TCL is Eastern UP which is an extreme poverty belt. The method of developing and rejuvenating villages in this context that has emerged would have replicated in entire eastern UP and northern Bihar which have similar topography and socio-economic profile.
Similar, context specific method and models for replication would be developed in other geographies, currently limited to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar States.
Happiness and healthy environment
TCL has a belief that economic transformation of India can come about with greater participation of rural people, especially the marginalized and poor, in generating surplus. The transformation has to be a bottom up approach, even as surplus from urban economic activities and government resources are leveraged for rural investments. It is our strong belief that this is possible through mobilization, aggregation of land and resources, and infusion of science and technology.
TCL is driven by the belief that women would lead social and economic transformation of the society. The efforts of the endeavour is to empower women through groups, training and awareness and most importantly ensuring the income from their labour goes into their bank account directly and they have greater say in decision-making and influence within the family and in the society.
TCL essentially has humanistic philosophy, wherein there is emphasis on the individual and social potential, and agency of human beings. We as collective are responsible for the promotion of weaker and marginalized people, espousing for equal and inherent dignity of all human beings, using reason and science/technology. Happiness and healthy environment
TCL espouses the core value of
Ms. Shubha Prem is Secretary of Banwasi Seva Ashram. She is engaged in social work in tribal & backward, forest dominated area of Sonbhadra district in Uttar Pradesh. Banwasi Sewa Ashram is a well-known pioneering Gandhian organization in UP that works among the tribal communities. She herself embodies Gandhian spirt of simplicity and a life dedicated for rural uplift. She was Project Director of UNICEF projects on child rights and of GARIMA project for adolescent girls. She was also director of Watershed project supported by NABARD. Shubhaji is a teacher and co-ordinator for condensed courses in non-formal education centres as also coordinator of adolescent life-skills oriented education programs. She has worked on women empowerment programs brining significant difference in their lives.
Ms. Alka Talwar is a CSR, Corporate Sustainability, Diversity & Inclusion specialist with more than 35 years of experience in the field. She is the former Chief CSR & Sustainability Officer of Tata Chemicals Ltd. Currently, she is a Director on the Board of Common Purpose India and a Trustee on the Boards of Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development, Okhai- Centre for Empowerment, Kiran Foundation and Trust Community Livelihoods. She has been a part of several committees and working groups of various industry bodies, the Tata Group and in Govt. and Non-Govt. Organizations, which included work on climate change, water mission, business & human rights, business and bio-diversity, affirmative action and Tata Strive She is also the recipient of the “2019 - Leading Women Award in the excellence category “conferred by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for her achievements in the field of sustainability and for promoting the SDGs.
Mr. Vinod Jain is Managing Trustee and Executive Director of Trust Community Livelihoods. He is an Agriculture Engineer from IIT Kharagpur. He worked in corporate sector before joining PRADAN where he spent over a decade. Thereafter he worked as Development Consultant with various agencies like the World Bank, different national and international donors and philanthropies, as also for CSR organizations for design, assessment and studies of their development interventions in livelihoods. He promoted a microfinance support organization to handhold startup NGOs in MF. In his journey of thirty-five years, he has spanned the entire cycle in development sector from grassroots work to consultancy to being a donor/lender to grassroots work again, bring all his cumulative experience to address rural issues and problems in rural livelihoods including climate change, migration, education, water and sanitation for wholistic development of the rural communities.
Ms. Padmaja Nair is a Founder Trustee of Trust Community Livelihoods and its first Chairperson. She is a trained development planning economist and with Diploma in Urban Planning and Management from the School Of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, and has been working on research, training and policy planning in the urban sector for last three decades. She has special focus on urban planning & management, water & sanitation areas wherein she looks at gender dimension. She has worked extensively with The World Bank, UNICEF, IDC, DFID and SIDA on Program Planning, implementation and evaluation. Padmaja has a Master’s degree in Economics (specialization in Development Planning) and Diploma in Planning and Management of Urban Development from University of Birmingham.
Mr. Tejinder Singh Bhogal, is a Founder Trustee and currently Chairperson of Trust Community Livelihoods. He is an Organizational Effectiveness Consultant. He focuses on organizational effectiveness (OE), Capacity Building& Organizational Development (OD), and Human Resource Development (HRD). Prior to working as a consultant, he spent 15 years in grassroots development work with NDDB and PRADAN. Tejinder has jointly written a book on “Feminist Mentoring for Feminist Futures” in three parts. He has also contributed a chapter in a book “T-Group Facilitation - Theory and Practice of Applied Behavioural Science.” He has post-graduate diploma from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA).
Mr. Manoj K Sharma is Managing Director at MicroSave Consulting, an advisory firm working in the field of financial and social inclusion. He is a development and inclusive finance expert with over 28 years of experience. Manoj has worked in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Lao PDR, Nepal, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Sweden, and Vietnam. Manoj has extensive experience in digital channels for financial inclusion, agent outreach, digital financial products, risk and fraud management, and client protection. Manoj has been supporting the move towards digitization of government benefits and direct cash transfers to target segments. Manoj’s interest lies in financial inclusion, specifically in the development of innovative products and in technology-based delivery channels to enable financial services and social benefits to be sustainably delivered to low-income segments. Before jointly initiating MicroSave, Manoj worked in Small Industries Bank of India (SIDBI) for over a decade and was its Asst. General Manager at the time of moving on.
The TCL Team is headed by Mr. Vinod Jain. Working within the TCL Framework the TCL Team aspires to establish a mores of household well-being which will progressively lead towards societal well-being.
Mr. Vinod Jain has an Agriculture Engineering degree from IIT, Kharagpur. He is the Managing Trustee of TCL. He has over 30 years of experience having worked for fifteen years in PRADAN after working in corporate sector. He has been consultant with The World Bank, DFID, SIDBI, Tata Trusts, OXFAM (India), etc.