GENERAL BODY:
Our organisation has over 350 people as primary members of the General Body. About 99% of the members are from the Irula community. All the members are women. The General Body is functioning as a people’s federation model like a community-based organisation. The General Body is the supreme decision-making body of the society. All the General Body members have a voting right and they meet minimum once in a year to elect executive committee/governing board. It also monitors all the activities and programmes and additionally gives direction to its future. The General Body appoints all important posts as per its requirement.
GOVERNING BOARD/EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
Our Society has a governing board consisting of 11 members including the ex-officio. All of them are women except the ex-officio. The governing board/executive committee is the second-level decision-making body and implements goals and objectives given by the general body. It meets at the minimum four times in a year. It also reports back to the General Body about its functions and decisions. This is the body which supervises the administration and day-to-day functions of the Society. It appoints the director/ chief-executive who is the ex-officio of the board to function on behalf of the society for its resource and management of staff and dealing government and non-governing agencies. The executive committee supervises activities and monitors impacts of the projects and also gives direction towards its visions and mission. The general body gives power to the governing board.
MANAGEMENT TEAM:
Our Society has a president, a secretary, a treasurer and a director as the management and leadership unit for the effective functioning and management of the organisation. This unit meets on regular basis, communicates with government departments including IT, Home ministry, and registration of societies and auditor of the society. The governing board gives power to the director who is chief-executive of the organisation.
STAFF TEAM/PROJECT TEAM:
Our organisation has a staff team for implementing the programmes and activities planned by the Society. The governing board appoints the management team and the management team undertakes staff recruitment as well as defining the staff’s roles and responsibilities. Staff team is in charge of implementing their duties given by the project director. They are the implementing unit of the organization’s goals and objectives. The staff team meets minimum once in every week. They report back to their concerned coordinators and then to the director and to the board and to general body of the Society. Apart from this, annual reports and accounts statement are prepared and submitted to the concerned authorities including donors and government departments. Based on the learning and experiences new or additional programmes are visualised and planned accordingly.
ACCOUNTS AND AUDITING:
Our organisation has an annual turnover of over 60 lakhs and has many procedures and systems for effective accounting management. Books and records are maintained and computerised with the finance department of the Society. All accounts are verified weekly, monthly, quarterly and audited yearly. Furthermore they are maintained in public accountability and 100% transparency with translated copies in Tamil and English.
PROGRAMME SUSTAINABILITY:
All the activities of our programme are worked-out for a certain period. In our past experience, we already established a good base on the thrust areas of Irula Adivasi Empowerment Programme. So, with the support of current projects, we aim at programme sustainability through building capacities at each village-SHG level. We are involving our Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) in the entire process of our action. This will lead towards continued action. We have strategies towards—direct legal, human rights and livelihoods support training for CBOs, marketing training of Adivasi products, workshops on forest produce and self-marketing, campaign against violence against women, conference on right to non-timber forest produce, cultural festival, research and community documentation, assets building, community ownership, working with Adivasi women and men on gender rights, capacity building and strengthening ASC network member’s ability to promote programme sustainability, facilitating movements in advocacy and lobbying for policy interventions. All these activities are based on continues strategies which revolve for programme sustainability.
FUNDING SUSTAINABILITY:
We have worked-out a detailed action plan and appropriate project proposal for mobilising funding resources from other sources. We have already established links with other organisations and some well-wishers. For further action, we have the Management Committee of the ITWWS which will look after the role of fund mobilisation. Building skills and capacity of the members and staff team is an on-going resource mobilisation strategy. This will help us in funding sustainability of the programme efforts.
MONITORING & EVALUATIONS:
Monitoring and evaluation is done on regular basis. A team of people are doing evaluation about the project and its outcomes. The team also refers activity report, financial report, discussion with implementers, direct field visits, and analyses other sources of information. Evaluation reports are used for further improvement of the projects and future plans. Also there is internal evaluation team/Review Team, which does periodical evaluations of the projects’ progress. Such reports are circulated at the staff meeting, CBOs meeting, Board meeting and handed to the needed. Open sharing on review is promoted along with community leaders’ participation.
REPORTING & DOCUMENTATIONS:
Our team is doing regular documentations of the progress of each project. Reports are done on a periodical basis, both in Tamil as well as in English. Photographs and case studies are documented and reported to the beneficiaries and the public as well as to the donor agency. All the research and study reports are circulated & disseminated as part of the results. The outcomes of the project activities are used for learning by outsiders for replicating in similar areas. Processes of all our activities are recorded and integrated with other programmes.
