Drishtee Foundation

Drishtee is a rural development organisation that works with village communities in India to build self-reliance, sustainable livelihoods and shared prosperity. It envisions a world where all communities are empowered to achieve shared prosperity, and it focuses on helping communities design their own development path. Its work is organised around community-led village institutions called Vatikas, which plan and run economic and social solutions for their villages. Drishtee states its mission as facilitating 10 million livelihoods among Vatika community organisations through ecosystem support and the delivery of business services, while demonstrating a model of sustainable living. It works with foundations, government institutions, financial institutions and CSR partners to strengthen links between rural and urban India.

Major Areas of Work

• Enabling Communities: Building empathy-based connections between individuals, families and communities to support self-reliance.

• Education for Livelihood: Combining local knowledge with innovation to create and share skills that lead to profitable livelihoods.

• Women Entrepreneurship: Helping women become financially independent and socially secure through community-driven business models.

• Sustainable Housing: Affordable housing designed by rural women and built with eco-friendly materials and processes.

• Good Health and Well-being: Individual and community health covering physical, emotional, social and spiritual well-being.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Swāvalamban: A community-led integrated village development initiative that improves local livelihood opportunities and access to basic services through village community organisations called Vatikas.

• MIRI (Making in Rural India): A platform that builds prosumer ecosystems, linking rural production with responsible consumption.

• Ekyam: A platform for "collective action for collective purpose" where individuals, families, colleagues and neighbourhood groups pool their resources to solve problems locally or globally.

• Banking CSP and BC agent network: Through Drishtee Development and Communication Ltd., Drishtee licenses Customer Service Point and Business Correspondent agents who deliver banking services.

Swāvalamban is Drishtee's main approach and runs under the theme of a shared resolve (sankalpa) for shared prosperity. It builds Vatikas as self-reliant, sustainable and interdependent community organisations, and supports them through four pillars: Community, Capital, Capacity Building and Channel. Marginalised women are central to the model, and the initiative develops local value chains so that villages can build lasting wealth.

Impact

Drishtee's own site reports a total outreach of 57,20,003 (about 5.7 million), with 7,13,459 engaged in livelihood activities, 8,808 villages impacted, 14,020 village entrepreneurs and 1,13,398 women trained.

Partners

• Foundations: Greater Impact Foundation (USA), MetLife Foundation (USA), Ashoka Foundation (India)

• Financial institutions: State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, PNB MetLife, Kula Loans International (Netherlands)

• Corporate and CSR partners: Ricoh (Japan), Nestlé India, BALCO, Vedanta, NTPC, Genpact, Wipro GE

• Academic and other partners: IIT Kharagpur (Brahmasutra), CrossFields (Japan)

Drishtee suits people who want to work directly with rural communities on livelihoods and village institutions, not on a single issue. The work covers community mobilisation, women's enterprise, value chains, rural finance and sustainable housing, so staff see both the social and the business sides of rural development. Its model of building Vatikas that plan their own development is a good fit for people interested in community-led approaches and long-term field engagement. Its wide mix of banks, CSR partners and international foundations also gives exposure to partnership and market-linkage work.