The Year 2009-10 was an eventful year for Sankalp India Foundation. The group of 30 individuals who call themselves Sankalp volunteers were kept very busy with the back to back activities that took place in the last year. We are happy to bring to you the yearbook of 2009-10.
A lot of major projects took great shape in the last year. Disha Karnatak reached 95% of the State: CTC Disha, the Blood helpline for the state of Karnatak reached 95% of the needy people in 2009-10. The year also marked the migration of the blood helpline number from 1062 to 9480044444 for higher reliability and performance. Sri Sri Sri Balgangadharnatha Mahaswamiji from Adi Chunchunagiri Ashram inaugurated the helpline on Independence Day. With this Karnataka becomes the first state in country to have a dedicated helpline for blood.
March 2010 saw the completion of 10,000 blood donations in various drives organised by sankalp. This milestone comes exactly 3 years after we organize the first drive in March 2007. Rakta Kranti is an attempt to make sure that there is no shortage of blood in the blood banks and that the blood banking moves towards 100% Voluntary Blood Donation. At the same time the schools wing of Rakta Kranti reached out to 4000+ children studying in classed 8-10 with the message of Voluntary Blood Donation.
When the floods hit North Karnataka in August-September 2009, Sankalp undertook a relief operation code named - “Sparsh”. The organization provided 1008 sets of utensils to the most affected families in Raichur district as part of the project. This also led to the reorganization of Sankalp's Disaster mitigation and Management Wing to increase the organization's preparedness for Disasters beside laying out a clearer standard operational procedure to handle emergencies and disasters.
The emergency wing of Sankalp that helps the people who fail to find blood from any other source expanded it's area of expertise. The wing developed the potential to effectively help people in emergency requirement of blood in any part of Karnataka. The team also came up with a very effective and standardized process model in order to effectively take the increased volume of blood requests that may come as a result of the Statewide Expansion.
Another major attempt in the direction of ensuring supply of safe blood to blood banks outside Bangalore (who suffer from terrible shortage) was the Rakta Kranti Karnataka Programme. There are 12,00,000 students studying in 2000+ institutes of higher learning in the state. With the blood requirement of the state marked at 4,00,000 units annually, if only these institutions organize blood donation drives, no one would suffer due to shortage of blood anymore. With this opportunity the team set off to encourage systematic blood donation camps across the state. 8 districts were visited and a total of 126 colleges were approached. This is a giant lea in the direction of ensuring supply of safe blood to blood banks across the state.
In the last year, Sankalp received ample support from the media. The programme and activities of the organization found space in 6 newspapers and 4 Radio and TV Channels in the year. Awareness and public mobilization of this scale was never before seen by the organization.
Compliance to the highest standards set by Government and Regulatory agencies and maintaining provable transparency are integral part of our working norm. Sankalp is happy to announce that the Government of India has exempted all contributions made to the organization from income tax under the section 80G of Income Tax. This paved the way for greater contribution in the event of a disaster. The organization also became a member of the prestigious Credibility Alliance. This is a consortium of voluntary organizations committed towards enhancing accountability and transparency in the voluntary sector through good governance.
Another major enhancement to the organization in the last year was the upcoming of a number of Information technology platforms for the day to day operations of our teams.
The MSR Memorial Blood Donation Service which aims at ensuring regular small blood donation camps in MSR Group of Institutions was strengthened in the last year with more colleges participating in the programme. The streamlining of resources was done to a great extent.The process of systematic feedback also found way into the working mainstream. The organization's main website www.sankalpindia.net is getting 6000 unique visitors a month.