With funds drying up, Pune NGOs face tough task in field work

The global meltdown has affected activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) too. With funds for projects drying up, NGOs in the city are finding it difficult to continue their field work.

NGOs working for women's empowerment, for mental health and general health have been feeling the pinch for some time now. Major foreign donors have either stopped funding the work of these NGOs or are in the process of doing so, leaving them to look for alternate sources of funding.

Assunta Pardhe of the Chetna Mahila Foundation, an NGO working for empowerment of women, said that this year they managed to garner only 50% of funds required for their work. The piquant situation, Assunta, said, arose from the fact that the foreign donors have stopped funding their projects and Indian companies are reluctant to fund projects of women's empowerment through their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes.

"We were totally dependent on foreign funding, but for the last few months, that has dried up and we are facing a lot of difficulty in keeping our work going," she said.

Assunta said they are finding it difficult to pay even the low salaries of grass-root workers. "We work for women facing domestic violence and deprivation of rights. If this stops, many women would face difficulties," she said.

Over the last few months, job slashes in NGOs have assumed major proportions.

The lull in funding has been detrimental to organisations like Mumbai-based Humsafar Trust that works for HIV intervention in high risk groups. Pallav Patankar, programme director HIV of the trust, said that the issue of funds drying up has become a major concern for many organisations working in this field.

"Although we have not got any confirmation, we have heard that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has decided to stopp funding the HIV intervention programmes in the country. In such a scenario, grass-root NGOs would find it difficult to continue with their work," he said.