FellowConnect Asia - November 2014

asia

Safe CitiesHow are social entrepreneurs reviving the dialogue

around the important issue of public safety?

November 2014

fc | CONTENTS

Editorial VISHNU SWAMINATHAN MEERA VIJAYANN

ContributorsAnusha JaishankarDr. Ibrahim SohanNatya Tatineni Rae WinbornSachin MalhanDavid NahmiasLourdes ZamanilloNikhil SaigalAshoka SpainSunish Jauhari

Talk to us [email protected] www.india.ashoka.orgAddress 54, 1st Cross, Domlur Layout Bangalore 560071 IndiaTelephone 080-4274-5777

Design SAMYAK JAIN

DisclaimerThe views and comments mentioned in the articles of fellowconnect are that of the respective authors and do not reflect the position of ashoka on these issues.

Contents

Cover Photo Courtesy: Flickr/Creative Commons

Correction notice - In the August 2014 issue, the photo credits on pages 15 and 16 were given to Amba Salelkar. This was actually taken from a shareable license photograph on Flickr Commons. We regret the error.

i | FELLOWCONNECT NOVEMBER 2014

01

03

05

07

09

11

13

15

17

19

Anusha Jaishankar

Ashoka Bangladesh

Natya Tatineni

Rae Winborn

Sachin Malhan

David Nahmias

Lourdes Zamanillo

Nikhil Saigal

Ashoka Spain

Changing Behaviours For Safer Roads

Transforming the World through Education

Noise: A Silent Assasin

Securing Health, Fighting Fake Drugs

Piyush Tewari's Six Word Story: 'Saving Road Accident Victims Through Bystander Care'

Activating the Ashoka Network for Safer Social Change

When organized crime seduces the young: How to ensure social impact in a shattered society

The Road to Safety

Medical Kit Reduces Maternal Mortality by 35% in Guatemala

More business? Aye Safety! Sunish Jauhari

Photo Courtesy: Flickr/Creative Commons

FELLOWCONNECT NOVEMBER 2014 | ii

fc | EDITORIAL

We need to develop the core skil l of empathy to survive in this changing world

Safety and apathy are two sides of a coin when it comes to behaviour on the road. If we are empathetic towards fellow citizens who are using the road alongside with us, it creates a very safe environment for everyone. Apathy, on the other side, leads to disasters on the road. By discussing intangi-ble problems such as noise pollution and changing the conversation about safety as being an important business function, this issue challenges perspec-tives of safety. Following the culture of FellowConnect Asia, we also explore global themes around safety from Ban-gladesh, the United States and Spain.

We are sure that this is just the beginning of the conversation in how we deal with our public spaces. At Ashoka, we hope to alter the para-digm towards our ultimate goal of Framework Change. In today’s world, there is every opportunity to become more empathetic and offer new lead-ership towards safer public spaces. An idea begins with a thought and we are happy that we are consistently supported from across the world for these ideas. All we need to do now is to give ourselves the culture of self permission to do something about problems that we face. It is time that we encourage a culture of Changemaking specifically in public spaces to create a very safe environment for everyone.

Sincerely,Vishnu Swaminathan

These are some of the core issues Ashoka have been addressing about public spaces. To start with, we explored ‘roads’ as a starting point. This is clearly one of the largest spaces we use. Yet, as a society we abuse roads. To take ownership and represent a space, we need to become empathetic, responsible and consid-erate. And if we need to develop the core skill of empathy to survive in this changing world, empathy in public spaces becomes more relevant than before. To introduce the importance of empathy, we launched the “Safe Roads, Safer India” campaign with Ashoka changemakers and UL. This attracted over a hundred innovative ideas from Changemakers to change our public spaces. At the end of this campaign, we selected four winners who had clear scope of impact. This issue of FellowConnect Asia is a celebration of citizenship and Change-making in public spaces.

DDear Fellows,

Public spaces are not owned by individuals. And rightly so, they should not be. We were brought up to think that we only own those spaces that belong to us. There is no issue with such an approach, only that this takes away our basic responsibility towards spaces as well. In spite of the fact that this attitude affects us and others, we seldom accept that we play a great role in defining these spaces. So given that we tend to use these spaces a lot, what is our accountability and responsibili-ty toward them? Are we completely conditioned to think that only when we have absolute authority that we will accept responsibility?

Photo Courtesy: Flickr/Creative Commons

T01 | FELLOWCONNECT NOVEMBER 2014

Changing Behaviours For Safer RoadsBy ANUSHA JAISHANKAR

Photo Courtesy: cmcaindia.org

The current scenario

Studies and reports on road safety by the Government of India focus largely on planning engineering improvements to existing road infra-structure, advancing public mobility options, introducing use of technology in data collection and centralizing data and crash data, improvements in vehi-cle safety, enforcement and emergency response.

Interestingly, European studies on road safety typically include ‘Behav-ior’ as an important factor in achieving

safe roads. Indian road safety experts have indeed acknowledged the role of behavior in road safety but there are no significant efforts to effect such behavior change. At best, the idea of training and raising awareness is given some support.

India signed its support for the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety with a charter to reduce road deaths by 50 percent between 2011 and 2020. To this end, there have been targeted drives to improve helmet and seatbelt usage, reduce incidents of driving under the influence of alcohol etc.

Road accidents are a leading cause of preventable death and disability worldwide. They are the single largest public health issue, reaching epidemic levels among children and youth in

developing nations such as India.

These goals have met with varied levels of success. However, these efforts do not address a major traffic issue caused by indiscipline. The result of this behavior is a traffic scenario that is extremely dynamic, unpredictable and quite dangerous.

This indiscipline is a direct result of the culture on the roads. People tend to follow the prevalent culture. For eg., in India, it is quite common to see people crowding around a service counter instead of forming a queue and waiting to be served. Similarly, road users often ignore posted speed

FELLOWCONNECT NOVEMBER 2014 | 02

limits or road signs prohibiting a turn and instead follow the lead of other vehicles in the vicinity.

With a large number of drivers includ-ing young newcomers imitating existing road behavior, there is little chance for large-scale change unless there is some intervention to improve attitudes and behavior among current road users, using ways that go beyond classroom training and book-based learning.

The correlation between behavior change and accident reduction may not be direct, but it is implicit. There may not (yet) be evidence of reduction in the number of accidents by improv-ing road user behavior but intuitively it is clear that when a majority of road users follow expected behavior, it will help to reduce accidents, make driving less stressful, safer and maybe even a pleasant experience.

Reinforcement of good behavior

From time immemorial, penalization has been used with the expectation that mistakes can be rectified. By its very definition, punishment can only be exacted after a rule has been broken. This requires immense levels of monitoring. Such enforcement is humanly impossible to scale up when the disparity between the number of law enforcers and those laws are enforced upon are massive and ever growing. For example, in Bangalore there is one traffic policeman for approximately every 3500 people and each policeman attempts to monitor a multitude of broken laws.

Positive reinforcement is a proac-tive method that has the advantage of engaging an individual early on. Unlike punishment, which could have detrimental effects, positive reinforce-ment is capable of producing long-term positive effects. By acknowledg-ing a good behavior, not only is that behavior strengthened, but this also makes one become self aware and self-monitoring. These empowered individuals become agents of positive

change themselves, thereby making the problem of enforcement an issue that can be managed.

Just as positive reinforcement can be used to mould a child’s behavior and a corporate employee can be incen-tivized to perform better in a meritoc-racy, positive reinforcement can be employed to maintain and improve road behavior. Positive reinforcement works across social strata, age and geography. Initially, tangible rewards may be required to reinforce good behavior. Eventually, the reduction of the factors causing bad behavior could itself become the reward.

In the case of traffic, when most road users follow a certain road discipline, newcomers are more likely to follow suit. This will also set the stage for introducing new rules with a rea-sonable expectation that rules will be followed.

Positive Strokes

The Positive Strokes program is based on this tendency of newcomers to follow the lead of existing road users. The aim of Positive Strokes is to nudge each individual into becoming more aware of their own safety and the safety of other road users.

The novelty of the program lies in the fact that volunteers can watch vehicle movement in the city through a live streaming feed at the Traffic Manage-ment Centre (TMC) from cameras located at more than 175 traffic junc-tions in Bangalore. Watching this from the comfort and safety of the TMC gives one a different perspec-tive of traffic than if one were present on the road. Often, volunteers come away with a greater understanding of the issues playing out on the roads and the challenges that our enforcement mechanisms have to grapple with. Many of them realize that they can make simple behavioral changes to become safer road users.

All good road users identified by volunteers, have their traffic viola-

tion record scrutinized by the traffic police. Those who have a violation free record for a certain period of time are awarded a vehicle sticker and a letter of commendation from the chief of Bangalore Traffic Police. The prominently displayed sticker lets one know that their good behavior has been noticed and is encouraged. It also serves as a motivator for others on the road.

In addition, this marks a minor but important shift in the perception of the traffic department from an enforcer to an authority that is cognizant and appreciative of those people who are disciplined on the road. This bridge between the traffic department and the common man marks the beginning of an important partnership. Positive Strokes encompasses ele-ments of training, awareness building and positive reinforcement towards the greater goal of behavior and attitudinal change.

Without a radical change in the behavior and attitude of road users, the best of infrastructure will still be misused and the most stringent enforcement will still fall short.

Behavior change is not immediate and may not be measurable in the short term. Even so, it is important for organizations and institutions work-ing in road safety to acknowledge the role of behavior and attitude among road users, to develop ways to address this issue and to find ways to track progress.

Anusha Jaishankar is the Founder of Positive Strokes, a civic initia-

tive that looks at driving behaviour change towards safer roads.

The correlation between behavior change and accident reduction may not be direct, but it is implicit.

STransforming the World

through Education

Since her independence in 1971, Bangladesh constitutionally advocat-ed free, compulsory education for all children. Yet in 1980, the adult litera-cy rate was only 32 percent. Troubled by this, Dr. Ibrahim Sobhan set out to identify the reasons for low literacy in Bangladesh.

It was a natural point of interest for Dr. Sobhan, as he was interested in pro-moting a knowledge culture since his school years. At the age of just 16, he edited and published the first monthly science magazine in Bangladesh called ‘বিজ্ঞান সাময়িকী’ (Science Journal), which is still running successfully after five decades. This magazine created a rich popular science literature in the Bangla language and inspired a vibrant science club movement around the country including the rural areas. The science periodical became the core of Dr. Sobhan’s Centre for Mass Educa-tion in Science (CMES). Founded in 1978, CMES has grown into one of the major NGOs of the country. He has also been a regular television personal-ity since the inception of Television in Bangladesh in 1965. Most of the pro-grams he designed and took part in, fo-cus on popular science and technology.

Dr. Sobhan observed that the Ban-gladeshi educational system placed the primary burdens of education on families who had neither the time nor the money properly to invest in their children’s education. Most of the students, especially in the rural areas, were dropping out when they reached adolescence. In order to solve these problems, Dr. Sobhan founded a small school in Dhaka to pilot his idea for a novel education program. He en-couraged children living on the streets, or working as domestic help, to enroll. He supplied free textbooks by going door-to-door asking rich households to contribute used ones.

The responsibil i ty for giving children a

basic primary education

must rest with the schools,

and happen at school.

“This was very difficult for me,” he said. “Sometimes people wouldn’t open the door, and hide. Some treated me like a beggar, and they would say as they do ‘মাফ করেন চলে যান’ (For-give me, go away).” Sobhan’s school children searched for old notebooks for blank lines and empty spaces to write in. To pay his teachers’ salaries, Sobhan cut his own food spending.

Through four years of research at his model school, Sobhan designed his own alternative “School - Based Education and Teaching Method” for primary schools. The guiding princi-ple is that the responsibility for giving children a basic primary education must rest with the schools, and hap-pen at school – and there must be no homework.

Sobhan used the official primary curriculum, but introduced innova-tions that optimized the use of time and allowed teachers and students to complete lessons. He extended the class periods from 35 minutes to one hour; in the old system, too much time

was spent on changing classes, roll call and review of homework – rather than on new lessons.

Sobhan organized a systematic weekly lesson plan for teachers to complete the yearly syllabus. Because grading was cumulative, there were no quar-terly, half-yearly and annual exam-inations. It helped teachers monitor weak students and cut down on cheat-ing. To make learning fun and keep students eager to attend school, Sobhan introduced group-learning techniques, which work better in crowded class-rooms. In groups of ten, with bright students as leaders, children spent a part of each period studying and using learning aids.

In 1983, the Ministry of Education enlisted Sobhan to train teachers and introduce SBE at 50 government pri-mary schools in rural Tangail district. A year later the government gave him 110 schools, and Sobhan obtained funds from UNESCO for expansion. By 1986, SBE had been introduced to more than 1,000 rural government schools nationwide, out of a total of 60,000.

Another area Dr. Sobhan focused on was adolescent dropouts. He devel-oped an alternative education system called Basic School System (BSS) to provide them with essential compe-tencies along with technology skills for income, simultaneously practiced at the market level. Each unit of the system works through several Basic Schools and a Rural Technology Cen-tre (RTC) and more than 20 thousand learners could be served at a time. The campuses have arrangements for the training and practice of a variety of appropriate and profitable technolo-gies. BSS also delivers these technolo-gies to youth in rural areas so that they could use it for their microenterprises.

03 | FELLOWCONNECT NOVEMBER 2014

A Contribution by the STAFF of ASHOKA BANGLADESH

Ashoka Fellow Mohammad Ibrahim Sobhan, who was Ashoka Bangladesh's first fellow elected in 1988, passed away earlier this month. We offer our condolences to Ibrahim’s family, friends and community in Bangladesh. Ashoka deeply mourns his loss.

The livelihood activities of the gradu-ates are assisted through the microcre-dit and business development scheme. The central theme of the program is to bring the world of education closer to the world of work, en-riched with appropriate and emerging technologies.

Dr. Sobhan also designed a separate program specifically for adolescent girls called Adolescent Girls’ Program (AGP). This is a gender empower-ment program,which tries to over-come the oppression and discrimina-tion of girls in a traditional society. A major strategy followed is to provide the girls technological knowledge, which promotes economic self - reliance. This program trains them in life-skills and appropriate technol-

ogies, and encouraging them towards non-stereotypical livelihood activi-ties. Because of AGP, thousands of girls vulnerable to child-marriage and without rights within even their own family, continued to study. Many of them are now working profession-ally, for example, as photographers; cultivating mushroom, honey-bees, intensive poultry or pond-fishes; run-ning machineries; managing pharma-cies either in remote villages and on their own. The program is being repli-cated by UNICEF and the Population Council.

Dr. Sobhan’s long term goal is for all primary school students in Bangladesh to keep their books in school, learn to learn, add to contribute to the overall economic development of the country.

Ashoka Fellow Dr. Sobhan is the founder of Association for School

Based Education (ASBE), an organisation that improves rural

primary education in Bangladesh.

fc | BANGLADESH

Sobhan used the off icial primary curriculum, but introduced innovations that optimized the use of

t ime and allowed teachers and students to complete lessons.

Photo Courtesy: Asian Development Bank (usage rights)


This article is a contribution by the staff of Ashoka Bangladesh.

TRIBUTE

Photos courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Noise: A Silent AssasinBy NATYA TATINENI

Photos courtesy: http://api.ning.com

Noise pollution: The invisible effects

Most of us understand the health and environmental concerns that arise from noise pollution but we fail to see and acknowledge the threat it poses to our safety. Noise pollution is an invisi-ble hazard and is often underestimated because of its intangible nature. It goes undetected sometimes due to general insensitivity on the part of the public as a result of high exposure to noise.

Noise pollution also drowns various sounds including cries of distress and obstructs emergency care. Loud noise from processions, events and construc-tion sites not only affects our health but also affects urban structures such as buildings. Sumaira Abdulali, Conve-nor of Awaaz Foundation points out, “In the distant future when the build-ings collapse, nobody will relate it to construction noise.”

Interestingly, although construction noise is addressed in the NPCR rules,


OOn January 3, 1998, a thirteen year old girl was raped in Mumbai, Her cries for help went unheard because of the blaring loudspeakers in the neighbour-hood. Later that evening, the girl set herself ablaze and died of severe burn injuries.

Citing this incident and a number of other cases, an engineer, Anil Mittal, filed a case in the Supreme Court for

the ban on use of loudspeakers and high volume audio systems. This set in motion a series of petitions that led the Government of India to frame and publish the Noise Pollution Control and Regulation Rules, 1999 (NPCR rules). The NPCR rules define permit-ted noise levels, silence zones, restric-tions and the role of state governments and other development authorities in controlling noise pollution.

information is minimal. The doc-ument covers noise limits for basic construction equipment and rules advocating the use of acoustic barriers and sand bunding. But when you look around the management of most con-struction sites seldom abide by the law. The lack of public awareness has also worsened this situation.

Besides the fact that the NPCR rules are simplistic, they are also obsolete. Drafted from the (1990) WHO rec-ommendations, the NPCR rules have failed to keep up with the latest recom-mendations reducing the acceptable noise levels. The Indian government has had little success in implement-ing the existing rules, partly due to the vested interests of politicians who fre-quently organise festivals and events.

Awaaz Foundation filed a number of public interest litigations advocating against noise pollution in the Bom-bay High Court and simultaneously presented field data to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). This impelled the MoEF to accept all recommendations by the Foundation in 2010 following which a new notifi-cation implementing stricter noise laws in the country was issued.

While these laws have been made harsher, implementation still poses multiple challenges. Globally, many countries have found it difficult to implement laws due to the involve-ment of multiple authorities at the local and national level responsible for environment, law enforcement, road transport and railways and private contractors. India too, is lost because of a complicated governance structure. For instance, recently the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board strengthened the rules against noise pollution but failed to issue the directions allowing the Nagpur Municipality Corporation to ear-mark no-honking zones. This, in turn, restricted the local police and the RTO from effectively implement-ing the law.

Few countries have found solutions. Both the Netherlands and France have successfully integrated efforts of involved authorities. Perhaps, learning

from these countries can help create better implementation structures and showcase the government’s intent, and reduce the activities that add to the problem such as the manufacture of loud horns etc.

It only takes citizen voices to start a revolution.

In the last decade, citizens have actively pursued stricter implementation of the NPCR rules. Ashoka Fellow Sumai-ra Abdulali leads a citizen movement involving local police and citizens in recording decibel levels. Through Noise Watch, a free mobile app, she has successfully developed a Citizens’ Noise Map spurring the Government of Maharashtra to conduct a formal noise map of Mumbai for the upcom-ing Mumbai Development Plan.

Awaaz Foundation’s support in aiding individuals filing complaints and cases has prompted action from other citi-zen groups in Banaras, Pune, Madhya Pradesh and Bangalore. To spread awareness about noise pollution, state education and environment depart-ments are now employing various methods. While the Telangana Pollu-tion Control Board recently decided to introduce display boards revealing the noise levels in the city, Sumaira men-tions that the Department of Educa-tion in Maharashtra has been conduct-ing campaigns in schools to develop awareness at an early age since 2010.

Ultimately, innovative and focussed in-terventions will help tackle challenges. What if the MoEF included noise pol-lution and the growing 2,48,000 crore construction industry in the National Award for Prevention of Pollution, which currently covers land, water and air pollution? What if interventions involve the stakeholders necessary to design infrastructure and equipment that respect silence? What if we pro-mote silence for tourism to create incentives for people to redefine our perceptions of noise? Adopting best practices from other countries to cre-ate a network for experience exchange or providing public information and guidance to address noise problems will strengthen our approach.

Natya Tatineni is a consultant with the Venture and Fellowship team at Ashoka India and focuses on

developing and strengthening the fellowship.

Most of us understand

the health and environmental concerns that

arise from noise pollution but we fai l to see and

acknowledge the threat it poses to

our safety.


ISecuring Health, Fighting Fake Drugs

By RAE WINBORN

It was a fairly standard malaria diagno-sis for Juma, a five-year-old boy from Kumkwanamaja, Africa. His mother took him to the doctor and was given a prescription for antimalarial. She bought the drug from the local phar-macy and made sure Juma took the medicine every day. But despite strict adherence to the treatment schedule, after only a few weeks Juma fell into a coma and died. The reason: counter-feit drugs.

This tragedy is not limited to a single incident, or even to rural Africa. In Kashmir, hundreds of babies admit-ted into the Sher-i-Kashmir Insti-tute of Medical Sciences died from defunct antibiotics. In 2008, fake hep-arin, a blood-thinning drug, killed 149 Americans.

When someone is sick the last thing they want to do is worry about the source of their prescription drugs. However, around the world consum-ers must now protect themselves from the very thing that was suppose to save them.

In recent years, counterfeit medicine has become a lucrative trade. Drugs can be made cheaply and are at least as profitable as narcotics but with a lower risk, especially in developing countries where regulation and enforcement is scarce. This problem is only increas-ing with the globalization of the phar-maceutical production, affecting both developing and developed countries alike. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 1 to 10 percent percent of the drugs sold

around the world are fake, topping 50 percent in some countries. Esti-mate deaths range from a minimum 100,000 to up to 700,000 deaths per year; WHO estimates around 200,000 people a year die from imitation malaria drugs alone. India and China are the largest exporter of pharma-ceuticals and also the largest source of bogus and low-quality pills. While most exports end up in Africa, many are sent to developed countries. India is US’s second largest importer.

Currently, the most innovative solu-tions to this problem are tackling the end of the value chain and providing safety checks to consumers. Phar-maCheck—a device that can detect counterfeit and substandard pills—and liquid barcoding—colored dyes that


Photos courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

can provide information about the drug—can help stores ensure they are stocking quality products.

mPedigree Network, a mobile technology company founded by Asho-ka Fellow Bright Simmons, has also provided a solution for consumers. Buyers simply scratch off a protected label to reveal a code. They then text the code to a free number that sends them back a verification of the med-icine’s authenticity. mPedigree has collaborated with government regu-lators such as The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Nigeria and other businesses to establish this network. In the last several years, mPedigree has spread their opera-tions to almost 10 countries, including India.

Selorm Branttie, mPedigree’s strategic director discussed why it is important to have a consumer-focused solution: “Because of poor consumer knowl-edge it is very hard to distinguish which is original and which is fake. Based on that decision people can take life-end-ing decisions. Usually, in our part of the world when people buy medicine they are already at a very critical stage.

Medicine is expensive and hard to come by. So they need a solution that is cheap and addresses what they are buying… It is very difficult for markets to regulate, there are so many diverse political factors…empowering consum-ers to be able to check their medicine is the best bet to survival.”

Though emerging safety checks such as these help customers ensure the authenticity of some drugs, it is not a complete solution. For one, all drug production companies must implement these safety devices and measures, something that will take time. The fact that many solutions are vying for marketplace may slow down a market-wide adaptation.

Second, ensuring the source of the medicine is not the only problem. Many legitimate companies are the culprits producing low quality drugs, especially in India. Though some of these substandard drugs may have genuinely been due to production error, new evidence is leaning more towards intentional cutbacks. In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research study, researchers surveyed nearly 1500 drug samples made by legitimate Indian pharmaceutical

Rae Winborn is a recent Dart-mouth College graduate and

Ashoka Volunteer and is current-ly stationed in Hyderabad, India

for a social entrepreneurship fellowship.

companies. Around 10 percent of antibiotic and anti-tuberculosis lacked sufficient amounts of the active ingre-dient. Some market solutions try to factor these substandard medicines into their solution. mPedigree works closely with regulation authorities who test batches and can then flag substandard batches, but this system only works if the regulators are also up to standard. If companies themselves are not consistently held accountable, validating the source would not help.

Third, this is an international problem that requires cross-border solutions. Counterfeit drugs need to be stopped at all levels of the value chain, not just at the end. Lack of regulation and laws in the local and international level only encourage forgeries. Of course, passing laws and enforcing standards will be a long and arduous process. Market-based solutions will assist consumers in the meantime.

In the end, solutions must originate within all sectors, from market-based innovations to government advoca-tors, and requires multi-sector collab-oration from businesses, governments and consumers alike.

Drugs can be made cheaply and are at least as profitable

as narcotics but with a lower risk, especial ly in developing

countries.


Many countries have differing definitions of what constitutes counterfeit drugs. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines it as: “A counterfeit medicine is one which is deliberate-ly and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and/or source. Counterfeiting can apply to both branded and generic products and counterfeit products may include products with the correct ingredients or with the wrong ingredients, without active ingredients, with insufficient active ingredients or with fake packaging.”

This definition includes not only fakes made in basements, but also drugs with deficient ingredients made from legitimate pharmaceutical manufactures. Benign fakes and low quality pills may not directly harm people, but they give whatever ail-ment they were suppose to cure a chance to do harm. Fur-thermore, lower-doses of some antibiotics help strengthen the bacterial strain to resist established antibiotics.

What are counterfeit drugs?

IPiyush Tewari's Six Word Story: 'Saving Road Accident Victims

Through Bystander Care'By SACHIN MALHAN

Training bystanders to engage in emer-gency response, including first aid and CPR. Tewari has built relationships with leading hospitals and trauma centers to offer emergency response training in several states in India. He has partnered with leaders within the medical community—including Dr. Mahesh Joshi of Apollo Hospitals, one of India’s largest hospital chains—who are deeply committed to scaling emergency response both through hospitals and bystanders.

It was a traumatic sense of helpless-ness and loss—rather than academic expertise or domain knowledge—that gave Ashoka Fellow Piyush Tewari insight about how to address the issue of road safety. His 17-year-old cousin lay on the road after an accident, unat-tended for 45 minutes before he died. This incident led Tewari to launch the SaveLife Foundation, an organization that tackles the problem of deaths and serious injuries on Indian roads by focusing on the most likely candidate for life-saving action: the bystander.

Tewari believes that improving road safety is not a matter that can be addressed through policy, education, or behavior alone. He’s adopting a holistic approach, which requires working with all the different moving parts and innovating, not on just one thing but with the entire system.

Early on, Tewari learned that truly empowering bystanders—who are mostly citizens and police personnel—would require him to make various changes, including:

Adjusting hospital and police practice that essentially intimidates responsive bystanders with the threat of being associated with the accident. Under current practice a “medico-legal case” is registered in every accident—despite there being no legal requirement for this—and, at the very least, respond-ing bystanders are asked awkward and probing questions similar to those asked of suspects. Tewari is champi-oning a law called the Good Samari-tan Law to encourage and protect the rights of bystanders in such situations.

Addressing overarching issues that cause accidents, including driver filtra-tion (in other words, who is and is not permitted to drive), road design, and emergency trauma care. For this part, Tewari is working closely with other road safety activists to ensure that the recommendations of the Sundar Com-mittee on Road Safety and Traffic Management constituted by the Gov-ernment of India are implemented.

Much of Tewari’s work has been about breaking down walls and enabling the formation of consensus around these issues because different ministries, departments, and stake-holders own each of these issues. In an environment where finger pointing is more common than handholding, Tewari has, over time, built relation-ships with all the stakeholders. His work with training police personnel in emergency response has made the police leadership a partner in his efforts. In the parliament, he has iden-tified and engaged with those most inclined to champion road safety. Rather than pointing out the short-comings of various stakeholders, Piyush has shown a way forward.

Through this painstaking approach, SaveLife is evolving working models for how to engage the different stake-holders in win-win situations, under-stand the real behaviors and solutions to bystander training and mobilization, and advocate for the kind of legal or regulatory changes that are not just desired but will be well received and enforced by stakeholders.

These models and lessons learned, which can often look like unscalable “products” when viewed through con-ventional lenses, are in fact the work-able solutions that truly change sys-tems once and for all. Rather than one clear-cut innovation, they represent a combination of innovations in aligning interests, pushing through legal change and creating scalable partnership-led services that can be successfully replicated in other contexts by com-mitted changemakers.

Improving road safety is not a matter that can be addressed through policy, education, or

behavior alone.

fc | SPECIAL


Recalling the moments when he could see his model making a big impact, Tewari remembers receiving a letter from the office of the Delhi Police Commissioner telling him that two policemen—part of a force that is often perceived as brutal in India—saved an unconscious victim with emergency CPR that they learned through Tew-ari’s foundation.

During the last five years, SaveLife Foundation has achieved impressive results—it has convinced India’s Su-preme Court to create an expert com-mittee to plug the gaps in legal pro-tection and enable bystanders; it has trained more than 6,000 bystanders to provide emergency response; and, most important, more than 175,000 victims have reached hospitals and emergency care thanks to the efforts of empowered bystanders.

At a recent meeting of road safety leaders in New Delhi convened by the global safety company UL (formerly Underwriters Laboratories), Tewari described his vision for creating a co-alition of organizations for the final push that will be required to bring a proposed road safety law into reality. If he succeeds, Tewari will have gone a long way toward achieving his simple goal—saving the one million lives that are predicted to be lost on the road this decade.

Tewari, formerly the CEO of a mid-sized private equity fund who left the company in search of a mission in life, has found it. And like all great social entrepreneurs, Tewari is generating changemakers by the millions. Once a trained bystander has saved a life, there is no looking back.

Sachin Malhan is Executive Partner at Ashoka Changemakers, an Ashoka program that seeks to

rapidly accelerate change by find-ing and convening high potential changemakers and igniting com-

munities of practice.

This article first appeared in Forbes on December 2013 and has been re-pub-

lished in FellowConnect Asia.

Tewari is championing a law called the Good Samaritan Law to encourage and protect the rights of bystanders

in such situations.


Photos courtesy: Yourstory.com

B

Activating the Ashoka Network for Safer Social Change

By DAVID NAHMIAS

By their nature, changemakers are disruptive. Yet shaking up the status quo comes at a price, and tragical-ly in many places around the world, promoting innovative and positive social change can pose physical risk. Though they often go unrecognized, security and stability are fundamental considerations for any social impact activity, and they form the crucial basis for any society to thrive. Such a crosscutting issue demands a crosscut-ting approach, and through networks, social entrepreneurs are mitigating risks and overcoming vulnerabilities in order to ensure that the world is a safer place to be a changemaker.

Ashoka Fellow Sumaira Abdulali experienced this firsthand. Elected as a Fellow in 2008 for leading a citizen movement against noise pollution and its dangerous effects on health and wellbeing in Mumbai, Sumaira came to recognize that another consequence of rapid urbanization is the illegal sand mining industry. With demand for construction materials skyrocketing in India, the corrupt cartels that run the industry frequently employ children to excavate huge quantities of sand, often from open pits or beaches. Such grueling labor causes severe erosion, irrevocably damaging the delicate ecosystems along the shore and caus-ing near irreparable harm to the soil underneath fast growing coastal cities. With her organization, the Awaaz Foundation, Sumaira started to vocal-ly denounce this unexposed practice, taking the issue to the Indian and foreign press and building coalitions with international environmental organizations.

Yet her pursuits have not gone without arousing negative attention. Driving away one afternoon in 2010 after vis-iting an illegal sand mining site with a journalist, a pair of trucks chased their vehicle and crashed into it, forcing Sumaira and her passenger off the road and down a cliff. Fortunately, they escaped relatively unscathed physically, but with the fear and stress rendered by their attempted mur-der. The incident made international headlines, and Sumaira turned to the Ashoka network for help to overcome it and return to her advocacy. Ashoka connected Sumaira with its global partner the Urgent Action Fund for Women, a U.S.-based human rights organization. Urgent Action Fund provided Sumaira with some money to implement personal security protocols and later invited her to join their advi-sory board for three years. The orga-nization published a report describing her and many other women human rights defenders’ stories of security threats; as a result, many international journalists profiled Sumaira in the media, and she helped raise awareness of the safety risks that social entrepre-neurs and advocates face.

Sumaira appreciates the value of the Ashoka network, especially in the most difficult personal crises. “Ashoka has always been there,” she says. “It’s very good to feel like you’re part of a larger system to feel that you are sup-ported in various ways and you have other people you can reach out to. The network makes it easier for you to reach out to them and to also know whom to reach out to.” By tapping into connections on a local, region-

al and global level, like Sumaira did, changemakers of all types and ages can quickly find the support and resources to continue their work—and to prevent threats from arising in the first place. A trusted safety network acts as a “barometer,” carefully gauging events on the ground that increase your vulnerability, and as a “shield,” safe-guarding you from pressing risks. The most effective networks are cross-sec-tor and global: an entrepreneur in Bangalore or an international organi-zation in San Francisco with the right contacts among the authorities can offer more to a changemaker in crisis than a well-meaning but limited neigh-borhood organization in the same area. “Even if I have my own local networks there is often a need to have an international network because the local network on its own is not always effective. It’s only when there is pres-sure internationally as well as locally that it is effective,” Sumaira remarks.

The key, though, is developing this trusted network and knowing who your allies are. As Ashoka grows its global network, maintaining the peer-to-peer quality and high ethical caliber is paramount. Sumaira observes, “I think that one very important thing for people when they are threatened is to know who their bona fide is. Asho-ka network helps provide that.” Now equipped with the experience of facing risks and the knowhow to mitigate and overcome them, Sumaira is contrib-uting back to the Ashoka network in India and South Asia, providing her counsel and connections for other Fel-lows facing crisis.

Security has become a widely debated issue among change-makers around the world. What are the measures that Ashoka

fellows have taken to confront these challenges?


In neighboring Pakistan, Tahir Khilji is also leading an effort among human rights advocates and social entrepreneurs to make a society safer for changemakers. A pioneer in the field of sexual orientation and gender identity rights, Tahir faced his own security threats in the past. After learn-ing basic security protocols for human rights defenders, Tahir and other Ashoka Fellows have organized work-shops for other Pakistani Ashoka Fel-lows and human rights organizations to help them craft their own security plan and strengthen their networks in times of threat. One Fellow who helped co-lead the workshops, Mohammad Ali, had to rely on the security plan he devised when violence erupted in the Swat province in 2009. He activated Ashoka’s network to help evacuate on foot the young students at his school for underprivileged children, set up his school in Islamabad, and keep his education initiative growing. He later returned and continued his work, reinforced by the power of the net-work. Their story epitomizes how net-works and connections can contribute to making a safer world. Tahir notes that this is an effort that requires more than just Ashoka Fellows: “Efforts to protect social entrepreneurs must hap-pen on a larger scale. And not just with Ashoka Fellows – it needs to be done for everybody looking to create posi-tive change in difficult environments.”

New instances of social unrest seem to erupt every day, and dangers to change-makers are accelerating, not abating. To achieve a world that values and enables positive social change, every-one must commit to guaranteeing its safety. Consider how you can contrib-ute your own professional and person-al networks to support a changemak-er at risk. One contact might make the difference by providing a safe haven, legal or psychological counsel, or rapid response for a changemaker under threat, or prevent a threat from occurring in the first place. Your net-work could mean the world to—and save the life of—a changemaker.

David Nahmias leads Ashoka’s global Changemaker Security

program, which supports Ashoka Fellows and other changemakers facing crises or threats. To learn more and get involved, contact him and the Ashoka India office.

Though they often go

unrecognized, security and stabil ity are fundamental

considerations for any social

impact activity, and they form

the crucial basis for any society to

thrive.


Photos courtesy: Akshay Mahajan/ Flickr Commons

fc | GLOBAL

S

When organized crime seduces the

young: How to ensure

social impact in a shattered society

By LOURDES ZAMANILLO

Social entrepreneurship might be on the brink of failure. If the social fab-ric unweaves itself under the weight of crime, social impact will be the first to suffer its disheveling effects.

Young people are key actors that determine the structure of the soci-ety of the future. Regretfully, they are one of the most vulnerable groups for delinquency. Crime prevention and youth protection, therefore, is one of the key themes that social entrepre-neurship needs to address to see a change in the world.

Where are we standing: An insight from Cauce

Ciudadano

According to the UN’s Youth Report from 2003, worldwide rates in youth crime have risen since the 1980’s. In Mexico, the leading cause of deaths among young people is now homicide. This is why Carlos Cruz has dedicated himself to preventing crime in vulner-able youth groups and reinserting past offenders into society. Carlos, an Asho-ka Fellow, is the founder of Cauce Ciu-dadano, a community center that pro-motes a model of violence prevention by identifying influential gang leaders and helping them become nonviolent role models in their schools. Carlos’ vision is unique: instead of working

against young perpetrators of violence, he works with them and tackles the problem of youth violence from the inside.

If young perpetrators can become gang leaders, they have a great poten-tial to become social leaders. But what bends the scale one-way or the other? According to Carlos, two main factors determine the outcome:

1. Psychosocial factors: Integrity is determined by a series of variables around a person’s upbringing: educa-tion and family guidance plays a key role in establishing the core of one’s values. If both of these are absent, a big gap opens up and serves as an invitation for crime.

“Since economic hardship has obliged parents to work double shifts in order to bring food back home and most schools haven’t incorporated empathy, teamwork, respect and solidarity into their curriculim, we can easily identify one of the main factors underlying the growing statistics of youth crime in the world”, says Carlos.

Furthermore, most crime prevention policies require citizens to act as vigi-lantes. “If we base our social structure in distrust, we can only expect the social fabric to unravel. We must base

our culture on justice instead of legal-ity. Legality is empty without justice”, he adds.

2. Economic factors: Every absence in a person’s life needs to be covered one way or another. When the mini-mum wage does not provide for a digni-fied life, people will seek commodities and even food through illegal methods for recreation. Even a well-meaning individual will fall into corruption if he cannot even buy a movie for his family to watch on an idle Sunday. Corruption fills the gaps of a system that doesn’t work for everyone; but for it to be sustainable, it needs everyone to contribute. Government, enterpris-es and citizens are all contributors to corruption. It can easily be replaced and the employee knows it. In coun-tries like Mexico, organized crime has a much better offer”, explains Carlos.

“Young people turn to corruption and illegality when the jobs offered to them do not satisfy their needs and expec-tations. A lot of companies hire them to do meaningless operative work that will not provide them with any knowl-edge or personal growth. The person can easily be replaced and the employ-ee knows it. In countries like Mexico, organized crime has a much better offer.” explains Carlos.


How can we prevent and eradicate youth delinquency?

One of the main reasons for delin-quent behavior is a focus on proposed goals coupled with insufficient means to achieve them. In organized crime, young people find all the missing piec-es of the puzzle: recognition, belong-ing, affection and economic resources. Ironically, that is precisely what we need to prevent it.

1. Recognition: If we want to prevent young people from falling into crime, we must make better offers. Commu-nity Centers such as Cauce Ciudadano need to ensure participation, protec-tion and personal development. In the end, young people are seeking for a full package: one that lets them grow and become a part of something bigger without having to worry about having enough money to eat for the day.

2. Belonging: If a strategy to prevent and combat youth crime wants to be successful, it must be implemented at all levels of society. Centralized meth-ods will not adapt to every commu-nity and must therefore be adjusted. NGOs have a great insight on these topics, but the State has a broader

reach that NGOs will never be able to obtain. They must work together to attack the problem.

Crime is a global issue, and as such, it can’t be treated or solved by indi-vidual countries. What happens in one country affects its neighbors and allies. We do not know what rippling effects a particular crime issue might have worldwide, and so, we must understand that one country’s prob-lem is everyone’s problem. Transpar-ency should be guaranteed even at an international level so that investments reach its recipients and do not finance corruption and crime.

3. Affection: Victims and offenders must be provided with the right atten-tion to prevent recidivism. Psycholog-ical and reinsertion methods must be a priority in any strategy implemented.

4. Economy: As mentioned before, corruption is a systematic problem: if it exists, it is impregnated in all sectors of society. To eradicate youth involve-ment one must cleanse the system first: economic transparency at all levels is a great way to trace the main crime inves-tors and to delete their participation.

Carlos Cruz recognized the great potential in gang leaders instead of focusing in their wrongdoings. “Piracy dealers are great at business. Instead of shutting down their venues and push-ing them into crime, why not exploit their talent and show them the way to the formal market?” asks Carlos.

Underneath the atrocities, Carlos found that the core values of organized crime are the same ones that society applauds. Young people involved in delinquency are just filling the gaps that the system is refusing them. Today, organized crime is the highest bidder. What will we do to change the scales?

fc | MEXICO

Lourdes Zamanillo is a commu-nications coordinator at Ashoka

Mexico and Central America.


Photos courtesy: Cauce Ciudadano

18 | FELLOWCONNECT APRIL 2014

I By NIKHIL SAIGAL

The Road to Safety

In the early hours of October 13, while most of the residents of Chennai’s Ve-lacherry neighborhood lay asleep, 29-year old Sivakumar drove his car over a pavement, tragically ending the lives of a ragpicker, his pregnant wife, and an elderly woman. Two weeks prior, in an incident in Mumbai, a driver ran over two cops who were returning from their duty at a drunk-driving check, killing one and injuring the other. The drivers in both cases were found to be driving under the influence of alcohol.

In a country that ranks number one in cases of fatal road accidents, with about 16 deaths per hour, cases like these are shamefully all too frequent. Historically in India, the attitude to-wards road safety and corresponding-ly, the response to road accidents has

been largely apathetic. For decades now, the spate of road accidents, deaths, and injuries have been accept-ed as unfortunate, yet unavoidable consequences of a rapidly motorizing society; a price to be paid for increas-ing mobility. A recent assessment by the Center for Science and Environ-ment (CSE) indicates that the number of people killed in road accidents in India has increased at eight per cent annually in the past decade, nearly the rate at which car sales have grown. The Global Status Report on Road Safety published by the World Health Orga-nization (WHO) identified the major causes of traffic collisions as driving over the speed limit, driving under the influence, and not using helmets and seat belts.

Road accidents, currently the eighth leading cause of death, are predict-ed to become the fifth leading cause of death by 2030. Moreover, WHO now classifies disability, unproductive years, and premature deaths related to road injuries as a significant health impact of motorization. According to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) when combined, deaths due to road injuries and air pollution exceed the total deaths caused by HIV/AIDS, tu-berculosis, or malaria. In an attempt to address and curb the problem, the United Nations General Assembly in March 2010 named 2011-2020 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety.

While the announcement of the De-cade of Action for Road Safety result-ed in minimal response from author-

15 | FELLOWCONNECT NOVEMBER 2014 Photos courtesy: Ash and James/ Flickr Commons

FELLOWCONNECT APRIL 2014 | 19

ities in India, the recent unfortunate death of Rural Development Minister Gopinath Munde’s in a road accident has triggered the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to take the bold and necessary step of drafting a Road Transport and Safety Bill. Drafted with the best practices of six advanced nations - US, Canada, Sin-gapore, Japan, Germany, and the UK in mind, the Bill is aimed at bringing down fatalities in road accidents by two lakh in the first five years.

The Bill, which penalizes rash and il-legal road behavior by slapping heavy fines and jail-terms on offenders, pro-poses the introduction of digital sys-tems for intelligent speed adaptation, driver alert controls, and eye drowsi-ness detectors, amongst other things and is currently receiving recommen-dations, criticism, and comments from road safety experts and the general public, nationwide. While the final Bill is likely to contain many changes, what is important to note at this point is the historic feat that the Bill has al-ready achieved by bringing road safety to the forefront. The fact that the issue has been recognized as a priority, and has sparked multiple public debates and conversations is truly commend-able and a definite positive sign, es-pecially in light of the UN Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals’ focus on reducing road fatalities worldwide

by 50% (source). Additionally, it has helped instill faith in the public about the government’s seriousness and commitment to road safety, enabling civil society to also take ownership and responsibility.

Out of the 1,37,572 fatal accidents in the past decade, 6,463 deaths were due to drunken driving. These sober-ing statistics necessitate prompt and effective action. While policy change and stricter laws constitute one part of the solution, education, awareness, and better infrastructure comprise the other. The latter is where I believe the role of organizations like Home Safe comes in. We began Home Safe in 2009 with the motive of reducing the number of drunken driving incidents in the Delhi NCR region by increasing awareness and providing alternatives. Over the years, Home Safe has been able to raise awareness by bridging the gap between public and private sectors and engaging local citizens to work to-wards road safety collectively. One of our most successful campaigns, Re-spect the Road, is run in collaboration with the Gurgaon traffic police and a private organization has made use of a public mascot, “Traffic Tau” who con-veys road safety messages at red lights, schools, and soon, in across all mov-ie theaters in Gurgaon. On the other hand, through a nationwide network of trained chauffeurs, Home Safe

provides a safe, reliable, and conve-nient alternative to driving your vehicle when you are too tired or under the in-fluence of alcohol. Such solutions have a direct impact on the root cause, but are unfortunately nonexistent or rare. While we currently provide chauffeurs in Delhi, we are working to scale the model to other metros in India over the next few years. The use of technol-ogy to maintain quality, ease of usage, transparency, and low cost scalability is a key priority for us at this point.

While the public and private sector’s commitment to road safety will aid a significant push, the final way forward will certainly be paved by an empow-ered civil society willing and able to make changes to their local environ-ments and behavior.

Nikhil Saigal is the Founder of Home Safe, a premier chauffeur service in Delhi established with

the intention of making the process of driving in the city hassle free and

completely safe.


Historically in India, the attitude towards road safety

and correspondingly, the response to road accidents has been largely apathetic.

IMedical Kit Reduces Maternal Mortality by 35% in Guatemala

In 2013, almost 300,000 women died from the complications related to pregnancy or giving birth, according to the World Health Organization. The organization calculates that 99 percent of these deaths occur in underdevel-oped regions and that in most cases could be avoided if patients had had access to quality healthcare during and after birth.

With the objective of reducing these figures, Ashoka fellow Andrés Martínez has developed improved communications and technology sys-tems for communities in remote ar-eas of Latin America, promoted by the NGO Hispano-American Health Link (EHAS). More specifically, the Healthy Pregnancy initiative was launched to avoid unnecessary deaths among pregnant women in Guatemala and other countries in the region.

In order to achieve this and detect com-plications associated with pregnancy in areas where medical resources aren’t sufficient, the initiative uses a portable medical kit able to perform ultrasound scans as well as urine and blood tests. The latter was made possible thanks to another Spanish Ashoka fellow, Jordi Martí, who is implementing the “DBS

Screening system” for blood testing, without needles or cold chains.

The backpack’s weight, 3 kilos, sim-plifies its transport and accessibility. It also includes a solar panel that guar-antees its use in remote areas without electricity.

The experimental phase of the Healthy Pregnancy project was car-ried out on a total of 1,000 patients, and saved the lives of 5 women and 31 infants. During its expansion in Gua-temala, the kit was used on 762 preg-nant women and reduced the rate of maternal mortality by 25 percent. A 60 percent decrease was also registered in emergency transfers and in the costs of treating patients that suffer from post-birth side effects. One kit can be used on up to 400 patients a year.

EHAS offers rural healthcare institu-tions the option of renting the kits or rucksacks, along with a user training and quality control. EHAS is also re-sponsible for the maintenance, includ-ing insurance on theft and accidents.

The spectacular results achieved have encouraged public and private inves-tors to support the initiative in order

This article first appeared in Opinno, a global innovation consultancy and has

been reproduced with permission. It is a contribution from Ashoka Spain.

A Contribution by the STAFF of ASHOKA SPAIN

Equipment from the “Healthy Pregnancy” kit for ultrasound scans in a rural environment. Photo courtesy: EHAS

The rural health workers perform an ultrasound kit with the material to a pregnant woman. Photo courtesy: EHAS

fc | SPAIN

to increase the sample to 100,000 women. For example, Pedro Moneo, founder of Opinno consultancy firm, is a mentor of the project, and has sup-ported the initiative from the start.

EHAS foresees that 1,000 lives could be saved when the project is up and running in Guatemala, and another 2,500 when it is expanded to other four countries of the region. This will also save approximately 5 million US Dollars for the institutions responsible for rural healthcare.

In 2013, almost 300,000 women

died from the complications

related to pregnancy or giving birth.


FELLOWCONNECT APRIL 2014 | 21

The experimental phase of the Healthy Pregnancy Project was carried out on a total of 1,000 patients, and saved the l ives of

5 women and 31 infants

Photos courtesy: WadeandMelanie.wordpress.com FELLOWCONNECT NOVEMBER 2014 | 18

19 | FELLOWCONNECT APRIL 2014 Photos courtesy: Wikimedia commons

Lack of safety in public spaces accounts for more than three percent of the country’s GDP

I


More business?

Aye Safety!By SUNISH JAUHARI

Is safety becoming a function of busi-ness and business growth in India? Historically, this seems to be the case, as safety in public places like roads has made minimal progress, while it is a must-have for large business campuses or IT parks. However, even the em-phasis on safety within these business-es is a relatively new concept.

Circa 2002: India emerged as a low cost haven and a dream-come-true for cash strapped transnationals. Everything from polishing diamonds to automotive forgings to writing codes for software, was commis-sioned to Indian sweatshops. With complete disregard for workplace safety and human rights, business leaders across the globe, including key economists declared sweatshop destinations as a smart strategy.

Circa 2012: McKinsey reports Indian companies are becoming smarter, creating clean and safe workplaces to remain the low cost destination of choice for large global corporations. Global value chains particularly recognised the importance of safe-ty and it became a key criteria for awarding contracts.

The civil aviation sector exemplifies these incentives. When the sector first opened up, new low-cost airlines at-tracted huge foreign direct investments and ordered an ambitious number of aircrafts. New precision engineer-ing companies vying for Boeing and Airbus’s business changed their safe-ty procedures to meet the "approved" status. Low-cost manufacturing, while important, took the back seat, while workplace safety and ethical manu-facturing practices became as import-ant as the AS9001 certification (cer-

tification needed to supply to large aerospace OEMs). A similar pattern emerged slightly earlier in IT and IT Enabling Services, but most of the businesses were 'greenfield' export oriented units and therefore had the opportunity (and the need) to invest in safe workplaces afresh.

Safety has clearly become business en-abler rather than being a norm. How-ever, a person working in one of these safest work environments is often exposed to the worst of occupational safety hazards in public places. Sadly, safety providers in public spaces do not necessarily derive the same eco-nomic value as businesses.

The construction industry is a clear case where economic incentives failed. The construction industry employs over 9mn people in India. It is the sec-ond largest employer in India, and the industry is growing way above the GDP average. Incidentally, it is also one of the contributors to fairly large num-ber of accidents that cause disabilities and deaths in India, a large number of which goes unreported because of the nature of the migratory workforce. For example, in 2013, deaths due to falls and electrocution were close to 24,000. According to a report pub-lished by International Journal of Bio-medical and Advance Research, over 67 percent of deaths among various occupations are those involved in manual construction. Interestingly, this grew significantly in the years of boom and came down during the global crisis period, presumably reflecting decline in the construction activity. Even the most acclaimed construction com-panies are not up to the mark. For example, the Peoples Union for Dem-ocratic Rights claims that there have

been 109 deaths in the multi-million dollar Delhi Metro Rail Corporation construction sites, during their years of construction. But this does not deter people from using the Metro services, or buying and renting property. There is no correlation between the construc-tion practices adopted by the builder and the 'attractiveness' of their product.

Ultimately, it comes down to wheth-er the buyer or the consumer is demanding safety as a practice from the provider. As consumers, we have the power. Regardless of whether it is safety in public places or workplaces, or safety buried underneath the fin-ished product, we need to demand minimal standards of safety to create an equitable world.

Lack of safety in public spaces accounts for more than three percent of the country’s GDP. When we view safety in this light, we create an eco-nomic incentive for everyone, not just businesses, to invest in public safety. Unless providers of safe environments realise that they are stakeholders in some form, we will not be able to able to achieve a safe environment for all.

Sunish Jauhari is Director, South Asia, at Ashoka India. He is a

safety advocate who is working toward bridging the gap between government and citizens to create

safe cities.

Photos courtesy: Meena Kadri/ Flickr Commons

FellowConnect Asia - November 2014

Documents

safer public spaces

aye safety

core issues ashoka

ashoka network

position of ashoka

road accident victims

shattered societythe

culture of fellowconnect