ABOUT SEEDS
SEEDS (Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society) enables community resilience through practical solutions for disaster readiness, response and rehabilitation - grafting innovative technology on to traditional wisdom.
OUR VISION
Transforming the vulnerable into resilient and thriving communities.
CONTEXT
We have now done more damage to the environment since the United Nations established its climate change framework in 1992 than we ever managed in ignorance in all the millennia that preceded it. Thus, when a young Greta Thunberg is asking us to panic and act, it is for good reasons. Already at 1.1 degrees of average warming, we are seeing a lot of really extreme climate events.
While India’s current carbon emissions per capita is little because of the sere size of the population, of all the most polluting nations, which includes US, China, Russia, Japan and the EU bloc; only India’s emissions are rising. It is especially worrying when you juxtapose it with the fact that it is a developing nation with two-thirds yet to be built. The worst affected by this climate emergency would be the vulnerable communities, including migrant population, who more often than not do not have the knowledge and resources to deal with it. The severity of this emergency can be elucidated by a recent research study which claims that climate change may have contributed to the suicides of nearly 60,000 Indian farmers and farm workers over the past three decades. Thus, the time to act is now or never.
WE ARE COMMITTED TO
Enabling the bottom 1% of vulnerable to climate emergency, to withstand it and secure their future potential and thereby that of the larger community.
We will work in 100 identified districts with a network of partners and young ambassadors and leverage our collective influence to achieve:
- Communities in India’s high-risk zones are aware of their risks, and know of actions to manage them
- Enhanced response capacity to better anticipate and rapidly respond
- Children go to schools resilient to climate change
- Communities, vulnerable to disasters, are living in safer homes with access to water and sanitation, and health facilities
- Build capacities and resources at the local level
- Promotion of investments in local innovation for resilience
- Communities, affected by disasters, build back better rising above the threshold of the next disaster
- Tracking of losses avoided by vulnerable communities, as a result of our actions
WE ARE COMMITTED TO, AND WOULD VOLUNTARILY CONTRIBUTE TO
The goals set for 2030 in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Paris Agreement.
THREE PILLARS
The Strategy will be implemented with the strength derived from three pillars:
- Digital Platform: To achieve scale, SEEDS will build an inclusive digital platform to enable exchange of knowledge, practices and promote learning.
- Network of Networks: SEEDS will build a network of individuals, organisations, volunteers, staff to ensure implementation capacity in all 100 districts.
- Funding System: A robust funding system will be set in place to power ten year programme; funding partnerships will be established with partners organisations both local and international, who share the same vision. New forms of funding would be explored to enable access to the bottom 1%.
OUR CAPABILITY
Our confidence in designing this strategy comes from our 25 years of ‘hands-on’ experience in the sector. SEEDS has worked with communities in India’s most remote and vulnerable communities – rebuilding their lives after disasters. The organization has developed strong capacity in handling large scale interventions while upholding highest global standards of quality and accountability. We have successfully advocated resilience approaches, influenced the policy environment globally, launched global action agendas, advised inter-governmental agencies, UN, governments and civil society. We have pioneered cutting edge approaches, supported community innovations, created spaces on the interface of high-end technology and community-based approaches. Affected people have been the core of our approach. We have leveraged their strengths, their traditions and their aspirations.
SEEDS is now at a threshold of entering the next frame of action, with a larger agenda and a lean approach for deeper and longer lasting impact. A new organisational structure is in place. New planning and monitoring systems, a partnership network, digital technology as a driver for efficiency, a hybrid organisational approach deploying charity and social enterprise principles, is now in place.