Abstract
In this study, the activities of a volunteer based grassroots development in rural India - Food for Life Vrindavan (FFLV) - are presented. A thorough examination of how it complies with the dimensions established in the scientific literature about grassroots and social innovations and what the characteristics of its activities are in the light of the latest trends in human development is performed. The article is organised into six sections: after a short introduction about the subject, the objectives and the layout of the paper, section 2 presents the timeline of the development industry with a particular emphasis on the process of turning from national economy boosting initiatives to the dimensions of human development. In section 3 the key elements in the literatures on the capability approach and grassroots/social innovations are presented. Section 4 introduces the case of FFLV, followed by a detailed analysis in section 5 where FFLV’s position with regards to the different perspectives is discussed. In section 6, the quantitative analysis is conducted. Concluding the paper in the final section, some reflections on the usefulness of the study are mentioned. Based on the results of the conducted research the following conclusions have been made: 1) In the beginning, Food for Life Vrindavan was an entirely volunteer based grassroots innovation. With a gradual increase in the number of people it served and subsequent expansion in it’s fields of services, it has become a social innovation. 2) The characteristics of FFLV’s activities fit into the dimensions of human development established by the United Nations based on Amartya Sen’s concept of capability approach. 3) The financial resources of FFLV are modest in comparison to the OECD financed development industry, with the former having access to merely a quarter of the latter’s “per capita” funds available for the area of activity around Vrindavan.
Highlights
The economy of Europe after World War II needed a significant boost to recover and based on the successful delivery of the Marshal plan, in the decades to follow many theories were born for regional development
3) The financial resources of Food for Life Vrindavan (FFLV) are modest in comparison to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) financed development industry, with the former having access to merely a quarter of the latter’s “per capita” funds available for the area of activity around Vrindavan
This research aims to make a contribution to two areas: broaden the Grassroots Innovations (GI)-Social Innovations (SI) literature with a case study on a volunteer based organization with a dual objective of outward and inward purposes and to draw light on the importance of timeline examination in parallel to screenshoot like cross section analyses
Summary
The economy of Europe after World War II needed a significant boost to recover and based on the successful delivery of the Marshal plan, in the decades to follow many theories were born for regional development. This match stems not from the FFLV team’s acquaintance with Sen’s capability approach concepts [56, 57, 58, 59] or Mahbub ul Haq’s HDI [60] but rather their desire to help the people of Vrindavan live with more choices and to provide them with the knowledge that there is more available in life It seems that by being in close proximity to the local community and thereby compassionately observing the needs of the people, FFLV as a GI-SI activity, armed with the willpower to act, has come to the same understanding of human nature, albeit in a thoroughly practical way. They are right, the purpose of this quantitative comparison is not to search for the accountability of anyone, but to present an order of magnitude estimate in the difference between the financial possibilities of the two activities
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