Generation Impact

An emerging generation of donors, driven by strategy and impact, is altering the nature of philanthropy.

- Varsha Meghani

Until recently it was depressingly common to see children in Palghar with potbellies and legs like twigs. Just 115 km from Mumbai, the forested, predominantly tribal, district suffered from a child malnutrition rate of 54 percent in 2014. That’s when the JSW Foundation, headed by Sangita Jindal, stepped in to help.

Her son Parth Jindal, who runs the conglomerate’s cement business, however, had a different plan. He was quick to note that data had to be central to their intervention efforts. Despite spending heavily on health and food-relief programmes in the area, the government authorities were only making a dent in the problem. Partly because the information they were gathering—in physical registers—was inaccurate. “There were huge gaps in the data they were collecting and what we were seeing on ground,” says Jindal.

Under his direction, the foundation developed an Android-based app to monitor the development indicators of children under the age of six. Local women, nicknamed ‘Yashodas’, were trained to take photographs of mother and child on their mobile phones, iris-scan them and enter the required information in the app. Today, this allows for real-time, GPS-enabled tracking of the nutrition and growth markers of children, letting doctors and officials take follow-up action where needed. Malnutrition, as a result, has fallen by 92 percent in the three talukas of Palghar that the JSW Foundation works in, claims Jindal. So measurable is the change that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has mandated that the technology be rolled out across Maharashtra.