Asia

Vision and Systems Change

Trickle Up applies a context specific adaptation of the Graduation Approach in Asia to reach the poorest and most vulnerable. We aim to strengthen government systems to scale social protection to reach the 200 million living in extreme poverty. Innovations in personnel and technology in Asia are informing our work worldwide.

Adapting Community Resources Persons as Coaches

Trickle Up’s experience with using Community Resource Persons as coaches in India proved to be successful and was institutionalized at a large scale by government partners and adapted for Graduation. It is now being applied to programs in West Africa.

Integrating Digital Innovations into Graduation

Digital Innovations used in India such as apps like MPowered linking participants to coaches and services are helping to inform the planning of a coaching app in Latin America.

Adapting programs for Child Protection

Trickle Up’s work in Vietnam with Plan International, a child-focused international NGO, informs our work in West Africa in the area of Child Protection and will further deepen our understanding of how Graduation can be integrated into child-focused programs.

Adapting programs for Climate Change

Trickle Up’s work in Bangladesh with Concern International informs organizational considerations regarding the implications of climate change in program design.

Trickle Up is drawing on experience working with indigenous peoples and issues in Latin America to inform work with indigenous peoples in India and ethnic minorities in Vietnam.

3
COUNTRIES

129.3K
PARTICIPANTS

2.4K
SHGs / SAVINGS GROUPS

301
COACHES

13
PARTNERS

Project Highlight:

Odisha Livelihood Mission

Beginning in 2017, Trickle Up and the Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM) began working with 124 families belonging to the Juan tribe in Odisha, India. The Juan people have faced high incidence of child and infant mortality as well as chronic malnutrition. Now a year into the project, there are clear signs of positive change. Participant families have begun using kitchen gardens as a means of meeting daily nutritional needs. Self-help groups have formed and members of these groups meet regularly. Natural leaders have been identified who can work more closely with the families. Additionally, Vulnerability Reduction Funds (VRF)—low interest refundable loans from the government—have been approved for the Juan tribe and all members of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). Participants received the loans at the end of January 2019.

LIVELIHOODS
$365
earned on average by extremely poor participants from activities supported by the project. (of 4100 households).

LIVELIHOODS
100%
of extremely poor participants have diversified their livelihood activities) by the third year of the project.

FINANCIAL INCLUSION
88%
of project participants including both extremely poor and very poor have access to bank accounts (of 100,000).

FINANCIAL INCLUSION
43%
of participants have access to insurance services provided by the government. (of 100,000).

REDUCED HUNGER
100%
of participants of extremely poor participants have access to an Indian Government program enabling them to receive 25kg of free rice every month.

“With the support of [the program], it seems we will definitely change our lives for the better.”
– Muskan Devi of Jorakaram, Jharkhand, India

“With the support of [the program], it seems we will definitely change our lives for the better.”
– Muskan Devi of Jorakaram, Jharkhand, India

Growing up in intergenerational poverty, Muskan Devi struggled to survive as the sole breadwinner of her five-person family. When heavy rains washed off the mud and hay roofing of her house, Muskan was forced to mortgage her small patch of land in order to repair her roof. With her seed capital Muskan decided to invest in goat rearing and vegetable cultivation and believes she’ll be able to pay off the mortgage.

Read Muskan's Story

Encountering poverty in her own life has movtivated Deepika to help bring others out of extreme poverty.

Deepika Dandasena is a community resource person with the Odisha Livelihood Mission. She has received training from Trickle Up and has been coaching the extremely poor participants for the last three years. Like the participants she works with, Deepika is a member of a self help group. Her experiences make her empathetic and understanding towards the situation of her participants.

Read Deepika's Story

Encountering poverty in her own life has movtivated Deepika to help bring others out of extreme poverty.

Through the Self Help Group in her village, Muskan learned saving habits and opened her own savings account at a bank.

Participant Story

Muskan Devi

23 years ago, a baby girl was born in Jorakaram village in Jharkhand, India. Her parents lovingly named her “Muskan,” meaning smile in Hindi.

Growing up in intergenerational poverty, Muskan Devi was married at an early age, and circumstances did not allow her to even complete primary schooling. Before joining Trickle Up, Muskan struggled to survive as the sole breadwinner of her five-person family. Her husband has a physical disability and her sister-in-law has an intellectual disability, preventing them from contributing to household income.

Lacking the necessary skills to start her own business, Muskan’s only option was to occasionally work as daily wage laborer in construction. When food was especially scarce, she would work for 7 days a week, leaving her two toddlers at home.

Due to gender discrimination, she would only earn 140 Rs. ($2.11) per day, whereas male laborers doing the same job would earn 200 Rs ($3). Though she was entitled to receive 35 kg of rice under the Public Distribution System (PDS), she only received 30 kg, a common issue among women in her situation. Isolated from her community and with little political power, Muskan was trapped in a cycle of poverty and focused only on making it through each day.

When heavy rains washed off the mud and hay roofing of her house, Muskan was forced to mortgage her small patch of land in order to repair her roof.

However, Muskan’s smile brightened when she was selected to participate in the Trickle Up project in her community.

As an initial step to help her build resilience and self-sufficiency, Muskan joined a women’s Self Help Group (SHG) in her village. Through the group, she learned regular saving habits and even opened her own personal savings account at a bank. But the group was more than just a place to save, her fellow members also helped her come out of the vacuum of social isolation and begin to build critical support systems to rely on in times of scarcity.

With her seed capital grant and regular coaching by program staff and Community Resource Persons on livelihood options and financial inclusion, Muskan started her new business with a broad smile.

Muskan decided to invest in goat rearing and vegetable cultivation in a nursery at her home. She strongly believes that this will not only help her improve her life, but also enable her to pay back her mortgage to the moneylender, providing her with economic and mental relief.

Today Muskan says, "Indeed, we will go ahead, avenues are opening to proceed further. Earlier, we used to only think of doing something better, but with the support of [the program], it seems we will definitely change our lives for the better."

Deepika is inspired to see her participants using learned practices to earn more money.

Coach Story

Deepika Dandasena

Deepika Dandasena is a community resource person with the Odisha Livelihood Mission. She has received training from Trickle Up and has been coaching the extremely poor participants for the last three years. Deepika believes coaching is essential for supporting the participants in livelihood activities, both to provide motivation and to introduce new practices and ideas.

Like the participants she works with, Deepika is a member of a self help group. She comes from a landless family and her husband is unable to work because of his physical disabilities. Encountering poverty in her own life has made her empathetic and understanding towards the situation faced by those living in extreme poverty. Her experiences motivate her to work to help bring others out of extreme poverty.

Deepika most enjoys teaching improved agricultural practices to the participant families. She is inspired to see her participants using those learned practices on the ground and earning more money by selling the produce in the market. One of her greatest achievements as a coach was securing government sponsored housing and widow pension for a project participant through convergence with the social protection programs of the government.

"I've been very happy with my original seven colonies. Now I want to grow, and have even more."

Participant Story

Wilma Teresa Chi Santiago

Wilma Santiago and her family struggled to make ends meet. She was unable to pay for her son’s medical expenses and maintain their home and food security. As a part of the Maya Yucateco indigenous group, Wilma and her community have faced discrimination, illiteracy, and barriers to education for generations. Through financial help from Trickle Up, entrepreneurial coaching, and support from the members of her savings group, Wilma drastically changed her family’s future.

After developing a plan with the help of her coach, Wilma used her $774 in seed capital to buy supplies like protective gear, beehive boxes, and smoke canisters. With her seven colonies, she has created a new honey business, Miel Cisteil, which makes her enough money to live without insecurity.

Today, Wilma proudly serves her family three meals a day. She sees the livelihood training she received from her coach as critical to her new business’ success: “I have learned so much about beekeeping. When to feed them, how to keep away the ants that try to eat the hives. I learned how to chase the bees away with smoke, and how to open the hives.”

“I've been very happy with my original seven colonies. Now I want to grow, and have even more,” Wilma says.

Wilma and the other women in her savings group also learned valuable skills like financial planning, saving, and accessing credit. The savings group helps Wilma build a social support system with other indigenous women living in extreme poverty, who often face social exclusion, racism, and a lack of access to basic services.

With her new income and savings totaling $3,321 so far, she has quadrupled her initial investment in just two years. Now Wilma can afford her son’s medical bills, whereas previously her family could not afford healthcare.

In partnership with Ko’ox Taani, a local Mexican NGO who wanted to implement Trickle Up’s Graduation Approach with indigenous families in the Yucat we are able to reach more people than ever. Our pilot project together supported 200 indigenous families living in extreme poverty. Today, we’ve expanded our partnership to reach 3,000 indigenous families in Chiapas and Yucatán, Mexico, with a focus on women and youth.

Wilma continues to be an advocate for mothers like herself who have big dreams for the future of their family. She is an inspiration to her savings group members, her coaches, and to us.

“This is such a big opportunity,” says Wilma. “I will not waste it.”

See Wilma tell her story

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