Opinions:

 UNITED WAY OF BARODA is the only United Way operating in India for more than 15 years. This was started with initial help from United Way International – USA and UNICEF with generous grant of 50 Lacs of Rupees. The basic objective of United Way of Baroda is to support various NGOs in their endeavor to fulfill social needs of society by providing financial and administrative support.

 This objective is fulfilled by channeling donation from various industrial enterprises, professionals and high net worth individuals. In our country there are various sectors where poor people need various types of financial help. This is provided by various NGOs working in different fields. United Way of Baroda is trying to bridge the gap between NGOs and needy people by providing financial support. The focus of United Way of Baroda in time to come will be to motivate various professionals like Doctors, Lawyers, Chartered Accountants and Service Providers to contribute their might so that funds raised through such donation can be utilized for needy persons.  Further, we would like also to tap high net worth senior citizens within India and abroad to give large donation for full-filling specific objectives of different types. In all these years, United Way of Baroda has established good credibility and won confidence of its donors by ensuring optimal utilization of their funds and have ensured that such mobilized funds are used in just and proper manner.

UWB fulfils its objectives through various committees like Fund Raising, Fund Allocation, PublicAwareness committee etc... most of the people on the above committees are from Industry and trade. They work honorary These are the people who apart from giving their time by sharing their experience also contribute monetary. The need of society is so large that objective could not be fulfilled unless thousands of people commit small contribution of Rs. 1000/- to Rs. 5000/- every year. In every society 10% of the people are highly privileged, other 25% are privileged but 50% of the people may be under privileged and they required help from the privileged people. We would therefore, like to appeal those privileged people to commit any amount on annualized basis so that United Way of Baroda can extend more and more support to NGOs and reach to the needy citizens.

UNITED WAY OF BARODA has matured over the last twenty years in an effective.

umbrella organization supporting a large number of NGOs in the city. The need of the city is ever increasing. United Way of Baroda seeks active support from citizens of Baroda. Empowering Baroda to me is every citizen getting involved in making Baroda a better place to live in. I earnestly request all the citizens, professional groups and corporates to contribute to wards being " Socially Responsible". Each person contributes individually and also encourage other people to do the same, with different and unique contributions one can offer such as money, volunteer hours, skills and time.

UNITED WAY MELA an unique NGO fair and Interschool Essay competition on social issues are some of our Public Education Activities. This was the sixth year the United Way Mela was organized with overwhelming response of participation of 96 NGOs, seven Government Welfare organizations and exhibition from VMC on Campaign for Clean and Green Baroda and also on Traffic Awareness from the Traffic department. The Theme for the Mela –2006 “Empowering Baroda” was chosen because each of the NGOs affiliated with United Way of Baroda together are empowering the city from east to west and north to south in each area of their work for humancare activities, animal welfare, environment protection making Baroda a better place to livein. The Inter School Essay Competition for UWB Rotating Shield for the city based schools is organized to make the children of today into a more responsible citizens of tomorrow. This year we have good response from English, Gujarati, and Hindi medium schools for the competition. I would like to thank each participant student for putting their brains together and showcase their views/ideas in a presentable manner.

THE ANNUAL FUND RAISING EVENT  popularly known as the United Way Garba enjoyed and appreciated by the Barodians is one of the biggest public gathering in the city of Vadodara and the largest festival of nine days where the young and the old dance through all nine nights. United Way Garba is one of the best organized Navratri festival in Gujarat and in India.

The 18^th  Annual Resource Mobilization Event was a grand success with good participation from all sections of the society. I sincerely thank all the corporate donors, the individual donors, the Sponsorers, government officials, male and the female participants, press and media and the citizens of Vadodara who have contributed towards making this event more and more popular and successful, thereby empowering the cultural Capital of Gujarat of its traditional value.

FUSION STUDY FOUNDATION CHOSE UNITED WAY OF BARODA to  implement an unique returnable scholarship programme for bright young minds to pursue Higher Education after their Higher Secondary Board Examination. This programme empowers young, needy and deserving minds to scale new heights. This timely support is intended to open gates for higher aspirations, otherwise unavailable due to lack of resources. This scholarship does not restrict to tuition fees only.

It covers all education related expenses until student accomplishes Masters degree course with good results. Every years ten students will be selected for this programme. Total duration of this programme would be ten years. We wish more and more individuals and foundation come forward to empower less privileged group of people.

WHEN THE UNITED WAY OF BARODA chose “Empowering Baroda” as the theme for its Mela 2006, I was sure there would be a lot of questions as to what that term meant.  It has to be mentioned here that it would mean differently to different people.

In the context of the United Way movement and the United Way Mela 2006, “Empowering Baroda” to me means: Giving the people of Baroda, especially the poor, an opportunity for a better life through the admirable services of the various NGOs.  The member NGOs of the United Way of Baroda carry on their activities in the sectors of Health, Medicare, Disability, Community Development, Environment, Women Empowerment, Animal Welfare, Heritage etc. and the citizens of Baroda especially the poor and not so well off are fortunate that such a network exists to help and assist them in trying to live a better and fulfilling life.  Therefore, my first empowerment is to the poor and needy citizens of our city. May they obtain better and better services from the NGO’s.

My second vision of “Empowering Baroda” is to enhance the reach of its NGOs.  We are fortunate in Baroda to have such a large number of NGOs actively involved in welfare and other services. The United Way will always act as a catalyst in making these NGOs efficient, transparent and expanding their lines of activity.  Under the United Way umbrella, all NGOs are encouraged to educate themselves, network, grow and become better NGOs. May the NGO’s themselves grow and widen their scope of activities  and work towards helping the unfortunate and the needy and improve Baroda in general.

The third empowerment would be aimed at the communities in general, the institutions and industries.  The United Way cannot carry out its functions until the communities, institutions and individuals act in co-ordination and contribute  generously to the cause of United Way.  Not that these institutions and industries do not help, but there has to be a deeper commitment from communities across the city and many more institutions and industries. May more and more donors from all walks of life come forward and hear and act on this appeal.

The Government, especially the local government at  city and district level is my fourth area of empowerment.  Let the local government realize that the United Way through the NGOs is assisting it to do a lot of work which it should do, but for various reasons, cannot.  The local government should encourage United Way’s participation and involvement in City level projects which helps the common man. May the local authorities work towards this goal. As our name implies, we are the United Way, united among the citizens, the NGOs, the communities, institutions and industries and the Government. If all of us work unitedly, we can certainly make Baroda a much better place to live in.

UNITED WAY is a not for profit organization that was started more than 100 years ago in  USA to help the community and its citizens in making it a better place to live in and further to help the less fortunate through various non profit voluntary organizations.

United Way Baroda has recognized that improving the quality of life and in many cases just sustaining a livelyhood is such a monumental task that it cannot accomplish it by itself. The philosophy now is that United Way of Baroda should help others through various non profit organizations already existing in the city for specific purposes through Financial Assistance, Training & Development of the non profit sectors.

United Way of Baroda was started in 1986 under the able guidance of Late Indubhai C. Patel who was the first Chairperson.

What does United Way of Baroda do is indeed a good question. Our activities can be classified into three areas:

United Way of Baroda has provided funding to over 80-90 such institutions year after year. From a modest funding of Rs. 2 lacs in 1986, we have raised over Rs. 1 crore during last year which is a fifty fold increase over a twenty year period. In all, United Way of Baroda has given over Rs.500 lacs to various non profit organizations in Baroda which has benefited more than 5,00,000 persons. The United Way of Baroda has been involved in many community projects and has assisted a wide range of organizations for many worthy activities. Now inspite of a twenty fold increase in funding to voluntary organizations, there is an ever increasing need for additional resources as the needs of our city grows and we try to improve the quality of life. We seek your support and the support of all our citizens to donate generously so that we may achieve these laudable objectives and help those who need our help.

The proven United Way system of organized resource mobilization and need based allocation with involvement of local volunteer organizations, enlightened corporate sector and citizens has been firmly established in Vadodara.

United Way is empowering Baroda by providing services such as Health and Human care, Drug abuse, home and training for crippled children, city projects has also been undertaken at the same time, cancer detection, the two way benefit scheme etc, and various studies and publication are also undertaken at the same time. What we have done for ourselves-dies with us; but what we do for others and the world, will remain and is our immortality.

United Way International and United Way of Baroda wish to establish United Way in other cities in India to EMPOWER their communities to a better quality of life for all their citizens.

“Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it”

-          John D.Rockfeller

WHEN it comes to Financial Assistance to NGO’s and working for the betterment of the Society with human care in particular, the name of United Way of Baroda comes as an outstanding organization. With more than 80 NGO’s, the financial assistance rendered so far comes to more than Rs. Five Crores or more.

It appears and is seriously felt that the pattern for Financial Assistance, needs a change, and it is

towards this aim that group meetings were held to promote “Project Oriented Assistance” which is the need of the hour and is being implemented.

United Way has adopted Health, Environment, Disability and Women Empowerment for prime consideration. As a result, free medical check-up for Diabetes, Blood Pressure and Heart Diseases when necessary, have been regularized and adopted for one more year. Adoption of City Gardens, Projects for Differently-abled and Women Organization are actively taken up. United Way of Baroda’s Children Eye-Clinic has been established at “Medical Care Centre Trust” where about 80,000 school children are to be examined for Eye-Sight related problems.

I wish all the institutions and NGO’s will co-operate in our efforts and adopt projects suitable for

them, so as to fulfill our cherished goal to cover larger population and wider areas and thereby

Empower Baroda and its people.