BISWA: Bharat Integrated Social Welfare Agency

BISWA started its endeavor in the year 1994 from Sambalpur and has since then come a long way with varied of experiences to share with. We strongly opine that the civil society organization in Orissa can play a vital role in making the state a poverty free zone by way of community empowerment and many livelihood initiatives. If BISWA alone could within a span of 12 years, provide suport and handhold more than 2 lakhs family in making their life better with the credit inflow of rupees sixty four crores, the joint effort of many organization like us, can undoubtedly change the poverty scenario of our state with a planned and strategic common agenda.Let us join hands and create a sustainable network to share, support and strenthen our mission to play a role of a facilitator in empowering the poor, downtrodden, marginalized and under-privileged in the society left behind in the process of developement.We are confident that our joint effort, would lead us to a better and prosperous Orissa within next decade.Without you the BISWA NETWORK cannot achieve the desired Mission of creating a strong network of NGOs and better governed and effective social sector for the developement of a poverty-free Orissa-the dream we all cherish. We look forward your support in strenthening such a NETWORK for all of us. Let us make the BISWA NETWORK, work for all of us.

Mission Statement

To create an association of responcible civil society organizations, working for socio-economic developement in the state of Orissa and play the role of a facilitator in optimizing livelihood initiatives through various interventions. The BISWA NETWORK will help its member-organizations, to better serve the poor, destitute and downtrodden, for a better quality of life with a stable livelihood. 

Benefit to Members

• Recognition as being commited to serve then people in need with a set of norms ensuring accountability, good governance and transparency within their organization.
• Enhancement of the Management and Monitoring quality of operations, through learning from an established common system and benchmarks procedures.
• Access to capacity building support through various training programmes and information sharing.
• Opportunities to influence the policies and procedures of grant making of both government and other bilateral agencies.

The Objectives

BISWA NETWORK will identify issues, open dialogues with partners and create a common platform to advocate/lobby the common cause and find out solutions for issues affecting all. The network would handhold partners, upscale their activities through variou resources support both in terms of finance and experince sharing. To fulfil the above objectives the scope of work the BISWA NETWORK, are as follows:

• To provide a common forum for organizations involved in livelihood, finance and income generation activities for both rural and urban poor.
• To strenthen the capacities of organizations (NGOs) through rsearch, consultancies and training in different aspects of livelihood finance.
• To establish linkages between members and resource institutions, such as funding agency, financial institutions, training, research and consultancy firm.
• To disseminate and publish documents, papers, journals, news-letters, relevent and useful for the members.
• To co-ordinate and cooperate with similar networska and coalitions.
• To make representation in Government and other regulatory and policy making bodies to promote the cause of the partners and help create afavorable policy envirionment for livelihood finance and income generation initiatives.
• To advocate for enhanced credibility, acceptibility and recognition of the work done by the volunatary sector in the eyes of the government, the donor community, the corporate sector, the media and the public.
• To act on establishing an accreditation system for the voluntary sector. To carry out other and purposes, that may be conducive to and beneficial for the members to fulfil the broad objectives of the BISWA NETWORK.

Criteria for Membership

• The Organization is registered as a Society / Trust / a Section 25 Company.
• The Organisation is in operation at least for one complete year from the date of registration.
• The Organisation should have some defined set of objectives, some performance and achievements.
• The Organisation is commited to and practices god governance, accountability and transparency.
• Completes the Membership Form along with a copy of annual report, audited financial statement, memorandum and articles of association.

Membership Fees:

The annual Membership Fees for the BISWA NETWORK is Rs. 500. The draft should be made in the name of "BISWA" and payable at Sambalpur. Download Membership Application Form , Monitoring Sheet for Network members BISWA Network Brochure. Download