JJ Dominic: Hi everyone happy to invite you to another episode of Titan’s podcast the chatterbox today we are going to talk on galvanizing for good and we have Dr Dennis Shan from Swami Vivekananda youth movement and to address the elephant in the room first I’d like to understand how a person who was born and brought up in Gujarat ended up in the fringes of bandipur forest working with the tribals there
DR. Dennis: Thank you so much for inviting me to Titan here and giving me an opportunity on behalf of the organization course I studied till 12th standard which we call second pu in Karnataka in Gujarat I wanted to become a sports person actually but of course the parents thoughts aspirations put me in the soup as well so I had left my food for 3 Days in the same fighting with my parents that you know I want to become a sports person but somehow it did not happen but you know what happened it always happens for good even today I feel that all the youngsters like me I was also also the same like you know spending lots of time without doing anything I was also doing the same thing and probably I should say a God's messenger Mr Krishna Kumar he was a bachelor of around 55 years.
DR. Dennis: He suddenly came into my life life fortunately he was from mysore he told that if you want to do something good I can take you to a good place where started by five doctors and their wives and they just do or conduct deliveries in two rupees I did not believe it so I came down to HD Kote and being a Gujarati I the Kannada was you know all over the place it was very very difficult for me so I I belongs to dang district from Gujarat M which is also a tribal Place belongs to a dangi tribals mhm so I born in a tribal hospital in Gujarat and once I ended up in HD Kote I felt oh my gosh this is the place which I
DR. Dennis: I was belong to and probably God has again brought me the to the same place and I just started working here the focus was on just learning the medicine medicine and Medicine probably born in a tribal hospital so my connect just got you know Close and close with the tribal Community I did not clearly tell you that you know how fast I learned kannada. like probably less than a 3 months I think it was a a tremendous journey and very very exciting Journey learning kannada first of all but now I can speak jenu kuruba and bet kuruba language as well and that's how I I think I have immersed myself into this entire thing so being a doctor you can call me not a doctor at all because practicing very very less and probably working more with the tribals in in the area and probably working with lots and lots of wildlife too and you know ended up here with lots of tigers so
JJ Dominic : Did you force them to become vegetarians
DR. Dennis : No not at all
JJ Dominic : I can I'm totally in sync with you because the last two times when I visited SVYM in HD Kote so it it showed me totally different picture because I have been to that place as a tourist before ear so I stayed in what what is currently the evolve back used to be Orange County and the jungle lodges so that time I used to appreciate the serenity of that place but this time when I came there I understood the cost of that Serenity cost of that silence is actually hardship and drudgery and lack of infrastructure for the people who are living there every day and I was totally amazed to see the kind of work you and your team has been working on there for so long and how many years almost yeah
DR. Dennis: I am since 17 years now
JJ Dominic: 17 years in that place so I was really really touched and thankfully that happened when I was getting inducted into my new role that was the first week of my.
DR. Dennis: Can you tell something about your like you know your being in Armed Forces ended up in Titan can you throw some light on that like I I am really interested knowing about you as well.
JJ Dominic: Right one person who's interested in knowing about right so I was working as a a customer administrative in between BPL mobile those days when your incoming calls used to be charged 16 rupees or that kind of era so I was I basically in charge of
DR. Dennis: I never at a phone so I got very late
JJ Dominic: Lucky you while doing that work I gave my upsc combine defense service exam cleared it and joined the army and from there I was deputed to a counter terrorism unit under Ministry of Home Affairs and I was I was deployed in Manipur
DR. Dennis: Fantastic
JJ Dominic: I would say that that has been the most exciting part of my entire work with the Armed Forces because we did two diagonally opposite things so one was that hardcore counterterrorism operations in Manipur and another one opposite to what we did there that was opt sadb that's aimed at winning hearts and Minds yes so this helped me master the art of wearing a velvet glove over a iron Fist what we call that Oram so that actually helped me and for the last 14 years I've had a fantastic tenure with Titan beautiful people to work with best of people in their respective area of work and a beautiful leadership team who don't take themselves seriously but the work seriously yeah and this is very fulfilling what I was doing as head of administration and security in between I had I was deployed as the project manager for Tata group's Disaster Response when Kerala floods happen so I was there along with team of volunteers across Oran
DR. Dennis: I think so that was the bit bit boost in between like
JJ Dominic: So when I was working there that shake gave me a nudge. This is much more fulfilling and purposeful absolutely so from then on I started watching out for any internal Mobility opportunities in CSR team so when this head of CSR portion opened up I just jumped it .
DR. Dennis: Right right where a 15 years old girl come to comes to me and you know when I whenever I into my mobile health unit and asked me with a very shy voice sir I have not attended my menses since since two months and of course as a doctor I immediately do the urine pregnancy test and it comes positive oh now it's not Wonder for me now but earlier it was of course and then I ask her that you know who is the boy so she tells me that sir you know her kala you know Kala so I know kala but at the same time I also know that kala is already suffering with the Sickle Cell anemia and he has already passed the Sickle Cell anemia to this girl as well so now how to stop this entire you know the the spread of from one person to another person it's a big
DR. Dennis: Challenge and that to when you ask about the vulnerability now jenu kurba doesn't have a tradition of marriage at all oh so nobody knows when they get married so in health they are of course vulnerable education so we have a tribal school there where 600 kids are studying with us and even today you know there are two vacations typical in India like one is summer vacation vacation and second is in this area dussehra vacation mysore dusshera is very famous on the day of reopening of the school after completion of the vacation only 300 will come and after week or so you know remaining 100 will never come I always call them as bahubalis because you know they are the tough ones who who just resist and never come to the school
DR. Dennis: And ultimately what we have to do we have to divide our teachers into the group we have to send them to the different places to catch them back they go there and you know a typical scenario where a father is smoking Bidi just sitting outside the home okay before teacher ask in fact the the father himself identify oh you are from school right and you want my kid right to be taken to the school and teacher say yes and then then then the you know typical response from the father he says that if you want my kid he's playing on top of the tree you can climb the tree catch him and take him to the school but don't waste my time so and he's not you know utilizing his time he's just smoking at that point in time
JJ Dominic: Tree climbing is part of your teacher training curriculum now
DR. Dennis: Not at all but probably we we may have to do that but unfortunately with or fortunately with go God's sake today or till date nothing has happened so that's a good thing and it shows the aspiration probably and again a sort of vulnerability in terms of sending their kids to the to the school because they had never gone
JJ Dominic: Right right
DR. Dennis: And later what we realize is socio economic empowerment like health education because they they are not empowered they are not able to take their own decisions you know I put this into different baskets like if a new person comes there that person will always call it as an animal Instinct that how why this person is behaving like this but I always put it in the basket of spirituality like I take it like that because they believe in that and probably they live that day onto that particular day they start earning in the morning it gets End by evening they spend the entire money whatever they earn for the day and they start new day with a new life new earning
JJ Dominic: The last two times when I visited the SVYM locations what intrigued me was the livelihood aspects so I also saw that in whatever you're doing you trying to
build a circularity so by the time you leave their hands off they are ready to swim on their own so I would want to understand how were you able to build the circularity
DR. Dennis: Yeah yeah like being a doctor you know my focus is always on health and I thought that livelihood can be a first option because ultimately you know you need money to live life because nothing is free in today's world I would like to thank Ani Shridhar from Titan as well like initially he was also a part of personal mentoring in terms of you know how we can take up the livelihood at and it was a very fascinating discussion which if I remember you know six seven years ago in a canteen in kenchanhalli where today's established livelihood Center is there so when Ani came I was sitting with four defunct tailoring machine okay and today in fact we we have just changed the entire Paradigm
DR. Dennis: And we call it as a fashion designing when I came into the sector of livelihood I learned that I think this is the way to go forward if you see the the usage of alcohol in Karnataka is rampant and HD Kote you can never imagine so how to stop this alcoholism as well so these are all social evils you know and all things are interconnected basically that's what I learnt after joining SVYM because once you start making people earn we cannot make them on we basically make them enable by giving certain trainings let's focus more on on the age growth of or starts from 18 to 30 where they are fairly Young have dropped out the school and do not have a clear-cut path for the future
JJ Dominic: Right
DR. Dennis: And just simply Roaming In The Villages consuming alcohol you know smoking Bidi we call it as Katte you know sitting on the katte in kannada and just having all those things so we started mobilizing them and now let me tell you the real story that you know mobilization is very very difficult because they are very clear with their mindset they don't want to do anything or their parents are feeding them regularly correct if you're getting your three three meals on time then why do you want to work it took lots of time to build a strategy how to mobilize them but to be honest we are at the best at this point in time in mobilizing them out of 25,000 youth we meet directly through our mobilizers only 2,000 people show interest towards the course out of 2,000 who are showing interest nearly 50%
DR. Dennis: They come and join now those 1,000 are very very important for us that's why the courses are building in such a way that you know we put lots and lots of values in them whether they learn the basic course or not it doesn't matter the intention is to make them a good human being then automatically you know the the economy will start improving the person who was just sitting and eating in the home now is now has started working and started sort of bearing the the burden of the father and mother you know who are already illiterate not doing anything else and just working hard on the field so that's how actually we started doing this this entire stuff and very fascinating actually yeah
JJ Dominic: So you have a good hang of what's happening there and you able to
DR. Dennis: You can say hangover probably it will be there for some more time
JJ Dominic: You're talking about social evils yes so I'd like to know from you what do you envision in the next 5 10 years yeah where do you see you and your team working yeah
DR. Dennis: Actually I look after the social economic empowerment program in the organization like you know it's not about just earning money but similarly how is the scenario in the home that is also equally important so that's why we believe in a family Centric approach so we take up a family like if just Suppose there are four people four
people in the family like father mother and two kids like father if he's doing something in agriculture then we have a solution of three days in agriculture training as well like we offer culture AP culture animal husband animal husbandry and dairy farming fishery poultry sheep and goat farming and it just give a solution in 3 days if mother is not doing anything then can we also train her into annimal husbandry now it it cannot be a difficult thing for her Our intention through this activities they should take their own decisions
DR. Dennis: So that's why the family Centric approach is very very critical there one thing which I have learned Dominic is you know at the end of the day whatever you do whatever you teach or preach to the people the ultimate thing is till it doesn't come into their own mind they will never change and what we can do for them we can just enable them right once we enable them then they go onto the empowerment phase on their own means they start taking their own decisions you know where to go what to do where to spend money otherwise earlier we had to tell them where to spend money what to do and probably with this effort they are going going up very nicely as I was talking about the SAG and similarly we have started nearly nine group entrepreneurships in this in that area like of course with Titan we have started a chips making unit just last year this year we have started a millet energy bar unit as well and very proudly telling that you know probably the outer world may say hey what you can do by by selling chips but the same women are actually selling worth more than 50,000
DR. Dennis: Rupees per month today and they broken even and they they have broken even now so and now what we see our NSR next is just a net profit which they have to calculate but again that's not easy like you know in group dynamics whenever we start so initially form then they storm this they fight with each other then they reform once they reform they perform and later they transform so we want them to take up to the transformation phase right like typical scenario a few days ago because now it's summer going on and you know water is a crisis even in Bangalore also I think same scenario in HD Kota as well though because because it's a deciduous forest entire Forest is dried up so there is SAGU who had put up the water for the people to drink now they have spent the money from their from their own pocket nobody told
DR. Dennis:Them so it's a self motivation or inspiration within them and that is a probably a phase of transformation we talk about when they start thinking about others when they start thinking about their own Hamlet when they start thinking about how to stop the alcohol within the tribal Hamlet and we have to keep on you know working and reinforce whatever we do and probably the success is not far so this year we have trained 3,200 youth across Karnataka Pradhana Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana as well as the national skill Development Corporation last year or before last year the data was pretty bad but this year it's okay like the PM KVY has reached 55 percentage of the placement rate from whatever they do in terms of the livelihood but proudly saying that you know our livelihood Center across Karnataka is reaching out 80 more than 85% wow means out of 100 people who are training 85 are getting you know placed and they earning the livelihoods
JJ Dominic: Super
DR. Dennis: And I always tell the story like you know a boy came to Bangalore working in in an industry you know getting a good amount of nearly 30,000 rupees and he thought that what the hell I'm doing here he just came back he has a small land there he took 16 cows and you know we had visited the boy last month and you know smile was telling the entire thing there you know at that point in time only nine cows were giving milk and when I asked him his net profit that you know how much you earn out of nine cows right now I thought it must be 30 - 40,000 okay but he said I'm earning 1.5 lakhs my goodness this is just from the nine cow's milk and and he told that four four more cows are pregnant and once they start giving milk I will be fetching easily you know 1.8 to 1.9 lakhs per month
JJ Dominic: Wow
DR. Dennis: And he challenged me that just tell me if any Microsoft or any software company can you know give that much of salary to any employee
JJ Dominic: You're giving lot of ideas for viewers now yeah that's amazing so not just giving them a livelihood but making them entrepreneurs so that they can actually provide job for
DR. Dennis: I forgotten to tell you so he has actually kept a West Bengali family with him so he is actually already an entrepreneur so two husband wife and a young kid already working under him and he is paying them a healthy salary of 20 to 25,000 awes with free accommodation and food great
JJ Dominic: What are your few ideas or business ideas which you would want to give not just for people who are in the fringes of the forest but even otherwise who want to begin something on their own yeah
DR. Dennis: I just just give gave you an example of you know how Nikhil is earning
1.5 lakhs out of the cows so similarly we have many such examples like you know we have courses of mobile repair where a person started in a typical area of Bategari has four shops now thanks to Titan actually to giving us an opportunity to train that boy
JJ Dominic: How much time does it take to get it
DR. Dennis: It just took one month and goodness yeah just just a month he started a shop and now he has four Shops and and you will not believe but his total earning is is coming around 2.5 lakhs and so this is a mobile repair then similarly we have electrician course where you know we have many entrepreneurs right we have six seven such or nine Group entrepreneurships which already have because in Village level as I was telling you about the youth you know bringing discipline in them is a challenge so number one what we do is we bring lots of discipline in them second timesense keeping them fit Fitness is very very important start thinking and use a brain more and more that what he can do next what he can do next so our entire curriculum of is built with this sort of you know a typical or difficult challenges for them
DR. Dennis: So it's not just a classroom based sessions but at the same time you know bringing them out from their comfort zone bringing more and more self-confidence within them and all the youth who come to us are without self-belief to be honest they have self-belief but we need to ignite it back like as I was telling we have three different varieties of courses which we offer like we have fashion designing beautician mobile repair electrician then yeah all those courses in non- agriculture in agriculture as I already told you and in education related activities also we do because we have a luxury of forest as well as luxury of Hospital in that area so we have a courses which are related to the medical field so we have a punch Karma therapist in yoga Basics we have general duty assistant as well as the the home nursing so this courses are long-term courses which take a bit more to brainstorm
JJ Dominic: How much time does
DR. Dennis: It takes around four to six months time for all these courses but we have campus interviews you will not believe so though we are located in the forest six different companies comes from Bangalore they do the campus interviews like how they do it for the Ians so that gives us lots and lots of you know happiness when these companies come to the Village do the interviews in the forest of this Youth and take them back I will just give you an example of the chips making unit which we started with title just a year ago now right like out of 10 women of course all are tribal all are Jenu Kurbas, jenu kurbas itself is a vulnerable Community but in being a Jenu Kurbas if you are if you have lost the husband you are the most vulnerable there so you have chose six such women
DR. Dennis: And four youth you know a literate youth who can actually write the Books you know because somewhere somehow we have to start so we have six widows and four youth working with us right now now they are going and Men dominant area all female tribal going negotiating with the farmers you know in purchasing banana tapioca jack fruit all those stuffs and you know negotiating with them fighting with them for the cost that hey we can just pay this hiring an auto putting all those stops in the auto bringing everything together and you know I think that itself shows lots and lots of empowerment and we have pulled it off now from this year onward that I think we'll get more and more and good tasty tasty chips in in future
JJ Dominic: Very all those chips on your shoulder I'm sure that
DR. Dennis: So that's how actually the business starts up and and I think all the business which we had started up for with lots of difficulties but all of them are doing good because of the initial enablement and later empowerment
JJ Dominic: So another happy thing which I want to discuss here is the kind of partnering Titan and SVYM is having so when I when I see the space of intersection between these two organizations I find there's lots and lots of tighteners in SVYM yes the the value driven people and the unconditional positive regard for people putting people in the center on everything those things so what is your thoughts on partnering with Titan
DR. Dennis: Yes so we have successfully completed 10 years now and proudly say that we work with Titan because as you rightly said the the wavelength which suits a lot and I think you know the values matches a lot Shridhar role is very very critical you know his ideas and his thoughts actually in taking the entire thing forward and Titan has also came from the core SVYM has also came from the core from the Grassroots and you know merging up together for the sake of humanity or as a partner I always treat them as a family like because it's not just criticizing that you're not doing this or you you're not funding properly rather than probably putting the minds together thinking through you know come up with ideas together and implement it together and cherish the smile which is coming onto the community's faces I think that's important and we are really enjoying the partnership of Titan and we would like to enjoy it further as well
JJ Dominic: So Dennis so now we come to the most interesting part of this episode towards the closure so I'm going to give you two bullets you can fire at me
DR. Dennis: You are Arm forces guy man so
JJ Dominic: You know I become old see the spe yeah and I get an opportunity to fire back at you so we'll start with me so there'll be two questions for you
DR. Dennis: Sure sure
JJ Dominic: The first question is quickly tell me three kannada words Nanu ninna preeti suthene doesn't count
DR. Dennis: okay yeah I would rather talking or giving kannada words talking English yeah so I will say beta kurbas words actually so they call put Puta means mude the ragi balls they regularly eat so puta asa means uta aytha second is ada puta means chapati and third one is nich means rice
JJ Dominic: out of syllabus what is beer in that kurba language
DR. Dennis: Which beer you talking about
JJ Dominic: I I'm not taking it okay that that brings me to the next question so what are those interesting animals you have encountered
DR. Dennis: i' seen everything My first but most remembered encounter with Wildlife was I was on a motor bike around just 5:30 in the evening and you know there was a leopard know bindas say laid on the road in fact I had gone just 10 ft near to him and suddenly you know it it just got up and then I thought it was dog but suddenly the leopard got up and you know I was Shell Shocked I just put The break I stopped the vehicle yeah it was scary but suddenly just went inside so that was a most deadliest encounter for me not not for the leopard for for me it was and second if I just remember you know I was just passing through a road it was 7:30 and and elephant was just standing near the road so people from the opposite end were stopping me trying to stop me stop there stop there stop there but I I just did not look at them I was just on my own traveling then I asked people hey what happened and then they just put the torch on onto the elephant yeah and then I saw the elephant is there so I had multiple times Tigers leopards Bears deers different varieties of snakes yeah everything wild buffalos so Indian Gaurs everything
JJ Dominic: Okay Dr Dennis now I have woren my bullet rest bulletproof rest
DR. Dennis: Thank you so much for making remember yeah giving me an opportunity
Dominic so yeah you have been you had been into the Armed Forces so probably first question I should ask you is what is your most memorable posting in your entire career
JJ Dominic: I would say Manipur so most of the times I was deployed in Naga areas in manipur so the food is awesome because you not even once I knew what I was eating so I also made it a practice that I don't ask the people who are serving me what they are serving me I eat and after that I ask because you know what is there in the I know if you get to know you will not eat so that that's the most interesting piece I would I remember
DR. Dennis: But I feel at the same time I should ask what was your most forgetful posting which which you do not like to remember
JJ Dominic: for politically incorrect for me to answer that
DR. Dennis: No but me you personally like
JJ Dominic : I I like lot of things about the Western sector but in summer it's a bad place to be so I would like give a generic answer that West your side of the country right right okay
DR. Dennis: So you are in Armed Forces now you are working in Titan if I just ask you quickly what you would pick like an admin or a CSR
JJ Dominic: So to be candid Dennis right now it's appraisal time here and my appraisal are sitting with the CPO and not with NES now so I would pick admin okay now and my other faith is NES is not being so techsavvy he might be watching this episode so admin.
DR. Dennis: But I would I would suggest you Dom that better you be in CSR
JJ Dominic: I would be
DR. Dennis: Because you are a very good human being that's why and we need a good human beings who can understand the social part of it so better contins that's my suggestion.
JJ Dominic: Thank thanks a lot thank you very Dr Dennis and the entire Titan family joins me in thanking you for all the service you have been doing in those remote tribal Villages of the bandipur reserve yeah
DR. Dennis: Thank you so much Dominic to you as well and the entire Titan company for you know giving us an opportunity to serve as I told you know Money Matters and not just money probably the the the think tank which Titan provides at at the same time I think it also matters a lot for us and very happy to be honest and let's take this journey for thank you yes thank you so much thank you.
