The Managing Director of Calcutta Rescue, Jaydeep Chakraborty, explains: "In October 2023, our second study on multidimensional poverty (MPI) will begin - a major and very important project for Calcutta Rescue."
Planned by the Calcutta Rescue Research Collaborative (CRRC) - a partnership between full-time and volunteer researchers and medical professionals around the world - 12,000 hours of interviews will be conducted with around 1,200 respondents in 25 slums over the next five months.
How did the first MPI studies help CR?
CR's first MPI survey in 2019 helped CR in many ways.
It revealed major differences in the extent of deprivation and poverty from slum to slum.
The exact problems in the individual slums were thus identified more precisely.
This enabled CR to focus its efforts and allocate resources to solve specific problems.
For example, the survey revealed that there was a significant lack of knowledge about family planning, hygiene and disease in many slums.
As a result, CR put together a small team called Outreach, which went to the communities to provide health education so that people could take better care of themselves and recognize health problems early on.
The MPI studies - an impact measurement tool and an effective communication tool
The MPI survey has provided CR with an impact measurement tool.
It is notoriously difficult to measure impact in our sector, but major donors are increasingly demanding proof of a social return on their investments. Regular MPI surveys in slum communities will provide hard evidence of both the extent of deprivation and our impact. CR is now able to use MPI data to build impact targets into many of its donor proposals, e.g. "CR will reduce deprivation in health indicators in these 6 slums by 50% in 5 years".
This survey is also a powerful communication tool.
Few organizations, especially as small as CR, collect such detailed information about the communities in which they work, and we have shared the anonymized data with stakeholders such as the government, other NGOs and academic institutions - with the aim of working with like-minded partners - to achieve common goals.
Collaboration with the University of Leeds
One example of this is the collaboration with the University of Leeds for the second MPI survey, which we are delighted to announce. Dr. Suman Seth, an expert in this field, is working with the CRRC to shape the way we conduct the survey.
Comparison with the national Indian MPI
The main objectives remain the same this time. However, there is some additional analytical work - we compare the results of this survey with those of the 2019 survey and want to compare our results with the national Indian MPI. This will allow us to compare the conditions in the slums of Kolkata with the national and regional data.
The CRRC also worked closely with CR's medical team to gather more specific health-related information this time - data that will inform our medical interventions in the future.
Conducting a survey of this size is a huge task. It requires great team coordination across many departments and involves many people, including our foreign volunteers, Indian interns and CR staff.
It's a big challenge, but we're looking forward to it and to sharing the results with you in about 6 months!