The Genesis of IISD: a Cultural Heritage Story brought to you by Western Union
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Shomik Chaudhuri is a UN Representative for the Institute of International Social Development, a NetIP North America Alliance Partner.
I was born into privilege with my father heading the largest printing ink company in India and with my siblings, got schooling from La Martinere School, Kolkata, regarded as one of the best schools in India.
Yet, our parents made us conscious of the deprivation all around and service to humanity was made a priority during our leisure. So, along with our studies and training in various skills, arts, and sports, we also got to serve people who needed help.
My sister Rajyashree and I developed a passion for rendering service and got ourselves volunteering in a local NGO that had some affiliation with the United Nations. My mother, having done her thesis in United Nations related subjects for her Masters, inspired us to work with the United Nations. We transformed the local NGO into a national NGO with 23 branches within 6 years.
After a national conference organized by us with Jadavpur University on ‘Social Development and NGO Management’ in January 1995, came my biggest break when I was chosen to represent the United Nations System in India to the ‘World Summit for Social Development’ in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1995. I was the youngest person in UN history to represent the UN at a world summit.
My experience from the trip was an insight into the vastness of opportunities that existed in networking at the international level that could be used to better serve the underprivileged.
To fulfill our dreams back home, Rajyashree and I formed Institute of International Social Development (IISD) under Section 25 of The Indian Companies Act, 1956, as an international NGO that could work to bring about transformation in people’s lives in real terms through sincere, honest, professional grade work and service.
The NGO was formed in October 1996 and in January 1997 we organized the First International Conference on Values for a Better World which had speakers like Dr. Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, Nobel Laureates, among others.
To us values form the foundation of life and are essential for any work including developmental work to be fulfilling and sustainable. Our report from the conference is deemed as a valuable document at the United Nations on values even today.
We started on Project Sushiksha (Functional literacy) in the slums of Kolkata, slowly expanding into Project Suswasthya (Healthcare) and Project Shramdaan (employment generation). We also opened our branch in New York, U.S.A. in 1997.
Our projects, programs, workshops and other programs gave us the platform to seek Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the United Nations and we received this most prestigious Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the United Nations in October 2000. We are in the exclusive panel to recommend to the UN on various relevant issues based on which the world body would formulate their legislations.
From 2000, we also consciously framed every project to support the newly formulated Millennium Development Goals by the UN. That opened a whole new class of projects. Check www.iisd-ngo.org
