For the first time after the Covid-19 pandemic, Caritas India has organized an in-person induction for more than a dozen new staff to learn from the management and programme leads about the functioning of Caritas India in the social development sector.

All 31 new joiners were identified and 26 attended the induction at Caritas India Head Office from November 14-16, 2022. The sessions were customized keeping in view the current organizational requirements and the participant’s demography, experience etc.  

Caritas India Executive Director Fr. (Dr.) Paul Moonjely said we drive our inspiration from the Catholic Faith, not by conversion but by incorporating human values. 

He welcomes all the new staff and oriented them with the organizational culture and its different departments working since 1962 for the welfare of the most marginalized community.  

“A professional is one with the right knowledge, skills and attitude,” said Fr. Paul. He was sharing his thoughts on bringing professionalism to work and the social sector. He explained the difference between all three qualities and how these qualities create progressive and innovative personalities.  

He also mentioned the different skills needed in the NGO work life including Communication, Observation, Reporting, Technical, and social skills. Sharing about the Methodological Skills, he outlined different skills like Baseline, Data Collection, PCM, Project Cycle Management, LFA and MEAL needed to bring quantitative and qualitative results. He insisted the new joiners to work on their presentation skills while sharing their work and results preempting the prospective responses.

Fr. (Dr.) Jolly Puthenpura, the Assistant Executive Director talked about Catholic Social Teaching (CST), the principle-oriented approach of Caritas India which has been in practice for 1300 years. He shared the four fundamental principles of CST i.e. (Human Dignity, Subsidiarity, the Common Good and Solidarity) and seven supplementary principles of Dignity, Solidarity, Common good, Option for the Poor, Peace, Care for Creation and the dignity of work and participation.

The administrative aspects of Caritas India were shared by Fr. Sushil Modi, where he spoke on the importance of participation and accountability traits needed in the organization to engage and owned the process. Bring more accountability aspects, he mentioned keeping track of emails, advocacy, liaisoning, custodianship, strategic plans etc. He concluded his session with a quote from Pope Francis where he says, “Your mission is to promote Charity and Justice in the world in the light of the gospel and teaching of the Church by involving the poor as true protagonists of their development.”

The strategic plan of Caritas India was introduced to the staff by Ms. Shimray Mungreiphy by explaining the Key Strategic Pillars of Empowering Animation, Dialogue, Sharing Communities and Volunteering. She shared that the community is the centre stage of all our development and strategic interventions. The strategic plan focuses mostly on the marginalized and disadvantaged communities for its response including Tribals, Dalits, Women, Children, Marginal Farmers, Informal Sector Workers, Religious Minorities, Youth and Middle Class, PLWDs/PLHIV, Old aged.

The strategic thematic focus is the backbone of any organisation, Caritas India works on six thematic priorities, Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Adaptive Agriculture & Food Sovereignty, Livelihood and Skill Development, Anti Human Trafficking and Migration, Peace Building, and Health and Nutrition. The Head of programmes, Mr. Ghanshyam Jethwa inducted on different thematic focuses, their relevance, and their objectivity. He shared the rich partnership of 174 diocesan social service societies, For a’s and other like-minded organisations working with Caritas India across the nation. He brought out the importance of budgeting, mapping expenses and dealing with crosscutting issues. 

The new staff gave more attention to the administrative finance and programme finance induction. Mr. Bobby Koshi and Ms. Jancy Mathew, the Administrative Finance and Programme Finance lead oriented on the legal financial procedures and processes. The new FCRA requirements, balance and checks related to financial matters. 

Procurement is an important aspect of any programme which comes under the administration. Ms. Rekha Biswas, Associate Administration shared the role of the procurement department, the inter-dependent role of programme and procurement, the billing and expenditure, expense allocation and the process of procurement.

Mr. Patrick Hansda, Lead-Public Relations and Communications oriented the staff on the role of communications in the organisation. He introduced the organizational branding guidelines, communication processes, roles and responsibilities of communication and the programmes, and different verticals including print and digital. He also shared some of the recent communication outcomes of the department. 

Some of the topics covered apart from the conventional topics of policies, processes and systems were conducted by Mr. Kushal Neogy from Catholic Relief Services on the topics of team building, communication, and performance expectations management. The difference this time during the execution of this session was in the approach of highlighting the bottlenecks in execution and real-life cases as the major focal point. A refresher session as an extension of this session is also being deliberated to keep the engagement with the employees ongoing.