BAIF

BAIF Development Research Foundation has its roots in a nature cure ashram set up on the initiative of Ghandi in 1942 in Urulikanchan, a small town in Maharashtra near Pune. The Ashram was managed by Manibhai Desai. Following the philosophy of Gandhi to eradicate poverty among the rural population he successively added components to improve the livelihood of the rural poor. So BAIF was founded in 1967.

BAIF Today

Today BAIF runs 750 centres and services an area of one sixth of India. 2000 employees –among them over 100 professionals holding a doctor degree, a MBA or equivalents– contribute to BAIF’s research, training and servicing activities. The empowerment of women has become a central issue in the work of BAIF. Since a decade, BAIF promotes the founding of women self-help groups for this purpose. These self help groups (SHG) consist of 10-20 women and function as a saving and credit facility.

BAIF Health Insurance

BAIF uses these SHGs as a platform for training, capacity building and the flow of information on health and hygiene. Special attention is paid to reproductive health. Most of the clients of BAIF are agricultural workers, either on their own piece of land or on daily/weekly wages basis. The impact of severe illness on the prosperity of these households is high due to the direct costs of treatment as well the indirect costs like the loss of income. Beside the wealth effects the women in the SHGs complained that it is more difficult for them to claim the equal medical treatment as their husbands do in case of expensive illness. In 1998 BAIF decided to respond to this situation with a pilot project around their centre in Urulikanchan. They set up a health insurance in their own responsibility but hardly a year later judged the risk of this scheme to be too high. To serve the need, which still existed, in the best way possible they organized meetings with the SHGs to explain the concept of insurance and to explore the exact needs of the women towards health insurance.
BAIF negotiated with insurance companies a benefit package tailored to the needs of the women in the SHGs. Some time later BAIF decided to switch back to the mutual model again.

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