Fifty Years of Learning: Promoting Social Entrepreneurship and Institutions of the Poor
Fifty Years of Learning, a memoir by Aloysius Prakash Fernandez, founder of Myrada and later of Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services, recounts five decades of grassroots development work in rural India, beginning with the resettlement of Tibetan refugees (1968–1982) and four years with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), before turning to his core experience leading Myrada from 1982 to 2009. The book traces how Myrada built social entrepreneurship among its staff and promoted Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and other institutions owned and led by the poor themselves, arguing that lasting change requires investing patiently in people’s own institutions rather than imposing standardised, donor-driven templates. It documents the emergence of the SHG-Bank Linkage Program, Myrada’s watershed management work in dryland agriculture, the birth of Sanghamithra as a client-centric lender, and Myrada’s move toward becoming a network of financially self-reliant institutions. The volume closes with contributions from Myrada colleagues and long-time donor partners, along with reflections from figures including Ramesh Ramanathan and Vijay Mahajan on the organisation’s fifty-year legacy.
