Workshop for Hearing-Impaired Children

On Monday 30th May 2011 Ekta hosted a workshop and training session for parents and care-givers who are responsible for hearing-impaired children.

The event was attended by many people from the surrounding tribal villages. The workshop was facilitated by Dipti Ranjan Sahoo, of Sanchar: A Society for Appropriate Rehabilitation of the Disabled.

Sharing of Village Plan Documents with Panchayat Bodies

On 24^th May 2011, Ekta’s People’s Empowerment to Access Rights for Livelihoods (PEARL) programme organised a meeting at Gadiaguda for village development committee members representing 24 villages from the Gram Panchayat. 61 people attended, and met with Abhinash Khora, the Gram Rozgar Sevok (GRS) for Gadiaguda. He is the appointed government worker who represented to the meeting. Besides that, 3 ward members of the Panchayat also participated in the meeting.

These 24 villages include 11 revenue villages and 13 hamlets. Prior to this meeting, each of the 11 revenue villages had prepared a Village Plan Document in their own villages with the participation & involvement of all villagers basing upon their various issues into consideration. The PEARL programme has facilitated villagers to prepare their own Village Development Plan. From these plans a shortlist of urgent problems was drawn up and sent to the Gram Panchayat through GRS.

These issues are:

• Availability of Below Poverty Line (BPL) Cards
• Availability of Job Cards
• Building of a cement-concrete road
• Access to electricity
• Education – Dumiriguda needs a school, while the GRS says that where there are schools 20% of students have dropped out
• Safe Drinking Water – They are demanding a new tube well as currently they are collecting drinking water from a nearby stream
• Old-age pensions
• Availability of sufficient medicines and other essential materials prior to the monsoon at villages
• Late payment of NREGA work
• Forest Land Rights
• Forestry planting on own land through MGNREGS. Crops desired are cashew and mangos
• Step-in bathing ghat – At the moment they are using the stream for bathing, and women in particular desire privacy.

At the meeting, the GRS announced that:

• If community members apply to Gram Panchayat, he will send job cards within 2 days.
  
• He will also send pensions to applicants within 2 months.
• Villagers can apply for Forestry planting on their own land by providing details of their proposed plantings, a copy of their voter ID card, and their land patta. The government will provide plants and payment.
• He assured the villagers that he would draw the attention of other line departments to the issues discussed in the meeting.

Village Development Plan Training for Padmapur GP

On 19th May - 21st May 2011 Ekta hosted a training session for Task Force members and Panchayat Raj Institions (PRIs) on Village Development Plans. The Participants were 40 Taskforce members, PRIs from Padmapur GP of Koraput Block, and the three-day event was held at the Centre for Participation and Learning (CPL), Duruguda, Koraput.

The objective behind this training was to (1) sensitize to PRIs and Task force member on preparation of village development plan (2) Approval this plan in a Palli Sabha (3) Sharing this plan with the Panchayat bodies and finally (4) Incorporate this plan into Block and District Plan through Gram Sabha.

Day-1 (19th May)

The training program was stated with the welcome address given by Miss Susmita Suna, Project Associate. Then the participants introduce them self after that Mr. Amit kumar Nayak, Project Coordinator, sharing the objective of the training program. He informs that after the training taskforce member and PRIs prepare VDP in their respective villages and incorporate in GP plan through approval in palli sabha. Mr. Durga Prasad Mohanty, President EKTA, focusing on development planning process, Gram Swaraj, provision under Panchayati Raj system, role of Palli Sabha and Gram Sabha.

The day-1 was covered only one tool i.e. Historical transect and Historical time line. These tools are important in VDP to know the village history.

Day-2 (20th May)

The tools i.e. Seasonality Map, Social Map and Resource Map were covered in the second day of training program.

Seasonality Map:

Through the Seasonality map one can know the agricultural pattern, employment (both Govt. and Private), lean period, Migration, Diseases (both Human and Animals), availability of NTFP (Non Timber of Forest Produces) status in a village throughout the year. Identify the problems, find out the root cause and prepare plan accordingly is the primary motto of this tool.

Social Map:

Social Map will help us to understand the demography profile of the village, status of entitlement holder under various government schemes and programs, Political status, employment opportunities and Migration etc. in the village. It is very much helpful during development planning.

Resource Map:

Resource Map will inform us to availability of village resource i.e. Forest (community forest dependency on NTFP), Water (stream, river), Land (up, middle, low and revenue land) etc. this tools help us to making a development plan through utilize the resources.

Day-3 (21th May)

In last day we discussed on identification of problem, Problem ranking, Priorities given on Problems, Future plan etc. The taskforce member and PRIs should take the lead role for making this Village Development Plan and approval it in Palli Sabha and Gram Sabha and finally they incorporate it in the District Plan.

When the discussion completed on the tools which are required for making VDP then future plan of action was prepared by the Participants.

The methodology during training program was presentation, Group exercise, Group presentation and Games. The trainer was Mr. Amit Kumar Nayak (Project coordinator), Miss Susmita Suna (Project Associate), Mamta Sahu and Mr. Ranjan Machha (Field assistant) who already participate TOT on Participatory Village Development Plan which was organized by CWS-ORC at Bilenjhore (Sahabhagi Vikas Abhijan (SVA), Sonpur Dist.)

People with Disabilities interface with Government

On 20^th May 2011 Ekta organised a District-level interface between People with Disabilities (PWDs) and Government Departments. The event was organised in collaboration with Spread, Word, KFA, IDS, Sahara and SEDP and was hosted at the Tribal Museum, Koraput.

The event enabled disabled people to raise a number of issues. These included the facts that:

• Out of 868 Children with disabilities, 378 are out of school

• 895 PWDs are without certificate.

• 1597 PWDs are without Disability Pension

• 928 are out of monthly PDS/BPL/APL/

• 2239 are not covered under IAY

• 1137 PWDS don't have Job cards

• 1% only involved in MGNREGS

The expectation of the joint organisations is that we should see:

• 100% certification

• 100% coverage of PWDs in Social security entitlements.

• 100% coverage of CWDs in School & quality education for CWDs

• Coverage of eligible PWDs in income generation programmes

• Special focus on PWDs on MGNREGS

• Revenue Land rights/Forest rights to eligible PWDs

• Barrier free public infrastructure in District

• 100% coverage of eligible PWDs under Free aid and appliances.

• Special focus of PWDs under RedCross fund for treatment

• Bus( private/Govt.) Pass to all PWDs

• Inclusion of PWDs in different committees/forum created by Govt.( from Village to district)

The event was covered The Hindu newspaper.

SLORP: System of Rice Intensification

For the last month, Ekta’s Sustainable Livelihoods Options for Rural Poor (SLORP) project has been working on a System of Rice Intensification in Tentuliguda.

Farmers such as Dhanapati, who is pictured here, have been trained on how to increase the productivity of their rice paddies. Ekta’s Binod Bagh has personally been working with 12 farmers in the village to encourage them to adopt improved farming techniques.