tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-203302562011-11-28T06:14:37.097+05:30After a decade of working with rural development organizations in Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa (1995-2005), we decided to take the time to travel around the country, visit organizations and understand different contexts and responses to poverty and under development. An effort also to understand the challenges that NGOs face today. Ayanam was supported by a fellowship from the National Foundation for India, New Delhi.Jayahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10299459711394236126noreply@blogger.comBlogger171100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20330256.post-81861641468568541782007-06-14T09:59:00.000+05:302007-10-27T16:06:38.680+05:30

In our decade-long work with development organisations one significant issue on which we saw a range of different responses has been the attitude of NGOs towards government and its financial resources. While we ourselves were part of some of these situations, some others, we have been able to observe from a distance. This note is an effort to develop an understanding of the causes and

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‘Voluntarism’ or ‘voluntary action’ is most evident at the community level, where men and women engage in a range of activities aimed at community good, without expectations of commensurate individual gains. Village level volunteers forming part of village management committees and demonstrate high levels of initiative in mobilizing the community and ensuring progress of projects/ tasks. They

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In our encounters with development organisations and movements, workers and activists, we have come across a wide range of responses. These have been shaped by the socio-economic and political contexts, but also to a great extent by the proclivities of the leadership which initiated these responses. Over the years, these have grown in size and their ‘impact’ is visible in varied hues. What is

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AT (India) or ATI works in the upper Himalayan regions of Uttaranchal, promoting and supporting small enterprises that draw upon the vast natural resources of the region. ATI works with self help groups in the villages, through a system of service/input providers and establishes market linkages for the products. ATI has developed a complete package of services to support oak tasar production.

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Grassroots is short for Pan Himalayan Grassroots Development Foundation. Wish there was some way to shorten the 120 steps, along roughly 200 metres drop, that one has to negotiate to reach their office in the outskirts of Ranikhet. Going down is easy, but climbing back, oh! forget it. Grassroots has been around since 1992, ever since the Pauls, Kalyan and Anita, moved to Ranikhet, the cantonment

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Aarohi means ascent. For a plain ‘plains-fellow’ like me, the mere act of climbing up to reach Aarohi is an event in itself. Nestled in the Central Himalayan mountains, in the north-east corner of Nainital district is the village of Satoli. From most parts of the village, one gets a panoramic view of the Uttaranchal Himalayas – snow-capped peaks in the northern horizon, some fifteen peaks

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“Its yesterday once more”, the famous song of the Carpenter’s whirled around in my head as we drove from Udaipur to Jhabua. Eleven years ago, IRMA had sent twelve of us, wide eyed and curious students to Jhabua for an ‘induction’ into the world of rural development. We discovered when we returned to IRMA, shorn of all romantic notions of rural India and village life, having survived on what

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When Sankar Datta told us about the genesis of voluntary organisations in India in his course at IRMA, he would reel off names of people and institutions, pioneers who had influenced the course of development action in the country. We learnt of Bunker Roy and SWRC then. In the years since we left IRMA, we continued hearing about SWRC and the Barefoot College, about Bunker and his disdain for ‘

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Sometime in the early 80s, four angst ridden young men took a bus from Jaipur, in the direction of Alwar, deciding to get off at the place where the bus terminated. It happened to be Kishori-Bhikampura, off Thanagazi. Illiteracy, they thought, was at the root of poverty, and started teaching children, while at the same time building contacts with sceptical villagers. Then a wise old man told

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What does it take to sit on a cot or a “khat” as it is known in Rajasthan? Apparently a lot, if you belong to the wrong caste. In Achalpura village near the small town of Bhadesar in Chittaurgarh district, a dalit boy dared to sit on a khat belonging to a Rajput. All hell broke loose, the boy was beaten up. Many organisations working in the area took up the cudgels in favour of the boy and

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“We will protect our forests, whatever may come” – Village Madla, Jhadol“As long as there are people, there will be encroachments” – Village Piplimala, Jhadol“These forests are not our responsibility, why should we protect them?“– Village Adivada, Kotra“We do not have enough land, but we do not want to cut trees or sell them” – Village Hansleta, KotraThese are samples of what we heard when we

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Perhaps it’s just as well that we had a task beyond just looking at the organisation and attempting to understand it. The ‘forest rights’ issue provided a frame with which we were able to view Seva Mandir, its position and interplay in the complex institutional web in Rajasthan, or at least in Udaipur. Udaipur can well claim to be the development capital of Rajasthan. Along ‘Seva Mandir Marg’ in

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Manendragarh would not have been on our map, but for Samir Garg a friend from our IRMA days. Together with his wife Sulakshana, they have initiated what they loosely term the Koriya Initiative, working on community health and the public distribution system. Both had come through several years in the PRADAN-model of development, promoting rural livelihoods, questioning the efficacy of this

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Kesla block, Hoshangabad district in Madhya Pradesh could well qualify as a hotbed of cooperation, at least, of co-operatives. Here we saw two quite different styles of co-operative organisations, quite different from the ‘Anand-pattern’ cooperatives.The older of the two, Tawa Matsya Sangh (TMS), deals with fish. It is registered under the old co-operative Act of the State, which means it is

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ir bole hum SHG banayen, bir bole hum SHG banayen batte bole hum SHG banayen aur hum banayen ‘sakhi samiti’(with due apologies to Amitabh Bachchan and Samir Garg)That, and ‘murga farm’ was what we had heard about PRADAN at Kesla, before we got here. From Khandwa we came to Itarsi and took a 45 minutes ride in a rickety 14-seater jeep to Suktawa. Over the next few days, we learnt that there was

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‘It was a humbling experience’ - a cliché that came to mind, as Bhagaban bhai said “good night” and drove off in the jeep. We waved and left to take the short walk to the comfortable hotel room. He, to share a floor with his comrades, their numbers changing every night, in a modest accommodation in Khandwa. Bhagaban bhai, fondly called ‘dada’, is among the foot soldier-cum-generals of the Narmada

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Taking a distanceLooking back, the choice to work with voluntary organizations in the field of rural development was, for both of us something that we did not consciously plan for. In the overwhelming mainstream this was not an option that was considered and discussed as we went through the phase of ‘education’ and thinking about our careers. Yet, with several influences along the way, there was

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