Any development project having a wide focus must face the challenge of deciding its priorities carefully with community participation. There are many needs of people and the resources are limited. There are pressures from the more influential sections to give more attention to them. The development project must not only be able to resist such pressures but in addition also be able to involve genuinely needy people in taking important decisions regarding priorities and the best possible utilization of available resources.
Thanks to the caution and wisdom exercised in selecting priorities and programs based on participative community responses regarding real needs, within a short time a project called HRIDAY (Holistic Rural Initiatives for Development Action and Yield) has been able to influence the lives of a significant number of people in project area in very positive ways at multiple levels within a relatively short period of about three and a half years. In this project, implemented in 10 villages of Hussainabad block of Palamau district (Jharkhand), various programs have been structured in such a way that a household can avail its benefits at different levels which together add up to very important gains and new opportunities.
Thus in the case of the family of Usha Devi whom I met recently in Mahuari village, she as a member of a self-help group could make savings and take low-interest loans from the group to meet bigger family expenses, such as those relating to her daughter’s marriage recently, without having to take high interest loans from moneylenders. Goat rearing taken up as a part of this project helped her to meet other expanses from receipts of goat sales, apart from gifting a goat each to her daughter and to her own maternal home. Fruit tree plants helped to improve her kitchen garden. Children learnt more at HRIDAY’s balwadi and a grown up daughter got employment in a new enterprise. She has only a little land, but this could experience productivity gains thanks to the improved methods promoted under the program. Taken together these gains add up to a lot of gains that have brought new hope to this low resource, OBC household of a remote village.
In another hamlet of the same village, Lalita Devi improved her skills to become the accounts keeper for a self-help group. Her son Rohit went to a coaching center started by the project and later started teaching other children. This family benefited also from farming and goat rearing programs to increase earnings.
As I entered the dalit basti (hamlet) of Basari village, I saw a solar powered drinking water station along with a bathing room for ladies constructed very close to this. Dhanmaniya said, “This has really been a big help. We do not have to go far for fetching water and the women here can have their bath in complete privacy any time.” As we walked further ahead in the lane, I saw other water-sources that had been improved in various ways. Women organized under self-help groups said they had benefited from savings initiatives and goat-rearing as well as from the improved basic facilities.
The anganwdi child-care centre in Mangal Dih village was not in a condition that could attract small children, and so hardly any children came here. The HRIDAY project arranged for bright wall painting, colorful toys and better seating arrangements and within a few days children were quickly finding their way to the new-look anganwadi. Now the average attendance of children on any day is around 30, the caretaker said.
As these examples indicate, the HRIDAY project with its emphasis on holistic development covers a wide range of initiatives in areas like strengthening of sustainable livelihoods with special emphasis on farming and finding additional employment opportunities for women, health and hygiene, education and vocational skills, drinking water, solar energy and better access to various development schemes of the state as well as the central government. While the program covers all people, women and weaker sections are prioritized.
Each of these areas in turn involves several kinds of interventions. In the context of health, for example, improving maternal health and menstrual hygiene has received special attention. What people have really appreciated is the availability of two ambulances which are willing to come almost right up to their door step. These ambulances do not only carry patients to the nearest hospital but in addition are willing to take them further away to bigger hospitals in cities like Ranchi if required. In addition health camps organized at village-level have been helpful for people.
The usefulness of these programs for people is also evident from the fact that they have been quite willing to contribute their partial share of resources that is required for some of the benefits (like getting assets for self-employment).
This project has been implemented by Sahbagi Shikshan Kendra (SSK), a voluntary organization known for its community-based work as well as for capacity enhancement of other organizations and groups. This project has been implemented with the support of LIC Housing Finance Limited and provides a fine example of what CSR funds, if sincerely and wisely utilized, can contribute even in a relatively short time. Sanjeev Charaborty, team leader says, “There have been many-sided initiatives in this project taken up with a holistic vision and while the success rate has been high, each and every initiative cannot be expected to be a big success and in cases of efforts where we have less than expected success, often due to factors beyond our control, we take these as learning experiences.”
Amit Singh, coordinating manager says, “Apart from meeting felt needs of people, we envisaged this project also in terms of providing a vision of where moving forward guided by needs and aspirations of people takes us in terms of progress and the wider lesson emerging from this that can be useful in terms of wider rural development challenges in the country.”
Ashok Kumar Singh, Founder Director of SSK says, “Our effort has been to emphasize the weaker sections and the poor the most. Even in neutral development tasks, sometimes the rich and influential persons object. When quite a few goats were being provided to the poorer households under this project, some of the bigger farmers objected saying that these will create problems for our crops. However in such cases we simply ignored such unreasonable criticisms, and went ahead with our priorities.”
However as team leader Sanjeev and other team members agree, it can be a challenge to involve the poorest as they often do not have land for farm based initiatives and savings for self-help groups. Nevertheless it is heartening to see that even when limited help could reach them for their small holdings, some good results could be achieved on their farmland and some dalit women came up with their self-help group with a smaller monthly saving.
While the more visible signs of the project’s impact can be seen in solar water pumps and solar water stations, solar street lighting and brightly painted schools, the less visible but deeper impacts can be found in the many sided strengthening of community ties as seen in farmers’ groups, women’s self-helps groups, kishori samoohs (groups of adolescent girls) and youth groups.
A special strength of this project relates to the close ties of team members with people. Moving around the villages with project team members like Naushaba and Aarti I was impressed time and again with the very close community ties they and other team members have successfully created. Having crated such a strong base, it would be a pity if several useful initiatives are not taken further. Hence the project should continue for a longer time, with an even stronger emphasis on the poorest 20 per cent of the households and on environment protection including natural farming.
While of course such projects are best guided by participative decision making, it is also important to try to expand the horizons of community members and team members in terms of development thinking and challenges so that even more creative and innovative solutions, including out-of-box solutions which have not been frequently tried, can emerge at least at experimental level. Hence the exposure, visits and training programs should emphasize such true horizons of thinking and vision. In these ways the entire effort can become more even more exciting and creative.
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*The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include "Protecting Earth for Children", "Planet in Peril", "A Day in 2071" and "India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food"
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