Welcome to our Website

Saksham Project (Community Intervention) : At a glance

With the aims to facilitate an encouraging and enabling environment for the realization of child rights and improve the circumstances of living in rural and urban setting in Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh, the project “Saksham”, The Empowered Community has been commenced from July 2008. Geographically, the project covers 70 villages of Chiraigaon and Cholapur Block and 30 slums of Varanasi District. A majority of target group belongs to schedule caste, schedule tribes and backward caste. The primary target groups are children and the families of children have been focused as secondary beneficiaries under this project .

Objective:

• To organize and sensitize the community members towards child rights and facilitate building up of system and mechanisms to ensure protection of rights of the children.

• To increase capacity of the community systems and structures for protection and improvement of the circumstances and of the right of the children.

• To provide formal and non formal education to the children from marginalized community and in difficult situation.

• To develop approaches in strengthening community based health systems and mechanism to achieve the objective of healthy environment.

• To facilitate utilization of indigenous skills and knowledge to identify better livelihood options.

• To provide social advocacy for children’s agenda and mainstream the issue of child rights in government policies and programmes.

Activities and Achievements:

1. Formation and strengthening of Community based Organization.

a. Community Mobilization Meeting

In order to have a collective action from different stakeholders among the community it is essential to organize different segments of the society which is expected to play an important role in the whole process. In order to have a greater impact among the community we intervened with the family and the community member. We conducted various house hold visits, small group interactions and meetings with community people. In this process 497 community meetings conducted, where 3361 female and 2023 male members participated during the meeting.

Issues concern to social evils like alcoholism, gambling, child marriage and problems related to education, health, women and children, drinking water, roads, electricity and improper implementation of government schemes were discussed among the community members in the meeting. Information related to govt. schemes like BPL, NREGA, Balika Bidyadhan Yojna, Sabitri Bai Fule Bidyadhan Yojna, Matritwa Labh Yojna etc was also shared with villagers during the meeting.

b. Formation and strengthening of Bal Adhikar Manch

100 Bal Adhikar Manch(Elderly people’s group) have been formed, where 2175 (female- 1260 and male-female members, 20-21 members in each manch joined hand to take action with regards to ensure their children’s right and entitlements. Broadly the focus of this forum is to protect child rights by creating a peer pressure on each other through a collective voice. These forums is also act as a regulatory body on various acts of violation of child rights in their respective areas

c. Formation and strengthening of Bal Manch

In order to provide a forum to express their feelings as well as to nurture the creativity of children in and around the project area 100 children’s forums (Bal Manch) have been formed and there are 1278 girls and 1167 boys total 2425 members in the 100 Bal Manchs . These forums have their independent identity in the village without interference of the elderly people. These forums play a lead role in providing child right to each and every child in their respective areas with the help of the project team members and Bal Adhikar Manch.

d. Formation of Children Network.

In order to create pressure on the local administration and on the parents to bring about sensitivity towards issues of children Cluster, Block and district level Children Network has been formed. The formation of the Children’s network has been done by the members of the Bal Manch. In the block level network, representation from each and every village has been ensured and accordingly from all blocks representation will be ensured in the district level network. This network is not only demonstrating the strength of the children but also plays a lead role in sensitizing administration and decision makers towards child rights. There are 30-40 members at Block level Network and 100 members at District level Network.

e. Formation and strengthening of Self Help Group.

To promote socio-economic empowerment process among the deprived community members we have formed 12 Self Help Groups in our reference villages. Each group consists 12 to 15 members. As per groups norms they maintain all documents and process of functioning the group.


2. Training and Capacity Building:

a. Training of Bal Adhikar Manch members on Child Right

To create common understanding among the members on child rights and role and responsibility of Community Based Institution (BAM) in respect of insuring child right, sensitize the members about the child rights issues and develop child centered program and strategies to address the identified problems in their villages we conducted 10 trainings of BAM members on Child Rights. 147 female and 174 male total 321 participants participated in these trainings.

b. Training of Bal Adhikar Manch members on Quality Education

To Create common understanding among the BAM members on concept of quality education, different dimensions and factors affective Quality Education BAM in respect of creating favorable environment to insure quality education and sensitize the members about the child rights issues specially right to education, we conducted 10 trainings on Quality education for the BAM members where 171 female and 162 male total 333 participants participated in the programme.

c. Training of Bal Manch Memnbers on Child Right

To create a common understanding among the BM members on child rights and their role and responsibility in respect of insuring child right in their village and to develop understanding the environment that hinders child development and protection, 10 trainings on Child Rights for BM members were conducted. 113 girls and 233 boys, total 346 BM members participated in the program.

d. Training of Adhikar Manch member on Food Processing and Preservation.

To promote livelihood options and enhance the skill and knowledge on food processing and preservation among the BAM members for proper utilization of local resources for income generation, we conducted 2 trainings of Food processing and preservation, so that they can generate or increase family income and improve their economic status. 72 women BAM members participated in these training programs.


3. Net working and Advocacy

a. Government-Community Interface

In order to build relationship and coordination among the community and government officials, to share and exchange the knowledge and information related to village problems, plans and government schemes and to promote and facilitate proper implementation of government schemes we conducted 3 Government-Community Interface Workshops at Block level. In these workshops 484 community members, BAM members, different stakeholders, civil society members, Govt. officials participated.

b. Teachers- Community Interface

Through Teacher Community Interface Workshops we aim to establish a constructive dialogue process wherein matters related to school in general and the quality of education in particular can be raised and mutually discussed. This process helps us in achieving the appropriate “learning environment” in the school so that the issues of mutual accountability are underlined, discussed and resolved. We conducted 12 Teacher-community Interface Workshop with 373 community members and school teachers.

c. Rally on Child Rights

To promote public discussion on child right issues and involve the community to protect right of the children, we organized 56 village level rallies on child rights where 4378 participants including BM and BAM members participated.

d. Mass Mobilization

In order to make the larger community aware and mobilize them towards protection of child rights issues, 64 village level mass mobilization program were organized and 5212 participants participated in this activities.


4. Direct support to Community members:

a. Organizing Health Camp and Health Awareness Programme.

In order to create health and hygiene awareness among the marginalized community and to promote preventive and curative measure among the community, we organized 36 health Camps. Through these camps 1235 children, 818 female and 801 male patients were treated and provided medicine to them. Through these camps patients as well as community people were made aware about the different diseases, its causes and preventive masseurs. 64 chronic disease patients were linked with govt. and non govt. health facilities.

b. Life Skill Education and Development Centre.

In order to create an environment towards ensuring right to education of not-school going and dropout slums and rural children, to provide basic and quality education to them and to encourage and mainstream the disadvantage community and children towards quality life and education, we are running 10 Life Skill Education and Development Centre in different slums of varanasi. Through these centres 252 children (142 girls and 110 boys) are getting primary education.


5. Research and documentation

a. Situation Analysis

In order to develop an in-depth understanding about the various forms of child rights violation and underlying causes for this act we conducted analysis of the project area. The primary data was be collected by the team through intensive field visits where as the secondary data was collected from the various published and authentic documents of the state, center and relevant institutions and government offices. The collected data was compiled and analyzed by the experts. The final report was presented to the team and district administration for necessary suggestions and guidance.

b. Study of Child Abuse and Violence against Children

In the process of working on child protection issues and to create a common understanding on various forms of violence against children to develop community based and managed systems and mechanisms of child protection, we conducted a study on child abuse and violence against children. This study covered the project villages with an appropriate sample size. The study was done by the research and document cell of the organisation, which comprised of senior professionals from various institutions having vast experience of conducting various research and documentation.

c. Developing livelihood perspective Plan.

In order to have a clear perspective of the local context on livelihood we are developing village level micro plan. We have developed micro level village plan in 8 villages. With the help of village level micro plan a perspective plan for the livelihood of marginalized people will be formulated and submitted to related govt/non-govt agencies.