ADP MALDA

BACK GROUND:

Lakhripir is a village of tribal. 87 families reside in the village.

World Vision helped the villagers to start SHG. 13 of the male members hesitantly started the SHG in 2003. They named the SHG as Marsalbati SHG. The group is a homogeneous group. All the members are tribal and fall under BPL category. It cannot be mixed group due to the directive and guideline laid by the Government. Like-minded members are the members of the Self help Group. They maintain fee book, minute register, cashbook, Bank account and passbook, Loan register.

All members have very good inter- relationship. The present leader is running the group efficiently. He is class ten appeared. The meeting is conducted once in a week (Wednesday). If 80% of the members are not present no meeting will be held.

The SHG members say that main purpose of the formation of this SHG is to get away from the clutches of mahajan (Money lender).To decrease the migration is another objective. In the long run we want to see our children well educated for better jobs. (Source FGD with Marsalbati SHG)

To start with in 2005 World Vision (ADP Malda) helped them to plan a project that will help the group as well as engage the entire community in some productive work. World Vision conducted series of PLA exercises with the group as well as the village. It was noted that the village has 87 families where children under 15 are 123 in numbers. The villagers have total 482 bigha (3 bigha = 1 acre) of land out of which 20.5 bigha land has been mortgaged to the moneylender. The land ranges highest 7 bigha and minimum 1 bigha per family. Every family has either cow or bull or goat or pig (all local variety). The animal population was cattle: cow + bull (Local variety): 145 numbers, Pig (Local variety): 61 numbers and Goats: 151. Wealth ranking category poor. (PLA exercise report)

The major source of income is from the agriculture and daily labor. Major chunk of male population migrates to bigger towns every year soon after the harvest. Women work in the field as agriculture labor. Alcoholism is a menace in the village.

Premised on the above scenario and based on the ethnicity of the group it was decided that pig rearing unit would be a better option for the group to start with.

With the help from the vendor World Vision provided good variety of piglets from Nepal (Now it is commonly referred as Nepal variety) in the month of November 2005 costing Rs. 54000.00 (Fifty four thousand). In the beginning the pigs were kept in the open field and dirtied the village a lot. So ADP in 2006 helped them to construct a shed worth 150000.00 (One lakh fifty thousand) plus their contribution of Rs. 50000.00 which they collected from selling of the pigs.

How does the pig rearing unit function?

The group has delegated and scheduled the work among 13 of them. The feed is locally available stocks. Each delegated individual performs his duty religiously.

Growth:

The pig rearing unit started with 54 piglets out of which 9 were bore pig (Male). 33 of them survived (5 male and 28 female). From this after nine months at an average 5 piglets were born. Till now how many pigs they sold they cannot recall. Each piglet is sold at Rs. 800.00. The pork rate is Rs. 80 per kg in the market.

Seeing the productivity and success of the variety, the villagers destroyed the available local variety and started rearing the Nepal variety. At present each of the families in the village has at least one pig. With the success from this pig rearing unit World Vision encouraged and helped start another 5 pig rearing unit in five different Santhal villages. World Vision bought piglets worth Rs. 80000.00 (Eighty thousand) from Marsalbati Pig rearing unit. The Pig rearing unit at Lakhripir has become a resource center for World Vision.

Ripple effect:

The success of the pig rearing unit is not limited in Lakhripir. The pig variety has entered in other 5 adjoining Santhal villages. If you walk in any of these villages you can see piglets running in the field. One widow in Padol village bought two female pigs from the unit. In nine months two females gave birth to 20 piglets. When I was in the village I happened to see it myself. The selling price of each piglet (3 month old) is minimum Rs. 800.00. A widow has found her way to livelihood. Similarly, SHG group (female) of Bagdol, Jhalkamari regularly visit this pig rearing unit for first had knowledge on pig rearing. One group from Bihar had come to the unit for the purchase of the pig.

Evaluation:

We conducted Focus group discussion with the group member in the month of December first week of 2007. This is what they say:

Main purpose of the formation of this SHG was to get away from the clutches of mahajan (Money lender).To decrease the migration is another objective. In the long run we want to see our children well educated for better jobs. We were very skeptic about starting the pig rearing unit in the beginning because of the fund constraint but due to help from World Vision we could come to this stage. World Vision helped us to link with the bank. Bank (State bank of India) provided us Rs. 40000.00 loan. They invested the money in pig rearing unit. They say they have already refunded the loan to Bank. They proudly say that lending money from mahajan has decreased in the village. The SHG provides smaller loans to the villagers with less interest. They have helped the women group of the village to start women SHG. One of the members said, “We are on one side of the river and to reach the other side World Vision has become our bridge”

At present they have invested their earning in pig rearing unit. They have Rs. 51000.00 in bank. The veterinary officials visit them time and again. The president of the group Mr. Simieon smilingly says,” Demand of piglet is so much that we are not able to supply.”

All the children under 15 attend regular class. The children below 5 years are moderately nourished. Migration has almost stopped. Last year only five families migrated in comparison to 50% in the previous years.

The pig rearing unit has become a boon to the group and an eye opener for the villagers.

Prepared by Jyoti Mukhia

BEST PRACTICES:

BACKGROUND:

ADP Malda came into existence in 1996 prior to which Samshi Community Development Project was in existence. The ADP in its original form covered 6 Grampanchayat covering 120 villages. Later from 2001 onwards after the midterm evaluation the villages have been brought down to existing 92 villages in the 6 Grampanchayat.

Vulnerability context:

The ADP target population comprised of Scheduled tribe (Santals){42%}, Scheduled caste {31%}, other back ward caste (OBC){6%} and general {21%}. If we see their wealth ranking 5% falls under rich category, 26% falls under middle category and 69% falls under poor category. Under this 69% major source of income is agriculture labor, unskilled day labor. From this category the seasonal migration takes place and under this category around 53% of the population have land less than 1 acres.

Another vulnerability factor affecting the area is various hazards. Slow and sometimes rapid onset of flood disturbs the life of people every year. Draught is another emerging hazard, which has affected the life of people. (This year the major part of district has been declared as draught hit area by government.) Similarly cyclone, hailstorm hits the agriculture every year. Malaria and kalazar are other health hazards loading more vulnerability in the lives of people. All these are making the people more vulnerable and susceptible to resilience.

As per the NFHS 2 finding 50% of the population of Malda is illiterate and it is clearly evident in the target area. The education quality of the district is also very poor. A study finding of ASER says that Malda has school drop out of 7.6% when the national scenario is 4.4%. Child marriage and child labor is rampant in the area and the vulnerability towards HIV and AIDS is increasing day by day.

All these are leading to the macro issues of:

1. Poor economic status of the people.

2. Poor health

3. Poor education

World Vision India, ADP Malda has been working to address the underlying causes of these issues. Various approaches of development are intermingled in addressing the core issues. Participatory development approach, Rights Based approach, child rights approach, sustainable Development approach, gender and Development, Livelihood strategy.

Poverty analyses have shown that people’s ability to escape from poverty is critically dependent upon their access to assets (Capitals). Different livelihood activities have different requirements, but the general principal is that those who are amply endowed with assets (Capitals) are more likely to be able to make positive livelihood choices. Thus the project’s focus is on accumulation of assets (capitals) in the given intervening framework. In the process of accumulating the capitals all the above developmental approaches are brought into practice.

For our clear understanding of the intervention I would like to put forward five domains where Project has been working at. I will try to reflect our intervening measures under these five domains (Capitals). Under these five domains World Vision’s strategic priorities are also intermingled. These capitals are:

1. Human Capital

2. Natural Capital

3. Social Capital

4. Financial Capital

5. Physical Capital

Human Capital:

Under this capital the project helps the people to accumulate assets like health and nutrition, education of the children, information sharing, various training related with accumulation of the capital. For accumulating health asset (focus is on child growth) project has taken the approach of Community Based Growth Promotion where it is not only monitoring of the growth of the child below 2 years but also promoting growth among the mothers. The intervention includes Behaviour change in relation to breast-feeding, immunization, and food preparation.

Similarly, under Early Childhood Development the emotional, psychological needs of the children upto 5 years are cater for. It is also community based in nature. Under this activity it is not only the participating children’s development but also the development of the parents are also looked for.

Life school for transformation development is a major activity centered on promoting values among the children. Similarly, addressing the social evil of alcoholism, ADP through its activity Alcoholic agape could bring 12 alcoholics to normal life situation. Similarly ADP is addressing the issues of child marriage through various awareness activities, person-to-person talk. This year two-child marriage has been reported to be stopped by the intervention of ADP staff.

Natural Capital:

People do not have control over the natural disaster but can prepare for such kind of disaster. Thus project has Community based Disaster Preparedness project in implementation where the capacity of the people is developed in mitigating the hazards with the expected outcome of lessening the vulnerability.

Water development is another area where project is investing on with the expected outcome of reducing hunger, generating work opportunity and attaining food security in the target population.

Promotion of organic farming, forestry is other activities ADP is fostering for the accumulation of this capital.

Social capital:

It is a proven fact while implementing any projects it is imperative to address the issues of sustainability. Social sustainability is taken as a high priority area ADP is envisaging. Thus various CBOs are formed and trained. The CBO structure of the target community is like this: Family Forum (FF) at family level. Representative from each family forum comprises the VDC executive body. At the grass root level (family level) all the other bodies like SHG, Children Clubs, and youth Clubs, farmers clubs are found. These small bodies also get represented at the VDC level. For better linkages with Government bodies and other agencies these CBOs are registered under societies act.

Financial capital: The capital refers to regular inflow of income other than earned income. This is the area where ADP has no direct role to play since it refers to regular pension etc. from outer sources. Indirectly, there is regular inflow of income from the thrift business, monthly membership revenue, and loan refund.

Physical Capital:

Various physical capitals have been accumulated in the community ADP works. Among them the road, School buildings, community halls, disaster centers, sanitation, water pumps, tractors, threshers, rice mills, bridges, housings, tube wells, open wells, check dams.

Lesson learnt:

Various needs have different approaches. The overall objective of project is to implement effective approaches in combating macro issues. The programme has experienced stumbling blocks of which the major are poor community participation, lack of political will, poor planning and targeting of the beneficiaries and inefficient monitoring. Secondly because of increase in migration rates, as it is seen in the past few months, string men are not found in the villages because of which activities which can foster their life especially accumulation of physical capital, could not be implemented. Because of the poor accumulation of human capital macro impact activities could not be planned and implemented.

For future intervention the suggested model of intervention is:

1. Proper targeting of the programme beneficiaries

2. Community involvement in all aspects of programming from planning till evaluation.

3. Inculcate good value system

1. Economic Development. This intervention area includes Micro-Enterprise Development (MED), household income-generation, vocational training, and any other strategy that enables households and communities to increase and better manage household income. This surplus can then be used as a safety net during economic hard times, as well as an engine to sustain community structures in the long term. It is a key to sustaining the improvements in the community won at such high cost in terms of time and effort, not to mention financial and material costs, over the 10-15 year life span of a typical ADP. Without this increased margin of disposable income, the community will not be able to afford the benefits of the sectoral interventions and community institutions introduced in the ADP zone, after World Vision has phased out of the development process. Research has shown that targeting women (rather than men) has the greatest impact on reducing child mortality rates.

CBPM

What is Community Based Performance Monitoring (CBPM)?

CBPM was designed to be a tool to monitor concrete local services provided to the community by the public authorities (for example, community evaluation of a local Health Clinic, Municipal School, etc.). However, because of its capacity for adaptation, it can be used to monitor a program of service provided by another institution working locally. It has the main objective of amplifying the voice of the community, of those that use a public service, or are the beneficiaries of a project. It is simple to execute and understand. The ideal context is that it should be incorporated in a broader, ongoing empowerment process. It is also a way of drawing the community closer to public political discussion, since many policies are updated in the community through public feedback on the services.

CBPM generates a dialogue between users and service providers, between the voice of the community and the decision-making levels of the authorities. The right to citizenship underpins the methodology. This is the starting point for the collective identification of improvements in the services provided to the community and, consequently, for the exercise of citizenship.

The core of CBPM is to build community "dialogue"; to promote a dialogue between the community and the service providers; and to promote the proposals for service improvement that will arise from it through a process of collaboration. Each participant should be encouraged to identify him/herself as an active co-participant who believes in local intervention as a continuous process. To educate is to transform and generate new opportunities. “Thinking critically the practice of today or yesterday one can improve the next practice”.[1] And this will be possible when there is commitment and a change of attitudes.



For understanding CBPM click http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dmpjfcv_1f7kvmbrd

[1] FREIRE, 1996, p. 43, 44