A dozen girls from the kishori dal (adolescent girls group) lobbied the local government to provide state bus service for Jalka Jagtap village. The lack of public transportation had been a problem for the villagers for many years; students could not travel to school. In 2008, Apeksha Homoeo Society (Apeksha) had formed the Jalka Jagtap kishori dal to build cohesiveness, discuss community-level challenges, and collectively take responsibility for finding solutions. Apeksha has established dozens of collaborative kishori dals and bal gats (children’s groups) to enable young people to take ownership over their own futures.
Apeksha was established in 1980 by a group of young doctors to empower marginalized groups in the Amravati district of Maharashtra through community participation and collective decision-making. Today, the organization has expanded to a core staff team of 140 including both local talent and super-committed, transplanted professionals. Apeksha’s strength lies in the strong ties that its core team has built with the community.
Apeksha empowers young people to tackle broader issues on a local level. Apeksha has an unique structure that brings together the bal gats from a cluster of villages to form a children’s parliament. These parliaments meet on a regular basis and encourage youth to create their own solutions to deal with community challenges ranging from migration and health to natural resource management.
Apeksha’s key activities include children’s education and health. Apeksha discourages child labor, motivates community elders to emphasize the importance of education, and promotes sustainable livelihoods that give families the economic freedom to educate their children.
Need for Project:
The dominant population in the Dharni block of Amravati are the Korku and Gond tribes. The majority of people earn their livelihoods through farming. The tribes only grow one crop, which barely lasts the family a year. Without a surplus to sell, the community has little to no income. In addition, most farmers do not own their land, which leaves them without any ownership rights. The lack of local livelihood opportunities drives people to neighboring districts and neighboring states like Madhya Pradesh to work as construction and agricultural labourers.
Lack of livelihood opportunities and seasonal migration create a ripple effect on the educational opportunities and stability for children. Since the entire family migrates, children are not able to attend schools on a regular basis. Limited livelihood opportunities and income also impact the nutritional intake of the children, and in turn affects their health in the long run. This has raised Apeksha’s interest in improving the stability and sustainability of tribal livelihoods.
Apeksha has started two main initiatives to mitigate migration and provide sustainable livelihoods to farmers. First, they have started gram koshes, or village banks. In the absence of village banks, farmers must rely on private moneylenders, many of whom charge extremely high interest rates. Village banks allow farmers to borrow money from a reliable source at reasonable interest rates. Through this micro-financing, farmers are able to keep a larger share of their profit. Second, they have started dhanya koshes, or grain banks. Because many of the farmers are migrant workers, farmers find it difficult to store food crops over long periods of time. Further, because this region often experiences rough weather, crop yields can vary drastically season to season. Grain banks buffer this uncertainty by providing farmers with a place to both store and retrieve grains.
Apeksha also collaborates with many government initiatives like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the Public Distribution System (PDS) to ensure proper implementation and smooth functioning in its villages.
As an August 2010 Indicorps Fellow, you will establish community-driven collectives to enable tribal farmers to have a stable and sustainable livelihoods.
First, you will want to build relationships in the community and gain their trust. Interacting with different members in the family – men, women and children – would help you understand your community. You may find it useful to understand local agricultural practices and challenges farmers face. How do these challenges affect each members of the family? You may also want to observe existing Apeksha livelihood interventions. In doing so, you should address questions such as: In what ways do these interventions lead to economic stability? Does the stability improve the health and educational opportunities of children? What are the gaps? How can interventions be improved and scaled up?
After this initial phase, in coordination with Apeksha, you will focus on a subset of villages. In these villages, you will implement several initiatives already active in other Amravati villages, like the gram kosh and dhanya kosh. You should get buy-in from existing village committees, and the approval of village elders. You will likely want to organize exposure visits to take community members to other villages where these programs have been successfully implemented for ideas and further motivation. You may also consider holding finance and accounting trainings in the community to strengthen each kosh. A deeper understanding of the local agricultural practices and outside resources might enable you to organize trainings to expose farmers to improved agricultural practices and organic farming.
Finally, you will want to encourage farmers to take advantage of various government programs available for tribals. For example, the NREGA promises every citizen with 100 days of work. Although this initiative has been active since 2005, many rural citizens have yet to take advantage of it as the paperwork involved can be overwhelming.
Throughout the process, you will take careful notes and reporting your findings and outcomes so that you can share your learnings with Apeksha staff for future programming.
Target Community:
The target community consists of subsistence farmers in the Dharni block. The average household income varies from Rs.3,000 – Rs.4,000 a year. The majority of the population has no formal schooling and cannot read or write. Some farmers take up additional income generating activities in fishing and forestry.
60-70% of the population migrates to nearby cities like Amravati and Akolsa, or to neighbouring states like Madhya Pradesh in search of employment. The nature of employment varies from agricultural or construction labour to factory jobs, depending on availability.
Objectives:
• To promote stable and sustainable local livelihoods
• To provide stability to farmers by creating community-run structures like money-lending banks and grain banks
• To encourage community members to take advantage of existing government programs
Challenges:
• Using resources effectively in light of limited financial resources
• Collaborating productively with local government officials
• Communicating effectively since the language spoken by the tribals is different from the language spoken in the district
Team-Based Model:
Each project is designed as a three-way partnership between you, Indicorps, and a partner organization. Each grassroots partner organization – in this case AHS– will be hosting two to four Fellows. Consequently, the August 2010 Fellowship will have both an individual and a team component.
As a team of Indicorps Fellows, your focus is to holistically improve the quality of life of tribals in the Dharni region. Team members will focus on different areas including improving quality of education in government schools and making agriculture sustainable.
You will be staying in a combination of village home stays and the AHS field office in the Dharni block. Simple vegetarian food will be provided. You will be expected to do your own laundry and assist with other household chores. Internet and international calling facilities are available in Dharni. For local transportation you will use government buses. The closest big town is Amravati, which is connected to Nagpur by train and bus. Nagpur is well connected to all major cities in the country by the road and railway network.
The language spoken at Apeksha is Marathi, and the local dialect is Korku. For this project, a basic knowledge of Marathi is required. If you do not have basic knowledge of Marathi, you can still apply if you commit to learning the language before the start of your Fellowship year.
Please explain the qualifications that make you a strong candidate for this project - be sure to elaborate on any experiences with community organizing and/or business management.
2.
Collectives require strong leadership and trust in order to function. How will you go about building trust among community members and between the NGO and the community? How will you ensure the sustainability of these collectives?
3.
Community groups are often undermined when individual members do not trust other members to fulfill their obligations. Each individual, concerned that they alone will invest their time and energy in a project, takes a "wait and see" attitude; this behavior leads to ineffective groups. How will you combat this mindset? How will you convert latent distrust within the group to cooperative community action?
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