Handbooks

  • Living Waters – Promoting Community Managed Micro Lift Irrigation Among the Poor

    Handbooks
    Living Waters – Promoting Community Managed Micro Lift Irrigation Among the Poor
    Living Waters is one in a series of Handbooks published by PRADAN seeking to lay down a standard set of steps for Community Managed Small Lift Irrigation systems in rural India. The purpose is to develop models for enhancing the quality of livelihood infrastructure for the poor in the country’s backward regions. This publication draws on the extensive experience over many years of PRADAN in rural Jharkhand, odisha, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh of designing and implementing community-managed small irrigation systems. These systems compare favourably on a variety of indicators such as investment per unit cropped area, ease of installation, command area utilisation, operating costs, and community participation in management, with the large irrigation systems implemented by State agencies.
    Date
    February 13, 2017
  • Strands of Life – Promoting Tasar Yarn Production among the Rural Poor.

    Handbooks
    Strands of Life – Promoting Tasar Yarn Production among the Rural Poor.
    With shrinking opportunities in farming, it has become imperative to generate sustainable livelihood options in the non-farm sector. Tasar yarn reeling used to be done by women from weaver families as part of their household weaving enterprise. PRADAN’s intervention in the Tasar sub-sector in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh has helped evolve this activity as a substantial undertaking in itself with the potential to enhance incomes among the rural poor. Strands of Life is a handbook on undertaking Tasar Yarn Reeling. It describes how poor rural women can be equipped with the skills, infrastructure, inputs, and marketing support required for the activity to become a sustainable means of income.
    Date
    February 13, 2017
  • The Savings and Credit Manual

    Handbooks
    The Savings and Credit Manual
    PRADAN has promoted more than 7,512 Savings and Credit Groups with a combined membership of over 106,090 women in seven states across India. The goal of promoting these groups is to create an avenue for women to save and gain access to credit to meet their consumption and production needs. The strength derived from working together in a collective also increases the women’s confidence and view of self. This manual broadly outlines the processes that a development worker can adopt to assist rural women to form savings and credit groups in the village. The practices mentioned in the manual are based on the experiences of working with women’s groups from across different locations in PRADAN’s Savings and Creditprojects.
    Date
    February 13, 2017
  • Implementing Integrated Natural Resource Management Projects under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005

    Handbooks
    Implementing Integrated Natural Resource Management Projects under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005
    This handbook is the result of our efforts to share our experience in implementing INRM projects in the hilly undulating regions of the Agro Ecological Zone VII. This is the result of a joint initiative of the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and PRADAN to document strategies that could be used for implementing programmes under NREGA.
    Date
    February 13, 2017
  • Livelihood Opportunities in Broiler Farming

    Handbooks
    Livelihood Opportunities in Broiler Farming
    "Livelihood perspective of Poultry along with the details of launching and managing the activity, keeping in mind the aspect of long-term sustainability. The book focuses on the essential elements of a small holder poultry model. It elaborates on the processes such as training of producers, intensive production support and market to help ensure production efficiencies comparable to industry standards"
    Date
    February 13, 2017
  • TASAR Hand Book

    Handbooks
    TASAR Hand Book
    Rainfed agriculture has traditionally been the main livelihood activity for poor families in rural India, which is supplemented in varying degrees by dependence on forests, small livestock rearing, handicrafts, wages, and hunting and gathering. Improving productivity of agriculture is essential to enhance rural livelihoods but agriculture has inherent limits as a livelihood option for landless families. Thus, besides increasing agricultural productivity, the challenge is to develop livelihood opportunities based on other occupations that supplement agricultural income, offset its uncertainty and exploit the growing demand for niche products, especially in urban centres. It is in this context that Tasar Sericulture becomes important since it has the potential to provide a stable income for the rural, especially tribal poor communities. Livelihood opportunities in Tasar Sericulture, thus, aims to serve as a resource book for individuals and/or organisations who are interested in promoting Tasar sericulture as a livelihood option in their respective areas. With its illustrative descriptions, the book guides the reader through the various dimensions of Tasar sericulture for poor farmers, including the livelihood perspective of Tasar sericulture, along with minute details of initiating and managing the activity in a sustainable manner.
    Date
    February 13, 2017
  • Mapping the journey and impact of the PRADAN Alumni -A Tracer Study

    Handbooks
    Mapping the journey and impact of the PRADAN Alumni -A Tracer Study

    In the spring of 2011 PRADAN invited Start Up! to conduct a tracer study (“Project”) to track the journeys of PRADANites.(Start Up! provides a range of advisory services and strategic expertise to CSOs for strengthening their knowledge capital, organizational processes and programmatic strategies towards growth and impact.)

    PRADAN wanted to track the journeys of those who had graduated through its apprenticeship programme or PRADAN alumni after their departure from PRADAN and the impact that they have made in organizations and sectors, across the country .The document is driven with the objective to map the journeys and impact of the PRADANites across the country and to identify sectors across the country that place a premium on the PRADAN approach to development .

    Date
    February 13, 2017