Revitalizing Agriculture through Infrastructure and SHG Empowerment (RAISE)

We are happy to announce RAISE, a three-year project that has started in partnership with Aditya Birla Capital Limited. The goal of RAISE is to develop an integrated model of sustainable people- ecology equilibrium in remote tribal pockets of Dindori and Mandla districts of Madhya Pradesh for rejuvenation, enrichment and sustainable usage of natural resources, leading to economic and overall well-being of communities. It is expected that the model will be replicated by other civil society organisationsand government agencies.

All the three project blocks are dominated by tribal population (approx. 70%) and major tribes are ‘Gond’ followed by ‘Baigas’ and Kol (Banwasi); around 41% live below the poverty line. Other communities (mainly in Amarpur) are Thakurs (Rantore and Lodhi) and Buraman (Dheemar).

The four major objectives that the project is supposed to deliver on, are:

  1. Women’s Institution Building- Building and nurturing social infrastructure of women’s groups and creating enabling spaces
  2. Food Security and Income Enhancement- Increasing the farm productivity of poor farmers through improved farming practices and access to quality farm inputs
  3. Integrated Natural Resource Management (INRM)- Improving the productivity potential of poor people’s farmlands by developing land and water resources
  4. Participatory Grassroots Governance: Enabling isolated and excluded women to build their skills on governance to engage with governance structures to improve livelihoods outcomes.

Through RAISE, we would work with approximately 18,000 women from as many small and marginal farmer households in around 200 villages and ensure that by the project end 9,000 women attain gross annual income levels of Rs 60,000 to help them to emerge out of poverty and enter a positive cycle of growth. This will benefit a population of at least 100,000 besides creating a vibrant rural eco-system, which will help others to plug into the emerging opportunities.

Our sincere gratitude to Aditya Birla Capital Limited for supporting this initiative.