Institutional Entrepreneurs and their Mechanisms of Institutional Change
Organizing poor tribal women into collectives, helping them make savings a routine process, and encouraging them to venture into income-generating activities leads to a sea change in traditional family dynamics
P RADAN largely works with the marginally poor on promoting livelihood activities so that poor families are able to achieve their food needs throughout the year and, wherever possible, get additional cash income. Presented under the banner of integrated natural resource management (INRM), these livelihood options are aimed at increasing the production per yield of crop and increasing the use of natural resources such as access to water available to the communities, in order to provide poor families with food security and access to sustained and dependable sources of income.
PRADAN works in 11 of the 22 districts in Jharkhand. Some of the activities promoted by PRADAN include agriculture, that is, cultivating paddy, wheat, maize, pulses and seasonal vegetables. PRADAN is also involved in horticulture such as planting mango trees. Wherever agriculture or horticulture is not possible because of uncultivable or inappropriate land or the unavailability of irrigation facilities, other livelihood options are sought such as livestock rearing, including goat and dairy, and micro-enterprises such as broiler poultry, tasar yarn and cocoon production, or forest-based activities such as lac, leaf plate making and sericulture. Most of the activities such as livestock or micro-enterprises are carried out by the women of the families. Agricultural activities too are carried out by women; however, the men have equal participation, if not more, because agriculture is the main livelihood of the villagers. Other aspects of PRADAN’s work includes the construction of seepage tanks, lift irrigation, and implementing and piloting the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) facility, to guarantee at least 100 days of employment to poor households.