Community Service Providers: Social Capital of the Community

Having lived through the same micro- and macro-adversities of a community and having successfully dealt with hardship, CSPs, who understand the local dialect and share the same culture, have a better understanding of the voice of the poor, enjoy a better level of trust and have greater psycho-social linkages with the people.

B huvneshwar Singh of Charkatand village in Poraiyahat block of Godda district is well-known in the area. There was a time when he was just one among the millions of migrant workers, who was compelled to break the geographical barriers and step out in search of greener pastures. This 40-year-old, 8th class-pass farmer, from one of the most underdeveloped districts of an impoverished state, is a marginal agriculture farmer in a family of seven, comprising his wife, four daughters and a son.

When his father died in 1984, he had to drop out of school and start working at the tender age of 12. His sole asset of 1.5 acres of rain-fed land left him despondent. To supplement his income, he went to the nearby district town of Banka, in the bordering state of Bihar, and tried working with a village doctor. Unable to make a decent living with his earnings, he migrated farther to Delhi and began to work as casual labour. However, the harshness of the metropolitan lifestyle compelled him to return to his village.

In 2009, he attended an SHG Cluster meeting in his village out of curiosity and was deeply influenced by the process, the content, the approach and the larger objectives of SHGs. Pleased with his interest, the Cluster members selected him as the Community Service Provider (CSP) for the area. He was sent for training programmes related to community-based organizations (CBOs), especially SHGs, Clusters and the agriculture promotion in the area.