Joining Hands for MGNREGA

Realizing the need to have women participate in the governance of their villages so that they can contribute more effectively to their own well-being and the society they live in, Sampurnna and PRADAN take on the responsibility of unleashing the immense power of people at the grass roots for development action

“Independence must begin at the bottom. Thus, every village will be a republic or panchayat having full powers. It follows, therefore, that every village has to be selfsustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of defending itself against the whole world. It will be trained and prepared to perish in the attempt to defend itself against any onslaught from without. Thus, ultimately, it is the individual who is the unit.” These words of Mahatma Gandhi demonstrate the idea of democracy at the grass roots very well. As development professionals interested in creation of a just and equal society, we have to promote strong decentralization of power and democracy at the grass roots. There lies immense power with the people, and our role is to trigger its unleashing in a desired direction. PRADAN, for very long, has realized the power and importance of women’s collectives in bringing social change. Women have a pivotal role in their own development and that of their village. The time is now ripe for a greater order of solidarity among women’s collectives, in order to harness their citizenship and make panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) the governance nodes for accelerated growth and development of villages.

Sampurnna - a Community Based Organization

P RADAN started its work in the Karanjia block of Mayurbhanj district, Odisha in 2000. Initially, its focus was on the formation of women’s SHGs around savings and credit; these eventually became platforms for promoting livelihoods. Slowly, villages became saturated with SHGs, and Clusters were formed during 2003–04. Although Clusters did discuss SHG issues, they also took up women’s issues and, in some instances, confronted PRIs on issues of entitlements such as PDS. There grew a felt need to interconnect these Clusters so that these forums could learn from each other, and address their issues and needs in systematic ways. Thus the concept of Sampurnna (a block-level Federation of women) was seeded in the community. Sampurnna was born in 2005. As more and more SHGs were linked to it, Sampurnna grew as an organization of women; and the needs and aspirations of members connected to it also swelled. During a visioning exercise, it was clear that it did not want itself to be restricted with only the members of Sampurnna (the women who follow the weekly SHG norms) or some limited activities carried out by PRADAN. At first, PRADAN was tentative about including all SHGs under one fold; however, it was evident that a significant number of women were not aware of the issues of poverty and gender discrimination. To counter these issues, there needed to be total solidarity.