January 5, 2019
In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “The best, the quickest and the most efficient way is to build up from the bottom...Every village has to become a self-sufficient republic. This does not require brave resolutions. It requires brave, corporate, intelligent work...”
January 4, 2019
Implementing MGNREGA in its fullness is a movement to establish local democracy and instruments of local governance, honour local wisdom and knowledge, promote power decentralization to panchayats and encourage participatory decision-making. Jharkhand’s experience warrants telling.
January 2, 2019
Evolving a process-centric Gram Panchayat Organization Development framework, the Anode Lab, in collaboration with PRADAN, focussed on building the organizational capacity of gram panchayats, knowing that if the local body is capable and its members and staff are inspired to perform, it can impact sustainable change in key development spheres
December 12, 2018
Reminiscing about his early days as Development Apprentice in the village, the author muses on his learnings and challenges as he begins to understand the challenges and tries to build inroads of trust with the women in the community
December 4, 2018
Conceptualizing and grounding a development model appropriate to the diverse needs and priorities of different sections of the community, and, at the same time conserving the eco-system of the local livelihoods is a challenge of a very high order.
November 15, 2018
“Shifting from individualfocused sectoral thinking to livelihood-basket thinking” proves very successful in Lamtaput block, Koraput district, resulting in enhanced farmers’ income, establishing women’s identities as farmers and integrating ecological aspects so as to generate sustainable livelihoods
November 7, 2018
As important as it is to identify and support viable livelihoods in villages, equally vital it is that issues of gender and sex, gender and patriarchy, and gender and violence are discussed in safe spaces such as SHGs, Clusters and Federations, helping women live lives of equality, dignity and freedom
November 2, 2018
SHGs are living organizations and need to be allowed to grow organically in response to internally identified needs rather than be directed by outside entities that have the narrow aspirations of economic growth only.
October 15, 2018
Finding a new use for discarded plastic bottles, now a ubiquitous and deathly hazard to the environment, a little revolution is underway in a tiny block in Khunti district, where tribal farmers are using it to water their crops in an innovative way through machan cultivation, opening up possibilities of greening land that lies arid most of the year.
October 7, 2018
Realizing that the world of consumerism and many of the interventions carried out in the name of development will take their people away from traditional practices and habits that have sustained them in good health over centuries, the Kandho tribe takes active steps to resist any outside help that will snuff out age-old, time-tested resources and ways of living and life. In this, they are helped by Living Farms, a civil society organization, in South Odisha.