Monthly Archives: February 2020

My experience in CYSD, a more than three and half decades old development organization, is only 6 months. I got the chance to work with such a huge organization that I have never worked with before. Here in CYSD, there are great opportunities to advance one’s career. The organization offers the benefits learning ethical values and provides the chance get socialized with its line institutions through field studies.

During my short period of association, the Organization has systematized four-five national as well as state level conferences/workshops, where I was given the chances to actively participate with the intention of enhancing my knowledge domains, acquire / exchange new ideas, thoughts and learnings.

More importantly, I feel proud being part of a well-known Knowledge Hub of CYSD i.e. Odisha Budget and Accountability Centre (OBAC). My OBAC team members are competent, quite supportive and respect one’s innovative ideas and suggestions. Here the workloads are distributed and decisions are undertaken with mutual understating of its members. I have to learn many more from this pioneering organization.

The organization is having an exciting and clear strategic direction. It also encourages staff members to get involved in different works depending upon one’s interest and ability to exhibit initiations.

I wish CYSD go a long way in serving the poorest of the poor in hard to reach locations of the State and beyond.

Somanath lost his father at the age of 3 years. Along with two sisters Devaki and Tulubala, Somanath was staying with his parental uncle in Parkanmala village of Khairiput block, Malakngiri district following the remarriage of his mother. Tulubala got married in that village after two years and Devaki was adopted by a villager as his daughter. Innocent Somanath became alone when he was 6 years old.

Somanath’s uncle being a drunkard, many a times tortured him and forced him to earn instead of going to school. The life of six years old boy was overwhelming due to loneliness and unsecured condition. Since Khairput block comes under CYSD’s Integrated Child Development Programme operational area, its Child Protection Coordinator got to know the incident and started investigation on the issue.

The programme team often visited to Somanath’s home, provided counselling and convinced him to join the village child club. Gradually, Somanath came to know about the child rights and child protection mechanism and agreed to confront the situation. Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC) informed the District ChildLine and rescued Somanath. He was produced before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and sent to Sishu Griha, a government recognised orphanage, run by a district based NGO. His case was linked to Adoption Policy as per the child protection guideline.

“Somanath has turned 8 now, going to school and studying in Std. III.  He will get an assistance of rupees 50,000 and support for construction of a house under the rural housing scheme at the age of 21 as per the government rule”, assured one of the CWC members.

When Somanath was asked about his feelings, his eyes filled with tear and said, “I am feeling very happy being in ‘Sishu Griha’. I am not alone any more, I have so many friends here”.

‘SAMVAD’ an innovative program of CYSD has been implemented in 174 villages to reach out 23231 women of both Keonjhar & Mayurbhanj districts of Odisha.

The intervention aims at maximizing penetration of knowledge and practices on Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN), family planning and Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture (NSA) through participatory community video and mediated learning based extension platform for enhanced nutritional and social well-being of tribal women.

Recent Update:

(A)With a view to enhance the exposure the Pregnant and Lactating mother (PLWs) and their male counterparts to SAMVAD led videos/films, the team has formulated a strategy to map a list of all the PLWs and married couples in all the project villages and screening the MIYCN videos regularly for better uptake of information. As a result, dissemination participation has increased from 30-40%.

(B)Winter is one of the best seasons to cultivate kitchen garden at the household level. So most of the women have undertaken kitchen gardening in their respective backyards choosing the best plant species for growing vegetable year the round to ensure supply of required vegetables to their families for consumption and supplementary nutrition purposes. The video disseminations greatly help the women to address the important aspects of an ‘Ideal Kitchen Garden’, like selection of right species, usages of compost for the nutrient supplement to soil and use of household wastewater for watering the plants.

(C)A two-day refresher-training programme on MIYCN and video dissemination was conducted for 22 Mediators to reorient them on the concepts of maternal, infant and young child health, practice of appropriate nutrition intake by prenatal and postnatal women; demonstration of all the functions of PICO Projector; and the preparatory steps for conducting the Video/Film dissemination.

The training was undertaken using various training methods including visual aids, demonstrations, group discussion and role-plays.  At the concluding session, the participants’ knowledge base was assessed and accordingly individual future plan of actions were drawn by the participants.

Education being the key to development, every child dreams to acquire better education. But due to various reasons, an innocent child finds no way other than dropping out himself/herself from school going, like Sabitri, a 14 years old tribal girl of Binispur village of Gadiseshkhal GP in Kolnara block of Rayagada district, who was aspirant of becoming a government officer. One such reason is lack of proper guidance and support of own family members as well as the community to some extent.

From the childhood, Sabitri Praska has lost her father. Two years back, she missed her mother while studying in Std. VII. Being an orphan child, Sabitri has to depend upon her elder brother and sister-in-law’s income from agricultural labour. In an ill-fated morning, she was asked by her brother and sister-in-law to support them in agricultural works and supplement to family income instead of continuing her education. As if the sky fell on her head when she was warned about stop going to school. Sabitri could not think beyond her schooling.

Under compulsion, Sabitri dropped her study and joined agricultural farm as daily labourer. Many a times, she requested and counselled the family members to allow her going school, but all her requests and hopes went to ashtray.

Fortunately, under CYSD’s Integrated Child Development Programme, Sabitri was enrolled as a sponsored child. The case was taken to the notice of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). With the help of programme team members she was presented before the CWC, where Sabitri expressed, “I wish to continue my education in a residential school and do not want to put financial burden on my brother”. Immediately, CWC issued ordered to the concerned WEO of Kolnara Block to get the child admitted in a nearest residential school.

With constant follow-up with the WEO, Kolnara and logistics support, Sabitri has got admitted in the residential school of Therubali in November 2019. She is continuing her education there in Std. VIII.

“I am really grateful to CYSD for extending their timely support and showing me the light for a bright future ahead”, says Sabitri with tearful eyes of happiness.

A tribal dominated village ‘Emaliguda’ is located in Gadiseshkhal Gram Panchayat of Kolnara Block in Rayagada. The village have 175 households with a total population of 1200. Round the year, availability of potable water to all the households is one of the major issues the villagers confront since long.  Almost all households have individual toilets provided under Swachha Bharat Abhiyan, but use of toilet at household level is very minimal owing to unavailability of water.

Emailguda being an operational village of CYSD’s Integrated Child Development Project, the villagers highlighted the water scarcity challenges before the programme team. As an initial step, involving the entire community, a Plan of water security, sanitation and garbage disposal was facilitated for the village.

Latter, towards better management of water, a Village Water & Sanitation Committee (VWSC) was formed in the village last year. With the interventions of VWSC, the existing 4 bore-wells of the village were cleaned up, one defunct electric pump set got repaired and the electricity consumption outstanding charges were paid. Besides, another bore-well was made functional by installing solarised pump set.

While facilitating the preparation of water security, sanitation and garbage disposal plan, among many issues, it was revealed that the Emaliguda UP School has an unused bore-well mounted with a hand pump. The bore well water was not usable because of which the school children had to fetch water from a distantly located bore-well for drinking purpose losing their study time, even the school cook used to bring water from outside for preparation of mid-day meals. The children had a practice of going outside for discharge of urine and defection, though the school was having newly constructed toilet without water supply facility.

After rounds of discussions with the School Management Committee (SMC), it was decided and planned that the school would procure one overhead tank and required pipes out of the School Improvement Grant (SIG); the skilled youth of the village would install the overhead water tank with pipe wiring; and the VWSC to supply required water to the overhead tank from the nearby bore-well using electric pump for use by the school.

With due approval from the concerned Block Education Officer, the SMC utilised the current year’s SIG by installing an overhead tank wiring pipes to the toilet, kitchen, hand wash and drinking water platforms. The VWSC has been supplying the required water to the school water tank.

Now the children are very happy with the water facilities at their school’s door step and the daily burden of fetching water from a far distance place has been sorted out. One of the community members with excitement said, “CYSD’s intervention in our village has undoubtedly opened our eyes and paved the way for resolving critical issues collectively and hence, we are thankful to the organisation”.

Girls’ Education is the strategic development priority in CYSD’s Integrated Tribal (Child) Development Project interventions in both Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj districts of Odisha. The findings of different studies reflect that girls as compared to boys are disadvantaged and discriminated in education, health and other aspects. Most of the girls in tribal dominated programme areas are dropped out from the secondary schools due to various reasons, like they are compelled to do household chores and take care of their siblings in one hand and the distance between their houses and the schools, and lack of girls’ toilet facilities in school campus on the other.

Now, CYSD has been focusing on gender transformative programme activities putting special emphasis on mass awareness to promote girls’ education, campaign on enrollment of girls in schools, capacity building of girls on child rights and protection, and orientation on school sanitation and personal hygiene etc.

In this initiative, girls’ education goes beyond getting them into school. The process ensures that girls learn and feel safe while in school; learn the socio-emotional and life skills necessary to navigate and adapt to a changing world; and take decisions about their own lives. Some of the key achievements are highlighted below:

188 SMC members Sensitized on Right to Education (RtE)

From10 targeted schools, 188 members of SMC – School Management Committee (including 78 female members) are oriented on Right to Education (RtE) Act and made aware about their roles and responsibilities, especially in designing school development plan, monitoring the school activities regularly with special focus on effective learning environment for girls at schools.

1320 Girls using WASH facilities in 10 Schools of Thakurmunda Block:

 In 10 schools of Thakurmunda block, CYSD has facilitated the renovation of separate toilets for girls, handwashing platforms and tube wells for drinking water purpose leveraging resources from the Block Administration. Around 1320 girls are using the upgraded Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities hassle-free.

1164 Adolescent Girls fortified with improved knowledge on Life Skill Health Education & ASRH:

Towards ensuring improved understanding of adolescent girls, around 1164 girls are oriented on life-skills health education along with the components of adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH), RTI, STI and HIV/AIDS. Besides, 124 girls from 10 schools of Thakurmunda block are imparted training on key aspects of life skills, like Yoga, leadership, problem-solving, decision making, creative writings and presentation skills.

1128 Girls are Digitally Literate through Digital Literacy campaigns at School level:

The digital literacy campaign of CYSD through World on Wheel (WoW) initiative envisaged to drive a long way towards creating digital learning environment in rural-tribal schools. WoW – a bus equipped with 20 computers, a large LCD screen and internet connectivity has demonstrated an overwhelming response from the students, teachers and parents including the government officials. As of now 1128 girls are equipped with computer knowledge. Teachers are digitally trained and emphasising on the basics of digital literacy and numeracy skills in course curriculum, where girls will have active participation.

As an impact of the above initiatives, the learning environment has become healthy, secure, protective and inspiring one for the girls. On the behavioural part, girls respecting to each other and the surrounding as well. The school administration process seems quite transparent – the headteacher and the SMC are treating the assistant teachers with respect. The schools have clear guidelines to ensure quality education for girls. Moreover, two schools are recognised with Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar; girls in schools are now rewarded for their talents in different events at Block, District and State levels. Two schools, consecutively for last two years, have shown more than 96% pass results in Std. X examination.

Development history witnesses that any change takes place is owing to collective action of youth power. Motivated youth are the real change-makers and the fulcrums of development processes. Incidentally, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) recognises youth as the major human resource and can be easily mobilised towards societal development. Youth possess a high level of motivation, deep sense of sacrifice for the society, self-confidence, and spirit of unity & integrity as well. This is way, the youth power easily conquers the hearts of millions.

With the backdrop, CYSD’s Integrated Child Development Project in Mathili block of Malkanagiri district has identified some potential youth groups and is in the process of strengthening strong motivational bent of mindset among the groups to address critical societal issues towards ensuring the basic services, like drinking water and sanitation in the Block.

The youth groups have been strategically motivated through Capacity Building initiatives to deal with people’s issues concerning their lives and livelihoods. Further, they are being geared up to facilitate development dialogues between Gram Panchayat institutions and newly formed community-based institutions (CBOs) during the Gram Sabha to access their basic survival needs.

Ensuring safe drinking water and sanitation facility for each individual households was one of the prime mandate of youth groups.  In the process, the youth group generate demand on behalf of individual households and act as the principal facilitator at community front. However, the demand is generated through proper discussion and assessment of people’s needs at the ground zero with community-led monitoring process. As a result, 137 individual household latrines (IHHLs) are constructed and 237 households of 11 villages formally have accessed piped water and an estimated amount of Rs. 19 lakhs are mobilised to this effect as of now. “I am quite hopeful that the number of IHHLs will definitely go up as my group is deeply engaged for addressing the community issues collectively, says a youth group leader.

Because of the fact that the entire process is being closely monitored by the youth groups and the community, the occurrence of bribe and compromise with low quality of works are disappearing gradually. Further, increase in sense of accountability on the part of service providers and service seekers are being observed.  Of course, these were never happening before – the private contractors engaged by the government were simply leaving the half-way constructed toilets manipulating the culture of silence among tribal people.

For the wonderful initiatives, the youth groups are receiving ample appreciations from PRIs and goodwill from the communities. They have appeared as vibrant groups which can be trusted for years to come. Alternatively, the CYSD Project team members are being recognised as potential members of an enabling Organisation by the community and other institutions, especially PRIs.

Finally, in close coordination with CBOs, those groups have chalked out plans to take up other important issues revolving around Child Marriage, Child Labour, Youth Migration, PDS, SMC, GKS-VHND, JSY, JSSK, RKVY, PKVY and many more in ahead.

In a recently concluded Pre-Budget Consultation organised by CYSD-OBAC at Bhubaneswar (30 December 2019), the experts opined that the key Sustainable Development indicators in the areas of health, education, food and nutrition, water and sanitation, agriculture, social security etc. are need to be focused in formulation of the Odisha State Budget 2020-21.

CYSD reached out 4000 rural people with an aim to understand the people’s need and aspirations in the State Budget 2020-21. The current wage rate is a major demotivating factor for people to work under MGNREGA. Considering the market rate of essential goods minimum wage rate should be hiked to Rs. 300 as demanded by the people. Among many, Mandi facilities in every Gram Panchayat for procurement of agriculture products; community seed banks for promotion of traditional seeds; cold storage facilities at GP level to store perishable vegetables; rejuvenation of spot water sources and traditional water bodies; raising unit price in hot cooked food under supplementary nutrition program which currently stands at rupees 6.76 are the key demands raised by the people.

The commitment of 2.5 percent of GSDP by 2025 and 8 percent of State Budget by 2020 is on its half way (1.26 % of GDP and 4.9% of State Budget) needs substantial scaling up in public spending. The increase in budget allocation should take care of the infrastructure and facilities requirement of primary health care which includes health sub-centres, primary health centres and community health centres. The state may focus to bring village health maps to address the health needs effectively. With a target of five years, all the houses are covered with toilets in the State as declared by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, GoI. Now we need to think of faecal sludge management in rural areas.

After a decade of implementation, the government have not been able to achieve all schools RtE compliance, particularly in addressing the quality education for all. A state level technical committee may be formed with proper resource support to assess the current situation and prepare a strategic road map to implement the provisions in the new education policy. In the current ICDS structure, the Anganwadi centre is more inclined towards delivery of supplementary nutrition programme with a little focus on pre-school education. A qualified person may be appointed for undertaking pre-school education activities.

The Comprehensive State Nutrition Mission needs to address the emerging issues in health, food and nutrition in the state. The Mission should target at identifying the vulnerable nutrition sensitive hotspots in the State and may design specific schemes and programs to address the issues in those pockets. Social audit has been experienced as one of the effective tools for ensuring quality execution of programmes. Thus, social audit may be encouraged to promote people’s participation and ownership in implementation and management of all the programmes and schemes.

“Infrastructure growth is connected with economic growth, utilization of assets is necessary too,” said Shri Jugal Kishore Mohapatra, former Union Secretary, MoRD, GoI. The all-round development approach may be compacted with different schemes and programmes on nutrition, health and education, he added. Among other dignitaries Dr. Hara Prasad Pattanaik, Special Secretary, H&FW Dept, Dr. R. N. Senapati, former Chairman, Fifth State Finance Commission, Shri P.K. Biswal, Special Secretary, Finance Dept., Shri Dillip Bisoi, eminent journalist, Dr. Satyapriya Rath, Joint Secretary, Dept. of Finance and Shri Jagadananda, Mentor and Co-founder, CYSD were present in the consultation.

A four-day workshop was jointly organized by CYSD and the National Center for Advocacy Studies (NCAS) on “Localizing SDGs with a focus on Tribal Development” in Bhubaneswar with the objective to provide perspective building, analytical understanding, skill development and experimental learning around Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and local governance in the context of tribal development in India. The representatives from civil society organizations, practitioners, public policy analysts, and academic researchers, involved in governance and sustainable development are expected to be immensely benefitted from this capacity building workshop.

The broad capacity-building curriculum was framed to promote understanding of SDGs and their relevance in the local context as well as the concept and process of advocacy (Right based Approach). It also gave the participants insight about advocating with different systems of Governance for localizing SDGs in tribal perspectives and ways in which CSOs can contribute to localization of SDGs. 30 participants from various backgrounds including students, academics and middle-level workers from CSOs took part in this workshop.

Good governance encompasses five interlinking aspects: accountability, transparency, participation, non-discrimination, and effectiveness/efficiency. Participation and non-discrimination are particularly important aspects with regard to poor and disadvantaged people. Usually, their opinions and needs are not considered in decision-making. Therefore, the need for pro-active steps taken to ensure the participation was highlighted in the workshop. State is the amalgamation of people, constitution and judiciary. Legislative, executive and judiciary are the pillars of the State. For localization of SDGs advocating them is very important.

The participants were made aware of the Indian Sustainability Index which has been formulated by NITI Aayog and the Odisha SDGs Indicator Framework introduced by the Planning and Convergence Department of the State. The role of civil society as one of the important actors was underlined. The Civil Society works around civil rights and should be held accountable as well as hold other actors accountable.

It was stressed that in order to achieve sustainable progress and results with regard to equity, the human rights-based approach is crucial. The situation of the deprived, and the structural causes of exclusion and poverty, cannot be addressed without providing the deprived with a voice and space to participate in decisions affecting them. Those with the power to shape lives must be accountable to the most deprived if inequities are to be overcome.

On  third day, the concept of budget advocacy, legislative advocacy, advocacy with judiciary and media advocacy were introduced. Various parking lot questions based on SDGs, human rights and role of CSOs were answered. On the final day of the workshop, ways of advocating with the bureaucracy were discussed and an exercise of planning on advocacy campaign was conducted.