Child marriage will not be in Abhaypur Grampanchayat’, it was sworn
Chittorgarh, April 10, 2015
On 10th April, 2015, CUTS Centre for Human Development was organized an awareness program on Child Marriage Prevention under a campaign in collaboration with District Legal Service Authority at Abhaypur grampanchayat, Chittorgarh from 7.30 to 9.00 in the night
Approx. 150 villagers were participated including PwDs, DPO members, community leaders, youths, PRIs, women & children in this program. 4 male PwD & 2 Female PwDs (Including 5 OH & 1 Visual Impaired) were involved in this community meeting. All the messages were given by short film show & resource materials.
The main objective of this program was to sensitize & awareness among villagers & stakeholders at the issue of child marriage. First of all, Mr. Madan Giri Goswami (Asst. Centre coordinator – CUTS CHD) welcomed all the villagers & participants. He shared the objective of the meeting & said that Marriage before the age of 18 for girls & 21 for boys is called as child marriage. It is a fundamental violation of human rights. Child marriage often compromises a girl’s development by resulting in early pregnancy and social isolation, interrupting her schooling, limiting her opportunities for career and vocational advancement and placing her at increased risk of domestic violence. Child marriage also affects girls as well as boys.
Mr. Abdul Sattar (Advocate from District Legal Service Authority) explained about Child Marriage Prohibition Act, 2006 that Child marriage is a legal crime. There should not marry unless age of a girl 18 & a boy 21 years if that happens, then the culprits are punished as imprisonment for 2 years or Rs. one lakh as penalty either both.
Mr. Rakesh Puri Goswami (Advocate from District Legal Service Authority) said that though the government has taken strict actions and child marriage has been declared as a big crime, still this practise is prevalent till today. It is an incontrovertible fact that a large number of child marriages are performed in violation of the existing provisions of the law, particularly on ‘Akha Teej’ or ‘Akshaya Tritiya’. When child marriage takes place, the children are too young to understand what marriage means. The question that arises is that what can be done to stop this hidden crime? Apart from the measures taken by the government it is essential to approach such villages and districts and educate the parents about the ill- effects of child marriage. Early marriage generally affects girl child as well as boy in all areas: education, health, mentally & physically. He added that the legal age for marriage in India is 18 years for girls and 21 for boys.
Mr. Madan Giri Goswami (Asst. Centre coordinator – CUTS CHD) said that a campaign for child marriage prevention will be run by District Legal Service Authority at block level & remote area of block to aware community for child marriage prevention.
An oath was administered by Mr. Rajendra singh (Sarpanch) to all the people presented there not to involve & stop child marriage.
Rajasthan Social Inclusion Program SHG Capacity Building Workshop
Chittorgarh, April 10, 2015
A capacity building workshop was organised at grampanchayat bhawan, Bassi, in Chittorgarh block on 10th April, 2015. This workshop was held for two new formed SHGs of disabled people namely Samavesh Saikripa & Samavesh Maa Self-help group together. Total no. of participants was 40 including 25 SHG members. The chief guest of the workshop was SDM (Mr. Uttam Singh Shekhawat) and all arrangement & observation was done by patron of block DPO (Mr. Rav Bhawani Singh).
Objectives of Workshop
Understanding on disability, its types, negative aspects in community, causes of disability, inclusion & objectives of RSIP program
Sensitising general members which are included in SHG & in community through these members
Understanding on SHG, its advantages & dynamic of group
To facilitate group leader in writing basic books of accounts, saving, loan, resolution writing ,rule framing
To orient the group on some essential feature of group management like holding meeting, importance of saving, credit, transparency, bank linkage, social participation and livelihood enhancement plan
The workshop was started at sharp11.00 am. After registration of participants, an introductory session was facilitated by Gayatri Moad (Community Mobilizer) in which each participants introduced themselves with their name, residence & about their family.
Further, Kamlesh Kumar Jangid (Project Coordinator) facilitated a session on what is disability, types of disability, negatives aspects in community towards disabled people, act for people with disability, definition of inclusion, introduction of RSIP program & its objectives. ‘Disability a challenges in Hindi’ a short video was played & discussed with participants what ever happening in video. This discussion was helpful to understand that Disability is the consequence of an impairment that may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental, or some combination of these.
Impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action. A disability may be present from birth, or occur during a person’s lifetime. He discussed with participants about types of disability, causes of disability & negative aspects in community towards disabled people. Types of disability were discussed in detail. Participants shared that disability can be occurred to child during pregnancy, due to malnutrition, incomplete vaccination of Mother & child, unsafe delivery & due to any accidents. Poverty & illiteracy can be the other reasons of disability. They added that general community uses bitter & sore words for disabled people & consider them burden in society. The lack of sensitisation in community creates condition of disabled people seriously. It’s need to work on their thought & feeling about anguish of disabled.
After this fruitful discussion, a session was facilitated by Vandana Chauhan (Resource person) on SHG, its advantages & dynamic of group by presentation. He said that formation of Self Help Groups is a strategy to bring women into collective units and a platform for them to generate locus to initiate economic activities, forum to discuss address women & health related cases. SHG is seen as a dynamic in situation which builds on the resources and management skills of its members and increased self-reliance. After this presentation, a short video ‘Prayas’ was played in which two aspects (Before & after involve in SHG) of Ramlalli (A female character who is orthopedic handicapped) was shown. This video was helpful to understand about SHG, its objectives, advantages, dynamics of group & role of SHG in mobilization to community at the disability, development, health & other core issues in their areas & how will do advocacy for these issues. After this session, another session was also taken by Vandana Chauhan on savings benefits, internal loaning, process of bank linkages & credit linkages. The main objective of SHG is to promote savings & group has an account & can benefits of govt. schemes & will start its income generation activity collectively.
Further, an important session on book keeping was facilitated by Gayatri Moad (Community Mobiliser) by presentation & demo. The group divided into four groups & did practical on filling register, write proceeding of meetings, on paper with presentation & discussion.
After that a video ‘Ganga-Jamuna’ (an initiative of SHG for livelihood activities) was played. Mr. Kailash Kumar Sharma (Resource person form Khadi Gramoudhyog) facilitated this session to promote SHG towards livelihood & introduce schemes for livelihood promotion. He described three categories of income generation activities, these are listed below –
Business
Industry
Services
Mr Kailash sharma advised the SHG members to started produce material like candles, making incense stick, papad making, Achar making etc. These are the activities in which high profits can be earn in low invest.
After this session, Mr. Kamlesh Kumar Jangid delivered a heartily thank to make workshop successful by better participation.
“District Level Consultation Meeting”
Pilot Project to Promote Organic Consumption in the State of Rajasthan (ProOrganic)
Pratapgarh, April 08, 2015
District level Consultation Meeting organized by CUTS, Center for Human Development, on April 08, 2015, Hotel Hawaldar Plaza, Pratapgarh. Over 50 participants were there from all 5 block of district included farmers, Resource persons and CUTS representatives from Jaipur & Chittorgarh.
Objective of the Consultation: The purpose of the consultation held on April 08, 2015 was to present, discuss and evaluate the activities conducted during last months of the project in terms of both output and outcome. The aim of the meeting was to formulate the strategies for future with farmers so as to come out with much more focused work on the issue in future. under the project as one of the major activity and provided a platform to all the stakeholders to discuss these findings, CUTS CHD team along with DLOs did discuss about Organic farming in future and its value in in market which portrayed the ground realities of organic consumption and production in the district of Pratapgarh, Rajasthan.
Inaugural Session
In the beginning, Mr Gauhar Mahmood, Centre Coordinator, CUTS International (CHD) welcomed all the esteemed guests and delegates to the meeting. He briefly introduced all the participants about the objectives of meeting and apprised them with the day’s programme schedule. Radhe Vaishnav invited the chief guest, special guest, delegates from District level officers and CUTS international- CART partners on the dais for the inaugural session. Mr Gauhar told that CUTS Centre for Human Development; Chittorgarh is working in 5 programmatic areas, Here in Pratapgarh a Pilot Project to Promote Organic Consumption and farming. Many farmers have adopted organic farming and few want to do more. Our CHD team awakens to farmers in 10 Grampanchyat about importance and value of Organic farming.
Introductory Remarks
Madan Giri Goswami, Assistant Centre Coordinator, CUTS CHD, introduce about CUTS CHD and Guest, In chairmanship of Dr Ramlal Bishnoi, (IFS), District forest officer- Pratapgarh, Dr. Prakash Panwar (Programme officer-KVK), program was inaugurated along with Dr. Madan Choudhary (Scientist-KVK), Mr. Deepak Sexena (Sr Programme officer, CUTS-CART), Mr. Gauhar Mahmood, Centre Coordinator-CUTS-CHD Mr. Arjunkant Jha (Project officer, CUTS-CART), Mr. Gopalnath Yogi (AO-Agriculture-Pratapgarh), farmers and dignitaries were participants.
Opening Address
Dr(Mrs) Prakash Panwar Program Coordinator, KVK-Pratapgarh in her opening address said that A lot of farmers are using chemical fertilizer in agriculture. But they are not thinking about its bad effects. But in the modern time farmers want more and more money for their livelihood but other side their chemical Urea price are going up day to day. So it must to understand idea for organic farming aware by CUTS CHD. We must change our farming method from Chemical to Organic. She explained about KVK activities for organic farming. She told that we supported and helped to farmers in our area for adopting organic farming. She shared an example like village-Gomana Farmer Mr Gopal Sahu. She told that Gapal Sahu is an organic farmer because He adopted not only organic farming but also animal husbandry. She explained about Soil fertility, Multi variety cropping, Bio-fertilizers, Vermicompost etc,
Project Progress and Key Research Findings
Objectives of the Project by Mr Deepak Sexena:-
Senior Programme Coordinator Mr. Deepak Sexena from CUTS-CART, Jaipur shared the objectives of Project and also shared information about Project. He told that the project is to promote organic consumption in the state of Rajasthan (India) covering six major agriculture potential districts by awareness generation, sensitization, capacity building and advocacy activities. The project will cover a total of 102 gram Panchayats, with 2 selected gram Panchayats each in 51 blocks in six districts. Increased awareness is expected to result in increased consumer demand which will further push demand for availability and affordability of organic products contributing towards decreasing health hazards to consumers.
Mr Deepak Sexena, Sr. Program Coordinator along with Mr Arjunkant Jha of CUTS CART, through a power point presentation shared the details of activities implemented, under the project so far earmarking the outputs and major outcome from these activities. He told that in the first year of the project, activities like Project Launch and Partner Orientation Meeting, Action Research, six District-level Orientation with the farmer groups, six Exposure Visits of farmer groups were accomplished. In addition, several Information Education and Communication (IEC) material in the form of handouts were also printed and distributed to the participants. Presently, awareness Campaigns in 32 Panchayats are being conducted in Chittorgarh and Pratapgarh.
Addressed By Chief Guest:-
Dr. Ramlal Bishnoi,(IFS) District Forest office from Forest Department Govt of India, addressed the participants and said that at present farmer is doing chemical farming with use of Pesticides & Urea for more production and income whereby day by day the quality of the cultivation of the land is going to end. Dr Bishnoi told that “I am belonging to farmer family, in my childhood; I never hear about cancer disease but now what is happening in our country. People are suffering from many kind of disease though eating chemical farming products. Why is it in our india? We should think about this situation in our area. Dr Bishnoi told that many farmers are using chemical fertilizers but they don’t know about its bad effect on health and economic. Because chemical fertilizers are costly but organic fertilizers are not costly, manures are presence at home. Organic farming aims at reducing the costs of production and helps the farmers to get reasonable returns. Organic farming is today’s answer not only to sustained productivity, but also to safe and nutritious food, which is increasingly demanded by conscious consumers within and outside India. Organic products also promise better prospects for Market and Trade. There is an ever growing export market for organic products, and also the domestic market in India is emerging. Products that are certified and sold as ‘organic’ can fetch a premium price compared with conventional products.
He said that farmers promote organic farming and gave information about exquisite kind of animal husbandry who is linked directly from farming. He said forest department is giving each and every year plants on minimum price to farmers. So if farmers want they can get benefits from our department.
Dr Madan Choudhary (Horticulture KVK-Pratapgarh), Dr Madan Choudhary chief of Horticulture at Pratapgarh KVK, He told to farmers about papaya, bananas and vegetables. He told that some of Marwar region are producing organic gain and vegetable in their area. This cause is some of Marwar area’s farmers are not using chemical fertilizers.
People don’t want use chemical fertilizers in area. Because that area farmer thinks that if we use one time chemical fertilizer then we will need to use of these kinds of fertilizers in again.
So Dr Choudhary told this is one of the best examples in our country. He told that some step must be taken by farmers because we must be determine for adopt organic farming in our land. It is very easy to adopt. We have all manures of organic at our home but we will need to adopt also animal husbandry.
Open Discussions
In an open house interactive session, participants from all section of the society raised concerns, over the rising trends of chemical farming, which is proving hazardous to public health. Few of the farmers from Gomana and Gadola briefed about their efforts in promoting organic farming, while few farmers representatives tried to raise concern on government’s approach and attitude in providing support for promoting organic farming. It was good to know about the experience of a farmer Mr Samrathram Meghwal and Noor Mohmmad who shared his approach and efforts towards organic agriculture from the grass root. He successes in turn from Chemical to organic farming and got 150% Production to last year.
Vote of Thanks
Arjun Kant Jha, Project Officer CUTS CART and Radhe Vaishnav CUTS CHD summed up the days’ proceedings with a vote of thanks to all stakeholders for their useful and active participation and requesting them to take a pledge to look the way forward and ensuring that the efforts and support of all would eventually help CUTS taking its initiatives to acquire success and taking to new heights and also to help in nurturing the ProOrganic project as a replicable model on organic farming issues.
Media Coverage
