Gram Vikas – Programme Update for Year 1
September 2024
1.Overall updates (since the last update)
This is the programme update on completion of one year of the partnership between Rainmatter Foundation and Gram Vikas.
The Project “Localizing Climate Resilience in the Eastern Ghats region of Odisha and Jharkhand” will enable Gram Vikas to build better understanding, perspective, plans and capabilities to address these issues. This process goes on in parallel with the ongoing work under the Water Secure Gram Panchayat Programme. The Project began implementation in August 2023.
2. Progress on the goals listed while on-boarding
The overall objective of the programme is to ‘demonstrate community-managed climate resilience efforts in the Eastern Ghats region Odisha and Jharkhand, to influence State Government policies and actions’. This is expected to be achieved through:
- building communities’ capabilities to plan, design, implement and monitor activities related to reduce impacts of climate-related hazards and natural disasters, and
- enabling local governance system to adopt processes contributing to short-term and long-term climate resilience for rural communities
The Programme is built on the back of the Water Secure Gram Panchayat Programme of Gram Vikas.
During the first year, activities were taken up to enable building organisational capacities towards achieving the overall objectives of the Project.
Given below is a summary of activities taken up during the year. Further details are available in documents linked in the text.
Wider Outreach Activities
A. Karmashaala Enriching Young Minds in Village Action
The Alliance to Push Harder is a collective platform of grassroots organisations, intermediate supporting organisations, and donors that aims to influence an agenda of action for addressing critical climate-related challenges. Gram Vikas has joined this alliance along with Rainmatter Foundation, WELL Labs, Socratus Foundation, Goonj, Waste Warriors Uttarakhand, and Nature’s Club Kendrapada.
In January 2024, Gram Vikas hosted the ‘Karmashaala: Enriching Young Minds in Village Action’ that brought together 40 Gram Vikas Saathi from Gram Vikas operational areas and 20 Climate Champions from the Bhitarkanika area of Kendrapada district to engage in a discussion to understand the various challenges induced by climate change in their communities.
B. All Living Things – Environmental Film Festival (ALT-EFF)
Gram Vikas hosted the All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALT EFF), India’s largest environmental film festival, on December 2 at Mahendra Tanaya Ashram School in Koinpur, Gajapati district, and on December 4 at the Gram Vikas Mohuda campus in Ganjam. The festival showcased a curated selection of Indian and international documentaries and short films focused on environmental conservation and sustainability.
The event in Gajapati attracted over 125 school students and 100 rural youth, while the Ganjam screening saw participation from Gram Vikas staff, along with 60 students and faculty from Berhampur colleges. Films like “Older than Trees” and “All Day and All Night” resonated deeply with the audience, inspiring a newfound appreciation for marine life and the importance of clean drinking water. The festival provided an engaging platform for students to explore pressing environmental issues through cinema, fostering a meaningful connection to the films and their powerful messages.
Community level Action
C. Gram Vikas Saathi
Gram Vikas has been actively promoting local human resources to work on various programme components. Young men and women from the villages are being trained in specific thematic areas and provided support to work in their locations. This cadre is being referred to as Gram Vikas Saathi (GVS). The Gram Vikas Saathi is envisaged as a social entrepreneur who will be trained in specific technical areas and management. The technical capabilities that the Saathi gains will be in areas relevant to the rural communities they belong to. In all cases, the Gram Vikas Saathi may also aspire to and work towards an active political role, initially as elected representatives in Panchayati Raj Institutions.
The GVS Fellowship Programme was finalised and rolled out during the year.
D. Gram Vikas Natya Manch
The Natya Manch initiative is an experimentation in grassroots communication. The programme will harness community theatre groups to spearhead behavioural change and awareness campaigns across villages and panchayats. The theatre artists will showcase their workshop-crafted plays, dovetailing performance art with grassroots activism. This integration not only provides a platform for paid artistic expression but also cultivates a robust environment where trainees can assert their perspectives, engage with societal issues, and reaffirm their cultural heritage through the powerful medium of theatre. Three Natya Mancha troupes are being trained and developed to cater to audiences in Saura, Kui and Odia languages.
E. Micro Weather Stations
Micro automatic weather stations cover an area of up to 10-14 habitations, and provide information on precipitation, temperature, humidity, and wind direction. The weather data provided by the devices is used by technical experts to generate area and season-specific crop advisories for use in the villages. The crop advisory also uses publicly available weather data used to triangulate the local information, and is based on details of soil types, cropping patterns and seasonality for the locations.
Research and knowledge development
F. Study on Rural Settlements
The WSGP Programme explores and addresses various challenges to water and other natural resources security for rural communities in a multidimensional manner. There are many factors that will influence the water security of rural communities in the longer term. There is a need to understand these and be able to work towards prevention and mitigation. Among other factors, large investments in the development of housing and physical infrastructure development in the villages is leading to substantial expansion of built spaces. Such expansions affect land-use patterns. In the absence of spatially integrated decision-making, the expansion of the built habitat is likely to impact the land and livelihood system including aspects such as food security, energy availability, and environmental sanitation. There is the additional risk of damage to groundwater aquifers, as recharge zones get built upon.
A study has been initiated to document the patterns of growth and their drivers in rural settlements in Odisha at the Gram Panchayat level, together with identifying the planning mechanisms and tools available to development practitioners. The study is being carried out by Geeta Vaidyanathan and Ramani Sankaranarayanan of CTx GREEN with the Water Resources Technology Group of Gram Vikas. The aim is to explore the potential for spatially integrated rural planning processes, their demystification, leading to better decision-making through visualization and enhanced participation. The study is titled, “Towards nature-based spatially integrated planning in rural areas. Gaining an understanding of Rural Settlement Growth Patterns.”
G. Jokering Justice Workshop
• Two Junior Managers attended the ‘Jokering Justice-An Introduction to Theatre of the Oppressed” workshop organized by Sambhaavnaa Institute of Public Policy and Justice. The purpose of the training is to promote the concept within the organization and anchor awareness generation on different prominent issues including climate, gender etc. by developing a forum for the audience.
H. LP-RP-PF Convening and Workshop
Gram Vikas had taken up the Learning from the Past, Reading the Present, and Prepare for Future (LPRPPF) exercise during 2022-23. The objective of the exercise was to:
• Build Gram Vikas’ credentials as a pioneering organisation in multiple intervention areas
• Amplify the streams of actions and results that serve as the foundation for Gram Vikas Decade V
• Demonstrate a comprehensive methodology to measuring and documenting impact of organisations on rural communities over a long period of time
• Build a set of strategic guidelines to aid effective implementation of the key programmatic interventions.
A series of workshops were organized involving internal stakeholders such as the Gram Vikas Management Team and senior implementation team member, and external stakeholders including donor-partners, resource partners and representatives from different organizations across Odisha.
Strengthening internal processes and capabilities
I. Village Institutions Framework
There are multiple institutions built in villages by different organizations for different purposes. An overall framework to build linkages with all such entities was found to be necessary. Work has been undertaken to develop a framework for the same.
J. Mohuda Bio Park
A 1.5 acre plot of land, degraded after being under Eucalyptus plantations for more than 30 years is being revived as a demonstration of how natural forests can be actively regenerated. The Mohuda Bio Park is envisaged to be an experiment and demonstration that can serve as a learning site for communities and other stakeholders.
K. Project Inception Meeting
The inception meeting enabled the roll out of the concept and processes around the project. The key output from the meeting was the design of an internal team, called the Climate Consciousness Action Taskforce (CCAT).
L. Programme Results Framework and Monitoring Tools
The Results Framework for the WSGP Programme is being developed. A participatory approach, involving stakeholders at the community level, and staff members have been taken up. Several iterations of the framework were developed and tested for appropriateness and suitability.
During the year, efforts began to develop a technology platform for capturing, storing, consolidating, and sharing programme monitoring indicators. This is being done in collaboration with Emulus Consulting LLP.
M. WSGP Brochure
The programme brochure for the Water Secure GP programme was developed to enable wider awareness generation about the programme.
3. Any challenges
The work that has begun requires competencies and technical capabilities more than what is currently available within Gram Vikas. We have made efforts to broaden the scope of collaborations with technical and knowledge agencies, but this continues to be a challenge.
4. Any new avenues of collaboration (with other Grantees of RCF or other NPO/NGO)
Rainmatter Foundation enabled contact with the All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (Alt-EFF). We are planning for two sets of screening in rural Odisha, with school children, communities, other NGOs and young people from Berhampur city in the first half of December 2023.
A broad platform called the Alliance to Push Harder that RMF has promoted is paving the way for new collaborations. This include partnerships with Waste Warriors to strengthen our abilities around solid waste management, and Goonj for taking up the Gram Swabhimaan approach to community mobilisation. Gram Vikas is also now a participant in the discussions being taken up by the Climate Rise platform. We are also actively contributing to the work of the Odisha Sandbox.
5.Highlights from the initiatives being undertaken as part of your organization
2023-24 marks the halfway mark in the fifth decade of Gram Vikas. We completed 45 years of work in Odisha. The Gram Vikas Decade V strategic approach that we adopted in 2019 continues to guide the choices we make. The disruption caused by COVID-19 seriously affected the process, but it has now stabilised. It was a year of consolidation for us.
We initiated an exercise in 2022 to reflect upon Gram Vikas’ past work and its contribution to bringing about meaningful change in the partner communities and draw lessons to strengthen our future work. The ‘Learning from the Past, Reading the Present, Planning for the Future’ (LPRPPF) exercise was completed during the year. Details of the process and results can be found later in this report.
After several years of experimenting and developing different components, we finally gave shape to the Water Secure Gram Panchayat (WSGP) programme. The first step was a three-year initiative, which commenced in April 2021. We implemented the programme in 27 Gram Panchayats across Gajapati, Ganjam, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, and Nayagarh districts, reaching 29,607 households in 769 habitations. Despite the challenges posed by the second wave of COVID-19 in 2021, we managed to kick-start the Project by the end of the year. The Project played a pivotal role in the evolution of the WSGP Programme. It has laid the groundwork for a sustainable intervention by offering a flexible approach to designing individual components through a learning-and-action approach.
The project provided seven crore rupees in direct benefits to 7,500 households. It also secured safe drinking water for 14,305 households and water for livelihoods for 14,352 households. It facilitated access to social protection schemes for 15,000 households. The project established and strengthened self-governing village institutions and formed citizen platforms in eight Gram Panchayats.
It facilitated the establishment of three key innovations - the “Water Passbook,” the “Weather Forecast and Crop Advisory” system, and the “Gram Vikas Saathi” model of grassroots social entrepreneurs. The project initiated people-centric and local government-led water and natural resources development in 25 Gram Panchayats. It’s set to expand to more Gram Panchayats, with confidence in the implementation processes and cost structures.
New initiatives
In 2023-24, we introduced three new initiatives to strengthen our work. The Rural Crèche Initiative aims to establish community-based care centres for children aged seven to thirty-five months to improve young children’s nutritional and developmental status in villages. We envision the Gram Panchayat Coordination Committee (GPCC) will manage the crèches, turning them into a community-driven effort and strengthening the institution.
The Empowering Women Entrepreneurs (Swayamshree) project will enhance our involvement with women in the communities and provide better guidance for developing economic opportunities through producer collectives and micro enterprises. Collaborating with the Mission Shakti women’s institutional network will reinforce our engagement with the local administration and government schemes.
We also launched the ‘Localizing Climate Resilience in the Eastern Ghats region of Odisha and Jharkhand’ project to lay the groundwork for future pathways within the WSGP. The project aims to showcase community-managed climate resilience efforts in the Eastern Ghats region of Odisha and Jharkhand to influence state government policies and actions. It will allow Gram Vikas to better prepare for developing communities’ capabilities to plan, design, implement, and monitor activities related to reducing the impacts of climate-related hazards and natural disasters, as well as enabling local governance systems to adopt processes contributing to short-term and long-term climate resilience for rural communities.
Carbon financing for afforestation projects
Carbon offset credits can provide rural communities with a valuable financial incentive for their efforts in planting and maintaining trees. Communities contribute to carbon sequestration, reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Gram Vikas has initiated a process to enable our community partners to generate and sell carbon offset credits from the carbon absorbed by their forests. This will reward their stewardship of natural resources and integrate them into global climate action efforts.
In the current phase, we expect to develop nearly 3,500 hectares of forests in Gajapati, Ganjam, Kalahandi, and Kandhamal districts, enabling the generation of carbon credits. Proceeds from the sale of carbon credits will accrue to the village development committees through Gram Vikas.
Organisational development
Democratising the leadership and building systems for participatory decision-making and result-driven accountability at all levels of the organisation has been a critical focus of our organisational efforts in recent years. By delegating decision-making responsibilities through collaborative platforms, from grassroots teams to senior management, we are laying the groundwork for a more empowered and impactful Gram Vikas. The Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) has been established to advance this agenda. It has a defined set of executive functions that are closely connected to the role and functions of the Executive Director. The identified strategic leadership functions are resource mobilisation, performance management, results management, trusteeship, and fiduciary accountability. The SLT consists of four members, each holding responsibility for different functions. The executive director is a member of the SLT as the chief functionary of the organisation.
Gram Vikas initiated focused work on communicating our work with the external world in 2018, with the setting up of a full-fledged Communications Team. Upgrading the Gram Vikas website, a regular presence on social media, and strengthening internal capabilities and processes were part of the work undertaken. We conducted a comprehensive assessment of the work done during the five years from April 2018 to March 2023.
6.Outcomes you are chasing for the next 6 months
Immediate results that are planned for:
• Conduct of the block level enterprise profiles
• Completion of the revised WSGP Course
• Expand the scope of the study on rural settlement patterns
• Work to build a coalition of Gram Panchayats for taking up more sensitive climate action
8. Please also share any images or videos that you have documented as part of your work
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