Issues Addressed

Our priorities include women empowerment and over all upliftment of the poor and down trodden in the operational areas. The formation of groups among the woman has been our most effective tool in bringing about changes in various fields of life in the villages. Every group has a fixed amount of saving and loan is provided to the needy members of the group at a very low rate of interest. They come together for meeting and monetary transactions every month. During such meeting they also discuss the problems and issues that affect them and others in the villages.

The development indicators towards women empowerment are those which affect the entire society. Therefore emphasis is laid on women education through adult literacy classes, women health, income generation programmes, resistance of exploitation and attainment of social justice.
To enjoy maximum benefits out of the groups the clusters have been converted to federations or community based organizations (CBO). These CBO’s together with the people have started identifying the various social evils like child marriage, child labour, dowry system, alcoholism, superstition, gender inequalities and work together in order to eradication them.

Our organization felt the need of raising public awareness which involves creating a specific messaging campaign about a particular issue. Awareness-raising can be an important part of developing community support for changes in the informal justice sector; it has been shown to change knowledge and attitudes about violence against women. The awareness campaigns organized at the village level helped the women folk and other community members to understand their rights in a better way or also react by taking an action so that they can take a claim of their rights. We tried to prioritize the notion that women have the right to be free from violence in all its forms.

Street plays were organized in some of the remote villages with the aim of making the people understand their present situation in the society. It was an effective method of motivating people and bringing them together to address the issues that are affecting them in the villages.

Child Protection Policy:

The child protection policy came into being as a reflection of organization’s concern for children’s protection. The policy clearly outlines the mandate for the protection of children as human beings.

One of our major concerns was empowerment of youth as they form the most potential resource for the development of a society. They are a vibrant group who is energetic and needs proper guidance and training to change their future. Thus, we focussed on empowering youth to improve their livelihood through skills training and income generation activities.

Motivation and mobilization of parents and the community at large, helped in freeing the girls from household and field work, leading them to regularly attend the classes and actively participating in the vocational training programmes. Trained and experienced staff was appointed to train them in different trades.

Our aim was to create job opportunities for youth so that they are able to support their family at the same time become financially independent. To addresses this issue we selected some villages, identified the interested and needy candidates and linked them to the training centres of the organization to conducted skill based vocational courses. The following trade skills that were organized under different projects are mentioned below.

• Tailoring classes
• Beautician training
• Artificial Jewellery making
• Embroidery and Crosier
• Household Product-making such as surf, harpic, liquid handwash, bathing soap and phenoyl
• Basic Computer

We have implemented sustainable skill based livelihood training programmes for adolescent girls and unemployed school dropout youths, who are poor and backward in villages with the support of FVTRS, Manos Unidas, UKSVK and Caritas India. It has helped the poor boys and girls to learn different trades and earn their livelihood. JSKS has certified all the trainees under various trades. The trainings have benefited many adolescent boys and girls as a supporting tool for their livelihood.The project has made a good impact in the village and the trainees appreciated the training and few of them already started earning from the trade they have learned. A close supervision was done at each centre especially with regard to attendance register, syllabus and other related activities of the trade.

Our objective of setting up free medical camp in remote villages was to assist the poor and the needy people who could not get proper medical services. A good number of health awareness programmes and camps were organized in the target villages. During the health camps free health check-up were carried out and free medical services were provide to all the needy persons in the villages.

The outcome of the medical camps have been extremely positive and all the patients have attended the camps are given medicines for their ailments. Pregnant women are immunized regularly. The doctors and nurses from PHC help to organize the camps and during these camps health talks are also given to all the participants. As a result of awareness created on the importance of good health, no. of diseases like Malaria, Jaundice, TB etc. has been reduced in the target villages. They are also conscious in keeping their houses and surroundings neat and clean. The village health centres start functioning well due to the intervention of CBO members in the villages. As a result the women and children in the villages are accessing health services and get timely vaccinations and Immunizations.

To ensure gender equality, the organization promotes the approach of Gender and Development (GAD) through formation of groups of women and adolescent groups through community based organizations at the village level.
This concept was addressed under 10 basic objectives namely-
a. Improved sanitation at home and school
b. Reduction in early marriage of adolescent girls
c. Improved reproductive health care
d. Increase in the number of adolescent girls completing class 8 education
e. Reduced work load and equal treatment towards adolescent girls by family members and teachers
f. Enhanced life skills for coordinator and animators
g. Enhanced information and exposure to adolescent girls
h. Increased quality syllabus, modules and materials available for use to adolescent girls
i. Increased confidence and knowledge in adolescent girls of the hostels to face life’s challenges
j. Increased state attention on the enhancement of adolescent girls The organization successfully carried out a good number of activities to create awareness on gender equality and rights. Some of the major activities were street plays, monthly sessions on RCH, parents meetings, training on gender sensitization, remedial coaching classes for girls, life skill sessions, training on legal awareness and adolescent rights. The result of such activities led to the empowerment of adolescent girls to take right decisions and the courage to raise their voice on various issues related to adolescent girls in their respective regions.
The field animators’ alongwith the help of resource persons have imparted training in the field for women groups, adolescent girls groups and men groups. They laid emphasis on ending gender discrimination. Gender sensitization meetings are organized from time to time to promote equality of women and men. Equal participation of women and men has been ensured between women and men in these meetings.

A very important aspect which JSKS thought of dealing was sustainable agriculture. In light of concerns about food security, human population growth and dwindling land suitable for agriculture, sustainable intensive farming practises were needed to maintain high crop yields, while maintaining soil health and ecosystem services.
The organization was concerned about the agricultural growth of the small or marginal farmers. The main emphasis was organic farming, usage of traditional seeds, organic manure instead of harmful pesticides, chemicals and synthetic fertilizers like DAP and urea.

In spite of many obstacles and troubles faced due to the unpredictable weather conditions like insufficient rainfalls, social anomalies like caste-discrimination, superstition, and illiteracy the activities pertaining to sustainable agriculture were carried out in the remote villages of Gangapur block under Sawai Madhopur district.

To address this cause various activities were carried out such as trainings, exposure visits, nukkad natak, soil testing, making vermi compost pits, NADEP, amritpani, gobar khad, super compost awareness programmes, workshops, meetings, formation of farmers club, wall painting, distribution of wheat and chilly seeds, distribution of spraying machine were carried out in the best interest of the farmers and the society at large.

The farmers are now regular in implementing and following the learning’s from the trainings by way of participating in the Farmer’s Club and other activities pertaining to the same. Most of our farmers are regularly using organic manures and traditional seeds so that they are able to reduce which they were spending to buy synthetic fertilizers from the market. Besides, the farmers receive the services regularly which are provided by the KVK and the Agriculture department.

Liasoning with the community and government departments related to agriculture-

• PRI: The team working for the farmers had contact with the PRI members and so asked their cooperation for the improvement of the local communities. It led to a meeting with all the MNGREGA concerned persons in the target panchayat.
• Community: 80 % of the target communities become aware of our organizational activities. The team began to bring about positive changes in the physical, mental, psychological and agriculture practices of the farmers.
• KVK, Gangapur and Sawai Madhopur: KVK had signed MOU with JSKS in supporting and sharing knowledge of new techniques of agriculture.
• Agriculture Department: – Agriculture department have supplied certified seeds and manure with subsidy rate. They have visited the field to which they have provided the seeds, pesticides and manure. For the animal rearing, they have provided the seeds of Wheat, Pearl Millet, Ranjika, Kachini and Barseen freely.
• NABARD, Sawai Madhopur: – NABARD promised to give support to the Farmers Club and Self Help Groups through different trainings and financial help to improve their financial status.
• Horticulture Department: – The department has promised to give support to the poor, landless and marginalized farmers to give fruits, vegetable seeds and plants for kitchen garden. We have given information and motivation to the communities. Especially to the women to get benefit of it.
• ATMA (Agriculture Technology Management Agency) Project: – ATMA comes under agriculture department which gives information to the farmers to use modern technologies to improve their production.

Impact

Economic change- Through SHG people started saving the money. The per capita income of the beneficiaries were raised by various activities like raising goats and buffaloes, selling milk, running petty shops, tailoring-selling finished products like blouse, petticoats, frock etc, selling handicrafts to out station markets. Through Ankur intervention about 546 people got job under MGNREGA scheme. The beneficiaries were quite happy as it raised their monthly income. They felt secured as money was always available to them to run their household expenses. Around 24 farmers from the target villages got seeds from agriculture office. These seeds were used in their fields which gave better yield. The produce was good and thereby the farmers got a good sum of money by selling their crops.

Social: In the beginning they were not ready to come together for the meeting and also they were not ready to accept the opinion. Now there change is a change in their mind set and they are willing to involve themselves in getting a new social order which will benefit their socio-economic upward mobility. There is no more caste tension among the farmer groups. They actively participate in the meetings and feel united as a group. The social barrier has been removed to a certain extent. The women groups also come together in the meetings irrespective of which caste they belong to. The men folk also allowed their women to go for meetings as it would benefit their family.

Social Capital Building: The community of the target villages formed SHG’s which dealt with inter-loaning and taking loan from the private bank like ICICI. The women SHG members developed a revolving fund. It acted as a capital for their respective group. The women involved themselves in contributing towards the growth of their community. A part of their profit was given towards the construction of temple.