WOMEN'S CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING, BAWANA & SEEMA PURI, JUNE 2009

27th JUNE, 09

Women capacity building training of Bawana & Seema Puri was held on 27th June, 09. A resource person Mrs. Jyotsana Batra was invited to take the whole day session of training, 30 women from Seema Puri & Bawana attended the training.

A round of introduction of the all participants was conducted.

The meaning of capacity building was explained: It is to do self-management in limited resources.

Firstly, personality development was taken as a theme. What we are, we are forgetting all these we need to know the self development, and positive attitude has to be there. We should not think negative so it is must to think positive rather than thinking negative.

Secondly, the importance of creativity was explained. You feel confident if you have made some thing new out of the existing one.

An activity was given to the women for testing aptitude. All the participants were given a sheet to fill.

The third important thing which was explained was self-confidence. We have inbuilt fear that I can not do, but every one has some kind of talent, but we need to recoganise that talent, the example of CM Mayawati and Ex MP Rabri Devi.

Following five points were broadly discussed during the training:

• Thought (Positive Attitude)
• Self esteem
• Creativity (Confidence)
• Leadership
• Motivation                         

Importance of this pyramid was explained
                                 

The group was divided into two and all the women from the both community was merged after lunch. The session after lunch was started by the communication skill.

Communication Skills: After the lunch the group was told about the communication skill. We express our selves in three ways acting, speaking and writing just to communicate our expressions to others. Communication skills are very important just to convey our message, therefore while communicating to others.

A plot was given to the women groups to act. The plot was for the literacy of the girl child and to prohibit child marriage.

The group developed the story themselves and acted so well. It shows that once they are given the opportunity and proper training, they can do well in future.

Through this act it was tried to explain the importance of unity because in one group only 3 people participated and in other group all the women participated so it seems that all are equally responsible for the cause. One group raised the point of importance of girl education and abolition of child marriage; where as the other group took the issue of Sanitation, PDS, Electricity, MCD, Hospital. The address for Free legal cell was also given to the women: Member Secretary, Room No. 1, Patiala House, New Delhi.

Although it takes much time to build up the confidence, but it was more prominent on the faces of that group who came to attend the training, one of them stated to the resource person that we will try to implement this in our life and next time when you will come for the training you can feel the change in among us yourself. The primary focus of such kind of training is that to build self confidence and the way that women stated, I think that it is the right beginning.

This capacity building of women group was ended with thanks note of Mrs. Ritu. In this training women of Bawana & Seemapuri were learnt many things which will help them to build their capacity. 32 women attended the said training at ISI, Lodhi Road, New Delhi on 27th June, 2009.

WOMEN CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING BAWANA & SEEMA PURI, NOV 2008

Date: 27th and 28th Nov, 08

Place: ISI, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Objective: To build the capacity of the community Women groups and nurture multiple leadership among them so as to enable them to provide leadership and guidance to the larger community in accessing their basic rights.

Background: Community level meetings with the women groups are regularly being organized in the office of Bawana & Seema Puri. During the meetings the groups are being sensitized on their entitlement issues and build their capacity, with the result of these meetings Ration Samiti, Monitoring Group on EWS issue, group on public work department are also formed in Seema Puri.

Process: Keeping these points in view the existing women groups needs to be strengthen with enhanced capacity building initiatives to inform them about their rights and the means to assert them.

The major focus was on intensification of the informal collectives so that they can tackle local level issues themselves without any external technical facilitation.

There were three capacity building trainings; two in Bawana and one in Seema Puri were proposed. Therefore two combined capacity building trainings were arranged on large scale, in which fifteen women from Bawana and 10 women from Seema Puri were invited for training on each day. The trainings were organized on the issue of PDS, Education, health and responsibility.

The resource persons on Day 1, 08 were Mrs Amita Joshi & Mrs. Kalyani.

Focus area of discussion: Responsibility, Need of Community, How to ensure the responsibility of State, SWOT Analysis and Mapping

Morning session by Mrs. Amita Joshi

The training was started with the self introduction of participants followed by the discussion about what they need to lead a good life.

The women replied Employment, education, sanitation, good environment.

They were told that above all we need to have good health because until unless we are healthy we would not be able to do anything in our life.

We can borrow every thing from others, but health could not be borrowed, therefore foremost thing we need to concentrate is SELF-RESPONSIBILITY.

For this we need to take care of surrounding healthy atmosphere, nutritious food, initial care if any problem arises, timely vaccination and self hygiene.

The importance of good eating habits was also told to them. If there is any problem like itching, or any rash on the body it should not be taken lightly, proper care should be required.

Importance of Community: What is community? Why there is a need to live together? Is a crowd of people is community?

The importance of community was discussed. Broadly community means: common interest, unity, responsibility, resolution of problem peacefully.

So we have to take up our issues collectively so that we could achieve the results of our efforts and if we work or think on a common platform, in that case we could have more solutions. Therefore there is importance of community.

Example; there is an group in Mumbai Sewa which is actively working in the community and if there is any case of women violence or any kind of dispute in the family then this group helps in resolving the issue.

Ensuring state responsibility: It is the responsibility of state to give proper food, clothing, shelter and occupational chances to the citizens, and to avail such facilities we need to have information about such responsibilities of state.

A woman from Bawana shared that the ration shopkeeper is charging much for the ration which he distributes. At once another woman from Bawana extended her support and asked her which ration shopkeeper dose this. She stated so because they have got the information about the cost at which the ration is allocated and they have formed a group to assist the people who so ever are facing problem in the community.

This was a nice learning about the importance of self responsibility and how we can fix the responsibility of state. The importance of information and need of community was also very well explained.

After noon session by Mrs. Kalyani:

This session was started by a song

“MERE SAMUH KI PANCH LADIYA SANGATHAN BANAUNGI JAROR CHAHE LAG JAYE HATHKADIYAN”

Firstly they were asked do they know each other because a round of introduction was over in the morning session the group was quite which shows that they have not participated during the introduction round, then they were asked to sit alternately i.e. one woman from Bawana & other from Seema Puri and an exciting round of introduction was initiated by Mrs. Kalyani. This kind of introduction subside the hesitation and it gives a chance of better understanding and feeling of confidence too.

After this they were again divided in to two groups Seema Puri & Bawana and were asked to recall on which issues they have worked so far.

SWOT Analysis was done with the women group of two areas.

The Seema Puri group stated that they are working on 14 issues in their areas and Bawana group stated that they are working on 12 issues in Bawana.

The threats which they face while doing these social works were also discussed.

Power and weakness of group formation was also discussed.

The threats which they face are family, why to attend meetings, greed what we could get, attending the meetings is not considered respectable.

But the women were encouraged that because of attending meetings you get information and the information which they gain gives them strength and guidance for further efforts.

They were also told the importance of mapping of the organisation which are working in their area. Mapping helps in resolving the other issues beside the right based issues like: domestic violence, informal education, crèches etc.

The session was ended with an assignment that was given to the women to form a mapping chart based on the organisations which are working in their communities, which could help in alliance building too.

In the end a song was sung by Mrs. Kalyani:

“PAR LAGA LIYE HAI HUMNE KI PINJRE MAY KAUN BETHEGA, JAB TOD DIYE HAI JANJIRE TO KAMYAB HO JAYEGE JARA SUN LO.”

The whole discussion of first day encouraged moral of the women group, they were told how to overcome their hesitation whenever they interact with each other. They were also told about the importance of responsibility and organizing themselves in community.

WOMEN CAPACITY BUILDING TRAINING BAWANA & SEEMA PURI

Day 2, the resource persons were Mrs. Ritu Mehra from Pardarshita & Advocate Sh. Ashok Aggarwal from Social Jurist.

Morning Session: Ritu Mehra

The women from Bawana & Seema Puri were asked to sit in a manner so that they could interact with each other and could introduce her partner rather then introducing her. This method was adopted just to overcome their hesitation and they could know each other.

After the introduction there was an open discussion about the problems in PDS which the people are facing specifically in Bawana. The problems which came to notice are:

• Ration shopkeeper give less quantity of ration.

• Ration shopkeeper misbehave with the people.

• Kerosene oil on their ration card is replaced by cooking gas during renewal process.

• Ration shopkeeper distribute ration once a month only.

It was quite interesting that the women group from Seema Puri told the women group of Bawana that they have to unite together and need to talk to the ration shopkeeper.

In Seema Puri women group have formed Mahila Ration Samiti which is actively working on the problems which ever they face with the ration shopkeepers. They also shared that how they formed the group and how actively they are fighting with ration shopkeepers. This Mahila Samiti is continuously asking for the records of ration dealers on monthly basis, with the result of this now ration shop keepers are giving proper quantity and ration is being distributed timely.

Shehnaj from Seema Puri also shared that the ration shopkeeper had not distributed ration to the Antodaya Ration Card holders for last 2 months and when those women filed complaint against the ration dealer in the food & supply office, the vary next day the ration dealer went to their home and gave ration of two months which he had siphoned off.

After listening to the problems of the group the suggestions which were suggested to them were:

 Strength of group

 Checking of ration dealer records on every Saturday except second Saturday from 2.00pm to 5.00pm.

 Filing of complaints in Food & Supply Department.

 Use of Right to Information.

The process of filing complaint in the office of FSO was also explained that they have to file their complaints in the register and have to take the copy of complaint too.

The process of filing RTI application to know the status of their complaint was also explained.

The capacity Building training was well taken over by the women group of Seema Puri when they shared their success with the women group of Bawana. This all sharing increased moral of the Bawana group also and they decided that they would also form a group and would also fight for their rights.

After Noon Session by Advocate Sh. Ashok Aggarwal

The focused areas of discussion were Right to Education, Health and Laborers.

He stated that although Right to Education is a Fundamental right but at the ground level the scenario is very bad, the underprivileged groups are always discouraged. We need to fight for our Fundamental Rights.

Major threats are; lack of unity, lack of confidence and people deceive each other for the sake of small benefits. Just to avail our rights education is the only media through which we can win our fight.

Education brings changes, it gives freedom of speech. Poverty is not the reason for depriving the child from education, but lack of awareness is the basic root cause for illiteracy.

Our Government is responsible for quality education and for everything be it the infrastructure in schools, drinking water facility, toilets, good teachers; but children face many difficulties in this.

Therefore there is a need of raising demand from the govt. to provide all the facilities in the schools and provide good atmosphere so that the future of the nation which is nourishing in the school could flourish.

He also told about the admissions under economically weaker section quota in Public schools.

It was also discussed that the child labor should also be prohibited and Govt. must take prompt action against the child labor.

Health: Poverty, improper nutrition, child labor leads to bad health. Our Govt. is also responsible for providing good health to the citizens. The health facilities in Govt. hospitals are provided free, but the patients are forced to pay for various tests and medicines.

It was also told that there are 38 Private hospitals which provide free treatment to those patients whose monthly income is less than Rs.4000. He gave the list of 38 hospitals. There are around 1000 beds available for the economically weaker section of the society who could avail free treatment in these hospitals.

Labor and their rights: The minimum wage for the unskilled labor is minimum Rs.3700-3800 a month, but people are not being properly paid for their hard work, they are being exploited by their owners. Therefore Sh. Aggarwal also invited such people who are being exploited by their owners.

It was a great informative session beside lots of information Sh. Aggarwal ji extended his legal support to the deprived labor class who are continuously being exploited by the employers.

Both the women groups learnt a lot from these training and committed that they will form group in their own area and would take lead in resolving their problems which they are face in the government machinery. They will use RTI Act too to get the information.

Report on Capacity Building of Youth Groups, October 2009

As we are working with youths of Bawana & Seemapuri since April’09 and since then youths are actively involved in various activity like school admission campaign, school awareness campaign, cloth distribution to fire victims in Bawana etc. They are also sensitizing and assisting the community in various issues like sanitation, health, education, PSD etc. Therefore strengthen of the group is necessary. It is also important that these groups will work as a resource group for the community who can understand the need of group, give the leadership to the community, by knowing how to access the various entitlements etc.

Therefore to fulfill these objectives a capacity building training of youth group was organized at USO house, New Delhi on 14th October’09. This training was attended by 20 youths from Bawana and 14 from Seemapuri. Out of total 34 participants 16 were girl and 17 from Muslim community. This meeting was started with the welcome note by Mrs. Ritu. She welcomes the resource person Mrs. Amita from ISST and introduced her to the youth group.

After that an introduction round has held in which Mrs. Amita made pairs of youths and told them that every one will introduce his/her partner. Each one made pair and introduced their partner as per guidance of Mrs. Amita. Thereafter the resource person interact with every youth and said them that what capacity we have. Every youth participated in the discussion and shared their capacity.

Mrs. Amita told to the youth group that we are a human being and because of that we have some responsibilities towards our family, community as well as our country. To fulfill these responsibilities we need groups which do the work together. She also focused on the importance of group. The youth groups from Bawana and Seemapuri got actively involved in the discussion.

Mrs. Amita related the active involvement of youth group with the steps of success. She divided the whole subject in nine steps which are as follows:

Step 1 (Time Management): She briefed the youth group that if you want to be succeed in any area then you should have follow first step that is time management. It will help you to do the work in time.

Step 2 (Responsibility): Mrs. Amita briefed to the youth group that in group activity the responsibility of work is on every individual and each one do their work as per their responsibility. The feeling of responsibility in each member will help the group to get success.

Step 3 (Unity): In regard with this step Ms. Amita briefed the youths that it is the most important step to get the success. She also told the story of poor farmer and his four sons and related the story with the importance of unity in a group.

Step 4 (Positive Attitude): It is the key point to get success by an individual or a group. She said that when we start any work with a positive attitude surely that work will be completed in the desired goal. She also told the group that for positive attitude our habits should be positive because habits become our attitude.

Step 5 (Mutual Respect): The resource person briefed the youth group that if you want to be in a group then mutual respect is necessary for every individual. So it is also an important step of success.

Step 6 (Friendly Behavior): Mrs. Amita briefed to the youths that to work in a group your behavior should be friendly. She also said that if there is lack of friendly behavior within the group you can not succeed in your task.

Step 7 (Knowledge): She told to the youths that when you are taking initiative of any group work be sure about its background and plan according your knowledge. The knowledge is also the key point of the success. It is the knowledge that will reach you to the top of the success.

Step 8 (Action): In concern with this step of success the resource person briefed the youth group that after passing the seven steps of success you will have to take the action against your work. In absence of action no one will succeed in life. So it is the important step of success.

Step 9 (Victory): It is the last step of success. Mrs. Amita said to the participants that if you follow the steps of success then the last step of success will be automatically comes in your path that is known as victory. The victory will lead you to do more and more group work.

All the participants actively participated in the whole session of training and they also entertained their selves by various activity like sang songs, presented jokes, played street play etc between the training session.

Mr. Rajiv, Project Manager, has also taken feed back from the youths about the training session. Each participant shared their view regarding training session they told that it will help them in how to work in a group, how to work for community, understanding the problems, lead the community in a positive way, follow the steps of success etc. Some participants also pointed that the resource person not explained the last two steps of success.

This training was also attended by Rakesh, Rajeev, Sapna, Vishnu and Farhan, who are working in Bawana and Seemapuri with Action Aid.

Pardarshita: Annual Report from April 2008-March 2009

Mission:

To fight corruption and ensuring transparency and accountability in the Governance system thereby empowering the marginalized section.
About the Organization:
Pardarshita is a non-profit organization. It was registered in December 2005 founded by activists associated with Parivartan. Pardarshita has been formed with the aim of fighting corruption and ensuring transparency and accountability in the Public Governance systems thereby empowering the marginalized sections. The goal of Pardarshita is to spread awareness about Right to Information (RTI) and empower common people to use the RTI tool to ensure access to his/her rights and entitlements.
 Objectives of the organization:
• to create awareness amongst the common people about their rights.
• to make the government authorities more accountable and transparent.
• to ensure good quality of education for every child by invoking right to education.
• to conduct research on how the fund is being utilized in government run schools.
• to motivate the marginalized section of the society to minimize their dependency and create sustainable systems
• to form community based groups.
Executive Committee:
Rajiv Kumar- President
Ritu Mehra- Secretary/ Treasurer
Shaweta Anand- Executive member
Diwan Singh- Executive member
Momin Khan- Executive member
Ram ashish- Executive member

Main Activities:

Establishing of Resource Centre:
A resource centre has been established at F-185,186, New Seemapuri. The purpose of the centre was to spread awareness and disseminate information and capacity building of local community. The resource centre is equipped with ready information on PDS, Social welfare department schemes, schemes of SC&ST & OBC Department and information with respect to issue of Voter I D Card and enrolment of their names in voter list. The other schemes of Delhi Government like Ladli scheme and insurance schemes for the poorest of the poor.

The broad outcome of the Resource Centre is given below:
1. The forms of different schemes are freely and readily available to the people, now they need not to run from pillar to post for getting the forms
2. The people are being assisted for filing the forms and simultaneously the educated member of the family which is being provided the assistance is also being taught that how to fill the form.
3. The people are being aware about their rights.
4. The people are gradually acknowledging the power of Right to Information Act and now they them selves ask to file the application under the RTI Act if their work gets stricken in the Govt. Department.
5. The people being aware about the different schemes which are being introduced by the Govt. from time to time.  

Beneficiaries: No. of Ration cards released: 250 cards approximately.

No. of people received for old age pension: 25

No. of women received widow pension: 15

No. of voter I-cards released: 200 approximately.

Admission Campaigns:
The activities of Pardarshita started from the admission campaigns in Delhi at various locations like inside the DC office complex, outside Metro stations, in different communities and in the trade fair too.
The basic objective for organizing these camps was to assist parents for the problems which they are facing during the admission of their wards in the schools run by the Government because the principals and the teachers ask for the unnecessary documents for the admission. During this campaign laisioning with the Deputy Director of Education and Director of Primary Education was also done for facilitating the parents. More than 500 complaints against 54 schools were collected from the parents for the denial of admission cases, and these complaints were presented in the High Court during the court proceedings and as a result Hon’ble court issued contempt of court notice to all these public schools.

During this campaign more than 700 students were facilitated for the admission in Public schools under EWS quota and more than 300 students were facilitated for admission in Govt. and MCD schools.                 Beneficiaries: Number of admissions in 54 Public schools: 700+

Number of admissions in Govt. & MCD Schools: 300+

Financial Assistance to students:
The rules which were formed for the admission of children under Economically Weaker Section quota stated that those students will get financial assistance at par with the students of Government school, for expenditure on account of uniform and books. Therefore parents were mobilized and around 90 RTI applications have been filed by the parents in the education department demanding for the same. As a result the students were given a cheque of Rs. 580/- according to the standard in which they were studying.

Beneficiaries: Number of students given financial assistance in Public Schools: 1000+

Capacity Building Initiatives
Capacity building has been the forte of this period of work because various issues had to be clarified at the community level. Hence the team organized several trainings of the women’s groups, youth groups and rag picker groups on RTI, PDS, sanitation etc. the results of the trainings have been very promising which is visible from the fact that many RTIs have been filed after the trainings. The chief trainings organized in the past quarter include:
Training of women group on PDS and Education and Public Development Works helped in forming issue based groups in Seema Puri. A group of women named Mahila Ration Samiti which is working on improvement of ration distribution system has been formed. The other group which is functional in monitoring of the students admitted under economically weaker section quota is also formed; another group which is actively trying to improve the condition of park in their community is also working hard.
Youth Groups
Youth groups have been given strong emphasis as they are the future crusaders of the area. We have organized some special trainings focusing on the needs of the youth in this quarter. Issues like livelihood, PDS, RTI, street theatre activities have been organized by Pardarshita. The youth have benefited greatly from the regular meetings and trainings by Pardarshita.
A two days leadership workshop was also organized for the youth and it was organized in Dehradun. Training on RTI and personality Development was given to them. The strong presence of youth members in our rallies and meetings verifies the close association. The youth group is currently being given training on theatre also and is in process of preparing small street plays on relevant issues such as PDS and education. After his training the youth group offers that they will give regular time to the resource centre, and since then 3-4 youth volunteers are regularly coming to the centre and are learning how to draft application the process of RTI filing and is preceding processes.
Assistance camp for getting Voter I-Card:
It is the right of every citizen of India to vote whosoever has attained the age of 18. The Govt. issues a voter I card within 21 days of filing of form 6 with the SDM (electoral), but it has been noticed that either the people fail to get form 6 from the electoral office or if they happen to get the form in that case their voter card has not been issued by the department.
Therefore an assistance camp with the help of volunteers of Pardarshita was organized in Seema Puri and Bawana. These two camps were organised by the youth group in order to assist the people for filling form-6 and for new BPL ration card.

Outcome: More than 300 form-6 were filed for voter card.

Around 45 RTI applications were filed to know the status of the form which the people have submitted for getting voter cards.

More than 400 voter I-cards were released.

Assistance camp for PDS:
The public distribution system (PDS) ensures the distribution of essential items such as selected cereals, sugar and kerosene at subsidized prices to holders of ration cards. The PDS also helps to modulate open - market prices for commodities that are distributed through the system. The Department of Food & Civil Supplies, Govt. of Delhi, manage the PDS in Delhi by enforcing the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, and various Control Orders made there under.
However, it is also a known fact that the people across the country face different problems in respect to issues of PDS. Pardarshita started identified PDS as one of the potential problems faced by people in slums of Delhi. The major problem which came to notice was that people have applied for the ration cards but they failed to get the cards from the Food & Supply office and beside this the people who want new ration cards and if they go to the circle office the inspector does not issue forms to them.
Therefore camps were organized in order to assist those people.

Outcome: More than 200 forms were filed for new ration cards.

Around 50 RTI applications were filed to know the status of the form which the people have submitted for getting new ration cards.

Around 75 people got their cards which were lying with the department.

Community Watch Group Meetings
Regular Group meeting have been held with women group and with youth group. The meeting with the youth has been organised to discuss the local problems like PDS, Sanitation, roads, communication etc and to identify their roles in the same. Their capacity has been built on the use of RTI, PDS and different Government schemes. The youth group consists of 150 persons in Seema Puri at present. They are also devoting their time for the resource centre too. To engage the youths a computer literacy classes are also being held on a daily basis. 7 computers have been raised through community contribution and are being managed by the youth group in propagating computer literacy.
The women group has more than 60 active women at present. These women are now working on issue based mode like ration mahila samiti is working on ration, EWS monitoring group is working on ensuring the financial assistance in the public schools.