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Being part of Odisha Chapter of “Rapid Community Response to Covid-19 (RCRC) Coalition, CYSD in association with Gram Vikas, Harsha Trust and Shristi is currently implementing a common project in some select Blocks of Odisha. A study on “Monitoring Rural Lives during the Pandemic” was conducted by RCRC in July 2020. One of the key findings of the study revealed that there is a significant impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the mental state of affairs of the rural community mentioning 72 percent of the households surveyed have fear and anxiety, followed by 39 percent have come across irritation /anger and 15 percent sleeplessness. In this context, providing psycho-social support to the people in need, as one of the critical interventions, has been planned under this project.

To take the process forward, a three-day virtual orientation programme (1st Sept. to 3rd Sept.) on psycho-social support (of 8 hours’ duration in total) was organized for 32 Community Resource Persons (CRPs) and the Programme Coordinators of RCRC Odisha partners, facilitated by Ms. Sushree Mishra, a Senior Counselor on psycho-social. After training, the CRPs involved in this project, as ambassadors of mental wellness, have visited different families and initiated conversation on mental health, impact of Covid-19 pandemic and people’s experience during this phase.

The CRPs shared their experiences from the ground during the follow-up training programmes organized on 15^th and 26^th Sept. 2020. While there were dozens of cases the CRPs wanted to share and get further support, only three cases were discussed and supervised for the clarity and benefit of all the participants. The CRPs like Jemamani Mahanta, Hemalata Mahanta and Khirodini Mahanta volunteered to share their learning and experience.

Jemamani shared how there was little scary to start the dialogue on mental health. To her surprise, she told within 30 minutes, one after another all the family members joined her and shared their struggle. They were pleasantly surprised as someone paid a visit and asked about their well-being, as other villagers had ostracized them due to the corona positive case in their family. Sharing her experience, Jemamani told that she had tried to reach out to a family when she came to know they are in a difficult situation. Within no time the family members could openly express about the existing mental illness in the family and how they feel so clueless about it. “It’s an everyday stress, an everyday problem,” family members shared. While one of them was in tears, another was looking at the open sky with some hope.

Hemalata, while visiting a family, offered empathy and talked to them about the Citizen Support Center Helpline (8880592592) set up by CYSD. She discussed with the family members about the psychosocial support provided by the professionals through this programme. The family requested her to come back again and help them make a call to Helpline. They were more than thankful for the presence of Hemalata.

Khirodini, who herself has recovered from Corona, is no less than a warrior. She actually didn’t listen to others instruction for not visiting other villages. She was convinced to provide her valuable services to a family, which was recently under home quarantine.

While talking about Covid-19 impacts, many stories, many struggles, Khirodini just shared a girl’s case who was reported attempting suicide simply due to the sheer difficulty in everyday life. She patiently listened and showed them a video (End your Problem, not Life) on the same issue. The same girl thanked Khirodini and promised her not to harm her life again.

Being an eyewitness, Khirodini has been trying to make herself believe that she was one of the sufferers. Despite all these, she provided required support to the affected families for which she is trained. Many more such lived cases connected to psycho-social support will come through our CRPs, the ambassadors of mental wellness, in near future phase-wise.

In Bhakurguda village of Rayagada block, during a community monitoring process conducted by CYSD in the recent past, two prominent issues were raised by the community. First issue, the surrounding of the Aaganwadi Centre (AC) was very dirty and unhygienic which obviously not a good sign as the small children play and study there. The second issue was the defunct bore-well at the AC campus made the regular supply of clean drinking water to children a difficult task.

Bhakurguda village is coming under Rayagada block of Rayagada district. There are a total of 113 beneficiaries in the village with 7 pregnant women, 10 lactating mothers, 20 adolescent girls, 38 children under the age group of 6 months to 3 years and 38 children under the age group of 3 years to 6 years.

As part of the community monitoring of basic health services, facilitated by CYSD, both the service providers i.e. ASHA, AWW and service users, like pregnant women and lactating mothers were interacted separately. While digging out the issue in detail, it was found that due to defunct bore-well in the AC campus, the Anganwadi Worker used to go far away to collect water for drinking and cooking purposed. On the other hand, the AC was having 38 pre-school children and it became a tough task for her to collect sufficient water for children’s daily use. Even the beneficiaries i.e. mothers of pre-school children complained that many a times their children were not getting drinking water at the Anganwadi Centre. Secondly, the surrounding of the AWC was very unhygienic in nature which led to insect breeding. Most of the time, the children made complaints about insects bit too. These two reasons altogether resulted absenteeism of children at the AWC.

With this background, a village level interface was organized where the service providers and service users participated. The issues were taken as top priorities by both service providers and service users and a possible plan of action was formulated. In an action mode, the mothers’ committee took the responsibility to clean the surrounding of Aaganwadi Centre on every VHND. Similarly, for regular supply of clean drinking water to the AWC, it was decided to bring the case to the notice of local Sarpanch by submitting an application. The responsibility of writing the application and its submission was taken up by 10 mothers who will be assisted by a CRP of CYSD.

During the follow up process, it was found out that Adolescent club and 10 mothers who took up the responsibility to write application to the concerned Sarpanch for repairing of bore-well have submitted the application with the assistance of the CRP. As a result, all the bore wells of Bhakurguda village along with one at the AWC got repaired engaging self-employed mechanics of the nearby village. In addition, they were helped by the Youth Club & Adolescent Girl Club members, mothers of pre-school children and the ward member. Now, the availability of clean drinking is ensured at the Aaganwadi Centre. Likewise, cleaning of the Aaganwadi Centre has become a regular activity of the Mothers’ Committee involving most of the villagers as well.

Kumari Nilagiri, a young woman of 32, belongs to a family of marginal farmer of Gadabaguda village in Kalrlakana Panchayat of Rayagada district, Odisha. She lost her husband in November 2019 just before the occurrence of Corona pandemic. When her husband was alive, Kumari never went out of home for work, but used to support her husband in own farm land (transplanting, weeding and harvesting). After decease of her husband, she has been shouldering the entire burden of her family. Her two kids and a nephew are too young and nobody was there to support her family. So, the situation compelled her to get out of home to work as a construction site labourer along with managing the household agricultural work to earn the livelihood for her family lending household chores on her mother-in-law. Somehow, she was managing her family.

During the lockdown owing to outbreak of Covid-19, she has faced huge challenge to meet the day to day needs of her family. At the initial days of the lockdown, she managed the family with the PDS dry food materials received from government, but later on it was difficult on her part to manage with the limited food stock and even could not get any job to substantiate. With due support from the CYSD’S Child Development Project, she was facilitated to place job demand under MGNREGS and fortunately, she got labour work in nearby village road construction.  Besides, she was also supported with agricultural inputs like paddy seeds, organic manure and vegetable seeds for cultivation during the ongoing Kharif Season by the project and got a good return. Moreover, she is linked with OLM and MGNREGS for developing Nutrition Garden under Mo Bagicha programme.

“I am thankful to CYSD Child Development Programme team for their timely support which helped my family to survive for two weeks or so and learn the art of living during this Pandemic”, shared Kumari happily.

Kausalya Pujari, a young girl of 14, heals from Mendukuli village of Dalapati Guda Panchayat in Malkangiri district. She owns a beautiful smile and her eyes simply reflects the passion for completing her good education to have a secured life in future. During a discussion with the CYSD Community Mobiliser placed under Dalapatiguda Panchayat, Kausalya shared some of her issues which refrained her from continuing further schooling.

Kausalya’s family comprises of her parents, an elder brother and two younger siblings. Her parents have been indulged in alcoholic activities since long which often leads the family towards economic distress. They own a small farmland, but are unable maintain consistency in managing the agricultural activities and crops. Therefore, her mother sometimes tries to earn additional livelihood by reaching out to other people’s farmlands and assisting them in the form of labour contribution.

After completion of her 8^th Std. Kausalya had no other choice but to quit her study owing to the financial breakdown of her family. At the same time, two of her younger siblings were also attending the village school in Mendukuli.

Nevertheless, Kausalya was a passionate learner and earnestly wanted to continue her education. Earlier, her elder brother was the only support system, she could rely on, to complete her schooling. However, he had to leave the village due to his job engagement as a construction worker outside. When Kausalya was asked about her education, she said, “Pursuing higher education appears quite uncertain for me because of my parents’ persistent alcoholic indulgence and poor living condition of the family. I always wanted to join a high school having hostel and study there. But, the unsettled environment at home distracted me from concentrating on studies.

With the facilitation of concerned community mobiliser, Kausalya got admitted in Government High School of Mathili last year, around 15 Km away from her home. Somehow, the community mobiliser could convince her parents and make them understand the importance of education. In spite of various hurdles, all her documents were finally submitted in the school and she joined the school. She is continuing her study in 10^th Std. and attends classes regularly residing in hostel.

   Currently, Kausalya is back at home due to the Covid-19 lockdown situation, but she will resume her schooling as soon as the government advisories comes out. Along with her siblings, Kausalya has been provided with educational kits containing storybooks, workbooks, geometry box and other stationery items by CYSD’s Child Development Project. The educational kit helps them to keep in touch with studies, as a result their studies don’t get interrupted despite the pandemic. Her family has been supplied with survival kit which includes cooking oil, pulses and other dry ration. “I was provided with free sanitation kit including napkin to maintain personal hygiene. Most importantly, I am happily pursuing my 10^th Std. education with the support of CYSD. I convey my deep gratitude to the programme team of CYSD for their continuous support and help towards taking care of my career”, says cheerful Kausalya.

Chandrama Patra, the second daughter of her parents, after completion of her High School Certificate Exam in 2004, was sitting idle at home in Thakurmunda. She got married to Kailash Chandra Sethi of Talapada village under Thakurmunda block in 2010. Her family comprises of six members – her husband, a son (Suvankar studying in Std.2), a daughter (Subhashree – 9 months old) and father & mother-in-laws.

In Talapada village, “Maa Sukheswari Self-Help Group” was formed by 12 young women for livelihood promotion with the facilitation of CYSD and Chandrama was one among them. Being active in the group, she was attending all meetings and various training programmes organized by CYSD. Out of her own interest, she used to maintain all SHG records in perfect manner. By observing her enthusiasm and area of interest in livelihoods promotion, CYSD Livelihood Team selected her to become the SHG Organizer to look after around 20 SHGs including her own SHG activities.

Meantime, the economic needs of Chandrama’s family grew up day by day and to mitigate that crisis, Kailash started a Common Service Center (CSC) i.e. Jana Seva Kendra at Talapada, but the business could hardly meet their entire requirements. In October 2019, Kailash availed an opportunity to become one of the distributors of LPG under a HP Gas Dealer based in Thakurmunda. The area being tribal dominated with affluent natural forests, at initial stage, the number of consumers were very limited. Normally, in forest area people do not show interest for use of gas due to availability of fuel wood within their reach. In Thakurmunda Block, people use traditional biomass as their primary cooking fuel. But they have little knowledge that wood fuel usage is associated with various negative effects on people’s living condition. The emitted smoke is one of the major health threats. That too fuel provision generates significant costs and puts drudgery burden on women.  On the other hand, massive extraction of trees leads to deforestation, which in turn not only affects global habitation due to a loss of carbon sinks, but also induces regional and local environmental impacts, including land degradation.

Chandrama could internalize that forests are the key to survival of human, animal and plant life around the world.  They are the source of food, medicine, fuel, and provide clean air and combat climate change by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Several times she attempted to bring a movement through the women SHG members to break the chain of deforestation. When her husband became a LPG distributer, Chandrama’s efforts were easier. She got engaged in managing the LPG business and motivated the group members for getting gas connection. Initially, the process was very slow, but it increased gradually. Now, around 450 cooking gas consumers are connected from twelve villages of 3 Panchayats through Chandrama’s distributorship and some more in pipeline.

From the source of gas distribution, they earn a monthly income of 5500/. More importantly, now the community people are very happy by receiving LPG at their door steps, which provides them an option of clean, smokeless and healthy cooking.  In due course, they are realizing that the practice of using cooking gas is not only contributing to save the trees and forest, but also acting as a strategy to mitigate climate change risks.

Through receiving continuous encouragement and support of her family and capacity building training provided by CYSD, Chandrama got ample chances to work independently for the socio-economic development of her family. Now, she is well known in her locality and a prime mover of tribal women – creating interest and awareness among them not to use forest fuel any more, stop deforestation, reduce drudgery burden of collecting fire wood from forest and learn to live with dignity.

The idea of promoting horticulture based durable livelihoods assets in the cultivable wasteland through MGNREGS and Special Central Assistance (SCA) to Tribal Sub Scheme (TSS) has been quite useful as the financial stress is not imposed on the farmer’s family. Rather the wasteland becomes productive and fertile through the constant application of bio-fertilizer and operation inter-culture. Most importantly, farming activities inside the fenced patches ensure immediate cash income for the families. The support of MGNREGS in terms of labor component is an additional earning medium and the farmers can also take up intercrop in the beginning years of intervention.  `

This year, through the agriculture cluster approach, 20 acres of wasteland has converted into cultivable land and used for mango plantation in Brahmaguda village of Kenduguda GP in Boipariguda Block of Koraput district. In this program, around 20 tribal households were covered. A total of 51 job seekers were ensured employment wherein 22 women and 3 migrant laborers got eight weeks’ work engagement leading to leverage of wage to the tune of rupees 5.07 lakh, of which 1.49 lakh under SCA to TSS and 3.58 lakhs under MGNREGS. The major portion of the wages utilized by them was in the agriculture field for procurement of inputs, like paddy seed and fertilizers. The program certainly helped the farmers to come out of their distressed financial situations.

Rounds of meeting and focus group discussions were taken up with tribal households for taking up this initiative. CYSD-FADP team has facilitated household-level activity plans, processing of individual applications with requisite documents, and seeking approval from the district administration. Further, all activities were incorporated in MGNREGS Plan for leveraging resources. The project team continued to provide handhold and technical support in collecting saplings, manure, and green-net for tree guard. Besides, the team has ensured the timely availability of inputs and payment. The experts have been facilitating regular interactions with different stakeholders, like beneficiaries, PRIs, block, and district officials for the success of the program and release of wage payment under MGNREGA.

The major outcomes of this intervention are, plantation of 800 mango plants in 20 acres of wasteland, being the farmers’ durable assets, will provide sustainable livelihoods and contribute to reducing carbon substantially. Intercropping in 16 acres of land with millet and horse gram will not only help the beneficiaries generate better livelihood options but also convert the entire habitat eco-friendly. Mainstream program support in terms of land development will offer fruits and shades, afforestation will trigger water resources alive and make water facilities available to the villagers around the year.

A large number of children are still outside the fold of elementary and early childhood education. There is a wide gap in children’s access to learning facilities in terms of gender, caste, class, ethnicity, and religion. Retention & drop outs, meaningful school participation, learning by children, primarily from the weaker and disadvantaged sections of society, especially the tribal, remains an issue of serious concern.

In this context, CYSD’s special attention remained to make education accessible, ensuring holistic and quality education to all children at pre-school, elementary and secondary levels. The objectives of programme are to: intervention

• Promote quality learning in preschools for all children in 3-6 years of age
• Promote quality learning in schools for all children, especially girls in Class-I to X.
• Promote mother-tongue based learning
• Development of locally relevant learning resources
• Strengthening community oversight of education facilities
• Capacity building of community mechanism on Early Child Education oversight

CYSD has been promoting micro-irrigation and drought-proofing models for groundwater recharge for bringing additional areas under cultivation through irrigation and growing two crops in a year on the same patch of land

5% Corner Pit Model:  This is a model of in-situ rainwater harvesting suitable for medium uplands, in which every plot has its own water body, the area of which equals 5% of the total area of the plot. The pit is able to hold rainwater that otherwise flows out of the plot as runoff. The water held in the pits irrigates the plots during water scarcity.

30 x 40 Model: This is a method of in-situ soil and water conservation. It involves dividing uplands into small plots of 30 x 40 ft (30 ft along the slope and 40 ft across the slope), digging pits at the lowest point in each plot, and bounding the plot using the soil dug out of the pits.