Month: December 2020

The Parivaar Bengal Sevavratee team camped in Sundarbans and visited more than a dozen villages, many of which were islands. These are the areas that lost almost everything in the Amphan earlier this year. Vulnerable elderly in the area had meticulously identified in earlier visits and blanket distribution was conducted. More than 1200 elderly were gifted warm blankets ordered from Ludhiana. Meetings were also taken by Parivaar sevavratees to take the stock of conditions and for future programs for children and youth. 

Some of the villages covered were Darirjangal, Polpara, Jamaipara, Daspara, Dokanpara, Schoolpara, Naskarpara, Sarderpara, Karnakhali, Bholakhali, Gayenpara, Singpara, Karnakhalipol.

A sample size of 1500 children from our 200 Seva Kutirs (Treatment Group) and also 500 children from non-Seva Kutir villages (Control Group) will be studied over a one-year period to see the impact that has come because of the Seva Kutirs intervention. The baseline/midline was supposed to begin in April 2020 but could not start because of COVID-19. It has now started in the last week of November and will be finished by mid-December. The endline will happen in December 2021.

One of the key objectives of our work in all the poor tribal villages is that each and every child at least finishes school education. At present, more than 50% children are not able to do that, because of heavy drop outs from Class 9th onwards. So, every year, at the time of admissions, our grassroot workers (around 1100) counsel the parents and ensure that all children take admission in Class 9th. Students who were not aware of the process for taking admissions, or because of other reasons, were not keen on taking admissions, were counseled. Some of these students were also admitted in the government hostels, depending on the seat availability. A total of 1421 students across around 200 tribal villages in 5 Seva Kutir districts took admissions after our counseling, break-up of which is given below:

Starting in last week of November, Our Parivaar Bengal sevavratees are undertaking extensive survey and field engagement exercise in more than 100 villages for winter relief for elderly, new children admission in tribal areas and pockets in districts of Jhargram, Bankura, Purulia, Birbhum, the Sundarbans, and in Singhbhum area of Jharkhand. We intend to distribute blankets to 4000 elderly in deprivation in these pockets.

Two new high quality basketball courts are almost finished at both Parivaar boys campus and Parivaar girls campus. This has been through the support of Hi5 Foundation and Sachin Tendulkar Foundation 

We have partnered with Toybank (www.toybank.org), an organization working in building fun & play spaces for children from underprivileged backgrounds. During present times, they are creating PlaySheets, focusing on the behavioral and mental growth of children. They are sharing these PlaySheets with us daily which are then being shared by us with all the children of our Seva Kutirs. These PlaySheets have interesting educational activities on a wide range of areas such as languages, arithmetic, simple games etc.  

We have partnered with Mantra for Change (https://mantra4change.com/)  for teachers’ training and capacity building. Online trainings more then 200 teachers of our Seva Kutirs in Sheopur, Mandla and Chhindwara have happened and will soon start the training sessions for teachers from other Seva Kutir districts. 

We try to ensure that the benefits of various government schemes reach to the tribal beneficiaries in our Seva Kutir villages. As part of this activity, we regularly help villagers get access to the schemes. To do this in a more structured manner, we have launched a pilot in 10 Seva Kutirs in Mandla district. We are using the Haqdarshak app (a Tech platform  that connects citizens with their eligible welfare schemes) ( haqdarshak.com ). Once the pilot is run for 6 months-1 year, we will launch it with priority in all Seva Kutirs of all our Seva Kutir districts. The schemes selected for this purpose are :
 
1. Ladli Lakshmi Yojana
2. Vriddha Pension,
3. Viklanga Pension,
4. Vidhwa Pension
5. Ayushman Bharat 
6. PM Awas Yojana (Gramin)
7. PM- Kisan Samman Nidhi
8. Nal Jal Yojana,
9. ADIP Scheme (Assistance to Disabled Persons for purchasing/fitting of aids/appliances)

Every year, we distribute sweaters to children in Seva Kutirs who do not have these, and blankets to vulnerable elderly persons so that they can protect themselves from the cold. This winter, in November, we distributed 10,400 sweaters across 76 tribal villages in 6 districts and 10,000 blankets to elderly across more than 200 villages in 7 districts of Madhya Pradesh. Quality blankets were ordered from Ludhiana in Punjab and ferried to more than 200 villages, many of which did not have any roads.

In the last week of October, we have launched a major campaign of planting fruit trees with support from Mr Rajmohan’s Sustainable Green Initiative. We will be planting over 5 lakhs Fruit Trees by 50 thousand families in 6 districts of Madhya Pradesh in next 1 year. 30,000 trees have been planted as a pilot, and the next planting will be done in February 2021 after the end of winter. Following fruit trees have been planted:
 
1. Anaar (Pomegranate)
2. Amrood (Guava)
3. Sitaphal (Custard-apple))  
4. Aanwla (Indian Gooseberry) 
5. Lemon
6. Moringa