Democracy & Citizenship

Creating Equitable Spaces

Democracy & Citizenship

ECONET is a firm believer of democracy as a value. In all its efforts people–centred approach is core to the intervention strategy. People Participation and Partnership are the 3 Ps that determines community engagement of the organisation. In order to change their lived realities of injustice and inequalities, it is significant that the tribal, NT & DNTs and other vulnerable groups are able to claim & reclaim their space and voice in the corridors of the power. Citizenship is a process as well as it is an identity that comes with an enormous responsibility. The issues and challenges faced by the citizens particularly tribal, dalit, labourers, women, NT & DNTs, farmers, transgender and others could be addressed by citizenship education and citizen’s initiatives.

Constitutional Values and Social Change

ECONET has been working with DNT & NT and tribal communities over three decades now, and in this journey of building capacities of people towards empowerment & sustainable development, two words are very critical. They are constitutional values and social change. Any social change that strengthens democracy and participation of citizens is grounded and built based on the constitutional values – of equality, liberty/freedom, justice and fraternity. With a community of 27 young men and women ECONET is nurturing citizenship in the current socio-political and cultural context in three districts of Khandesh region of Maharashtra. Dhule, Jalgaon and Nandurbar – thus we named the initiative Dhunjan. 9 women and 18 men are engaged with the community predominantly tribal, dalit, NT & DNT and OBCs to educate them on the basic structure of the Indian Constitution, and involved in public education through campaigns, social media drives, lecture series, youth camps spreading the constitutional values among the community. The Dhunjan Sathi as they are called, using diverse methods and platforms to engage with the ordinary citizens, women, youth, school children, teachers, lecturers, farmers, panchayat members, trade unions, political workers, youth organizations and larger civil society on making the connection between the social change or charter of citizens with the constitutional values. Alongside the awareness building on the constitutional values, the Dhunjan Sathis are also resolving the day to day issues and problems faced by the ordinary citizens in securing their constitutional freedoms and entitlements.

Thematic Intervention Strategy

Thematic intervention strategies involved very focused and organized work around a specific theme. Women empowerment, health, education and livelihood are our core areas of thematic intervention. Econet works at variouslevels by connecting people from the grassroots to top such as various local organizations, individuals and government system. By identifying various community issues, theme focused and specific work is done to deal with the issues at various levels with the help of local people and government system. Various innovative initiatives and models have been set up to focus the specific target groups in the community and deal the identified issues at macro level.

Health

Health is always remains concern for the NT & DNT communities. Many factors are rigorously affecting their health. Such as continuous migration, no identity documents, low education, lack of knowledge, superstitions, living conditions etc. Health system is also not very sensitive towards NT & DNT people. Nomadic communities have very little access to health services. Also the health system does not seem to be very sensitive towards them. Many social organizations work on health issues. But only by providing health information or creating awareness, people will not reach to the relevant health system. Moreover, their attitude and treatment given to them does not change. To bridge the gap between NT & DNT people and health system as well as improve the health status of NT & DNT community we have initiated specific interventions. Health Dialogue (Aarogya Samvad Upkram): Aarogya samvad is the platform for patients to express their queries, opinions and raise their questions freely. Health as a right, for easy access to health services, continuity of our work with health system is equally important. For this, twice in a month, we visit government hospitals in the field areas and have interaction with the patients, understand their problems and provide information, assistance and guidance to needy patients and individuals related to health and health scheme related matters. Health services calendar- Health services calendar is an important part of our health intervention to monitor the various health services provided by govt health centers. Every month community people and Aarogya Sakhi group members prepare a calendar of various health services and ranked it in three categories i.e. good, average and poor and display it on a public place, where everyone can see and analyze it. Along with the above major initiatives Econet is also taking efforts to improve the health status of NT & DNT community and women through implementing various activities such as kitchen garden, health camps, health sessions, competition of low cost and healthy food recipe etc.

Education

Education is our fundamental right. But for NT & DNT and marginalised children it is still like a dream to get good quality of education. They always face double discrimination and challenges in getting education. Increasing incidents of child abuse, the challenges faced by teachers and parents, it is certain that children are currently living in a competitive and unsafe world. Considering the competition in school, challenges in education system, competition to get admitted in reputed colleges and as a result physical-mental and financial stress among the children and youth, Econet is focusing on the specific intervention in the field of education. Mukt Samvad katta (Platform for free communication) “Mukt Samvad Katta” is a platform for school going children to express their feelings, thoughts and opinions freely and openly without any fear. Today, due to overuse of media, speedy lifestyle and many other factors there is no one to listen and guide you in a right way. As a result, school going children feel suffocate, stressed and couldn’t find the way out of the situation. The increasing rate of suicides is the result of this. Hence, it is strongly felt that right from school age, “children should be given a rightful platform to express themselves freely and make their way through it”. Through this platform we are engaged with the government schools with the specific objective; to help and guide the children to raise and solve their personal, family, educational, social and financial problems. Make efforts for their overall development by organizing sessions on various topics related to children, creating awareness about child sexual violence, adolescence, friendship-love-attraction, life skills, gender equality, and constitutional values. Provide help and guide for children to get benefit of various education schemes and scholarships and counselling of children and parents to encourage them to pursue higher education. Support classes- Support classes for NT & DNT and marginalised children are our core initiative to improve their academic performance in schools. We are mainly working with the NT & DNT population whose first language is different than Marathi and in Maharashtra we get all education in Marathi language. Children from NT & DNT communities found it very difficult to understand the basic concepts from their curriculum lose their interest and ultimately become drop out. Trice in a week our field workers conduct support classes in each village. Along with it we conduct various games and activities to keep their interest in the study. Through this initiative somehow we are succeed to lower the school dropout rate of these children.

Bal Gramsabha

Econet is taking efforts to create platform for children to raise their voice in local governance as well as participate in the process of decision making. In our field area, Children are raising their voices and putting the issues affecting them such as health, education, child marriages, child labour etc. Every year we conduct a summer camp for children mainly on the topic of constitutional values, gender, friendship-attraction-love, safe and unsafe touch etc. Sessions and training on life skills were conducted for the children. It is not enough to work only with the children so, we are engaging with the education system, school management committee, child protection committee etc by building their perspective and capacities on the issues related to children.

WOMEN EMPOERMENT (participation in local governance)

Women from NT & DNT communities are most vulnerable and marginalised amongst the all. They are still struggling to get their basic rights as a humanbeing and as a citizen of India. Where they are struggling to get involved in the decision making at their own home or about themselves, participation in decision making at local governance is like a dream for them. To bring them in a mainstream, we have constituted the groups of past and present members of gram panchayat called “Gramsakhi group”. Through trainings, sessions and exposure visits we build their capacities. We are also focusing on the women gramsabha and most probably taking efforts to get these gramsabha’s done at Basti’s or tanda’s of NT & DNT community so women can raise their problems freely. On the other hand our focus is to ensure the 100% utilization of 10% fund allocated for women development in each Grampanchayat. On the other hand we are encouraging and taking efforts to involve the NT & DNT women in local governance and various committees at village level so, they can be a major part of decision making too

Creating Equitable Spaces

Creating Equitable Spaces