PRIA has taken up an awareness campaign on sanitation and solid waste management in the wards of 34 and 35 of Mahabubnagar Municipality, Andhra Pradesh with a citizen collective (women’s self help group/NHGs). During this campaign, Citizen Collectives were educated on the consequences of an unhygienic neighbourhood and the importance of maintaining sanitation in the ward. The CCs were also provided tricycles to collect garbage from house to house

After the orientation, Nagamma group leader, Veeranjaneya mahila group motivated its group members to utilise the tricycle for safe disposal of household waste. Households were asked to keep household garbage in a basket/gunny bag/plastic bag before handing it over to the tricycle. Nominal charges were paid to the tricycle person by the residents. The sanitation drive made the two wards clean and hygienic. At present, nearly fifty percent of residents including slum dwellers are using the tricycles for safe disposal of household garbage

Ms Jareena Begum along with a Citizen Collective has started the campaign for death and birth registration in ward 34 of Mahabubnagar municipality. After getting the details of birth registration from the municipal office, she filled up the registration form with the help of a local employee and handed it over to the death and birth registrar. The registrar suggested to her to get the affidavit certificate from the lawyer because her son had crossed 2.5 years of age. She went to the lawyer, paid the fee and got the affidavit certificate. Then the complete application form was handed over to the registrar along with the prescribed fee.

But the process was not complete; she had to make several rounds to the municipal office to get the certificate issued. When she asked what the reasons for delay were, the death and birth registrar told her that the application had gone to RDO for approval. By now beginning to despair, she approached the commissioner. The commissioner made enquiries from the birth and death registrar and also placed a call to the RDO regarding the same. After a long struggle, Ms Jareena Begum finally got the birth certificate of her son. Now, she is happy that she has the birth certificate with her as the document would be very useful in her son’s life particularly for school and college admissions, passports, residence proof, marriage etc.

Mrs. Pushpa Mahobe is a resident of Santh Ravidas Ramnagar ,Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh. She got married around 15 years back and her husband worked in a private company on very low wages. In order to fulfill her household needs, she started working as a Beedi worker. Her earnings for the whole day was only around Rs. 18 –20. She was extremely dissatisfied with her life: to add to her woes, her husband lost his job and life came to a standstill. Her dream of a better life came crashing down.

But she mustered up courage and decided to start something new. She suggested to her husband to sell toys in the local melas. After initial reluctance, he decided to take the chance and began to sell toys in the melas. Pushpa, being the motivator, always stood behind her husband. Slowly their business picked up and they started thinking of expanding their work. A member of a self-help group, Pushpa applied for a loan from the bank but it was not sanctioned. So she decided to take the loan from the local moneylender at a very high interest rate. She utilised the loan properly by expanding her business. Today, her business has grown and consequently her life has changed. She is more happy and satisfied than before.

She encourages her neighbours to leave beedi making and start something new

Ms Geeta Pradhan, a resident of ward number 2 and Ms Pushpa Singh, a resident of ward 21, belong to Janjgir-Champa municipality, Chhattisgarh. They are widely respected and appreciated by the ward people as they always take the initiative to demand services/ schemes for the poor, excluded and marginalised. They are constantly in search of information on welfare schemes e.g. those relating to disability, old age pension, widow pension, housing, from the municipality/line departments, so that they can help people of the ward

Mr. Debdarshan Mazumdar is an active citizen leader of ward no. 9, Pakur, Jharkhand. In the Birth & Death registration campaign initiated in collaboration with DRC and Pakur MC, Mr. Mazumdar ensured a good participation of women. He along with his wife took several women to court for making an affidavit. It is to be noted that the children who were not registered in the first month of their birth have to compulsorily submit an affidavit along with the birth registration form. As a result of his initiatives, 45 birth applications were submitted on December 21, 2005.

Besides convincing and cajoling, Mazumdar used scare tactics to mobilise people. Pakur municipality is very close to Bangladesh border(30 kms) and there is a threat of Bangladeshi refugees migrating to the Pakur urban area. Mr Mazumdar said that if the people do not register the births of their children early, they may be treated as Bangladeshi refugees. As a result they may lose their land and will no longer be citizens of this country. The fear of eviction and de-recognition acted as a mobilising force and 45 applications were submitted within seven days of the campaign.

Two months after submission of application, Birth and Death certificates were delivered to the applicants but not before the tax collector, the person responsible for checking the validity of B & D applications gave the report that the children were born outside the country. Shocked at the report, Mazumdar and PRIA, DRC filed an application against the report. But the special officer was not convinced that the children were born in the house (most affidavits said that the children were born in the house) as facilities of a sub-divisional hospital are available in the Municipal area. The Citizen leader then strongly reiterated that all the children were born in the house and that delivery was facilitated by a local dai. Listening to him, special officer ordered a sanitary inspector to cross check the information. After a day, the citizen leader was informed that the birth applications are ready and these can be collected from the office.

Ballabhpur slum is located in ward-10, Pakur, Jharkhand. This poor locality is inhabited by daily wage earners and bidi makers. The people live here amidst dirt, squalor and disease. Citizen Leaders have intervened in the past by ensuring safe drinking water for the people of the area. Some other initiatives like generating awareness on birth and death registration were started by two citizen leaders of the ward- Sandip and Surojeet Sarkar. The tax collector also participated in the birth and death registration campaign launched by the CLs. In the campaign at Ballabhpur on December 15, 2005, about 25 women gathered to hear the citizen leaders encourage them to get the birth registration of their children done. But people cannot afford to lose a day’s livelihood to get the certificate and the cost of making the affidavit was too high for them. As a result, just one application for certificate has been received so far. The campaign despite creating awareness about B & D certificates has failed in the face of some practical constraints.

Nelkala Colony is a Scheduled Caste dominated area located in Ward No. 8 and 9 of Kasargod Municipality, Kerala. An orientation on Nagarapalika and relevance of Ward Sabha was organised for the Kudumbasree Members in the locality. Kudumbasree leaders Mrs. Sindhu, Mallika and Sakeena were motivated by the orientation to start organising training for the people on Nagarapalika and Ward Sabha. Some other issues, which affected the daily lives of the people e.g. drinking water and poor roads were also raised in the meeting. For the repair of the roads and provision of safe drinking water, a memorandum was submitted to the district collector. After repeated requests, the municipality agreed to construct a road in the area and supply water to ward no. 8

Savitri Devi, (CL) of Sidhauli NP, Uttar Pradesh has participated in a number of capacity building programmes. She is also the president of a SHG of 15 women. She had been active in organising local events and mobilisation of the women of the ward. Inspired by her initiatives, the organisation planned to mobilise women for International Women’s day through “Mahila Dakiya” (Post women). She acted as the Dakiya who would be carrying the pamphlets and brochures related to urban Governance and distributing these to women residing in various parts of the town. She would begin her day after 11 a.m. and go to wards, contact the women, explain to them about PEVAC and International Women’s Day and provide the learning material for reference. After a few rounds, the media took note of it and published a news item focused on the initiative of Savitri Devi. Thereafter, wherever she would go, the women would easily recognise her and come out to interact with her. With her efforts, other group members were also sensitised and took similar initiatives in other wards. At the end of the day, the organisation has been successful in disseminating information in all the wards. As a result, International Women’s Day Celebration at Sidhauli witnessed a huge turnout of women.

In January 2006, SSK organised training for citizen leaders on Community Based Monitoring (CBM). In the training, citizen leaders from various places identified some social issues for monitoring as a part of participatory learning. Citizen leaders from Badokhar Khurd, Banda chose the identification of Below Poverty Line families as an exercise for CBM. They decided to monitor the whole process of making a BPL list in their Gram Panchayat. After the training, the CL of Khurd decided to continue the exercise in their village. They drew a community map of the Gram Panchayat and identified the genuine cardholders through Focus group discussion and the application of other PRA techniques. This exercise has certainly helped the CL in developing self-confidence and earning credibility in the community.

Ramu Verma is a citizen leader of Gram Panchayat Imilia, Mishrikh, Sitapur. Being an active and aware member of Gram Panchayat, Ramu always endeavoured for the improvement of his village. Impressed by his initiative and commitment, the villagers asked Ramu to contest election of Gram Panchayat. Supported by them, Ramu won the elections.

Ramu took up the functions of Gram Panchayat member as a challenge. He decided to sensitise the Pradhan and other members of Panchayats for regular meetings of Panchayat. As a result of his efforts, the meetings of GP are regular. The other challenge was the conducting of ‘Gram Sabha ki Khuli Baithak’, an open meeting of Gram Sabha. For this Ramu sensitised his community members to take part in Gram Sabha meeting. The result was there for all to see, the quorum of gram sabha was achieved. Members of Gram Sabha took part in meetings and spoke of issues concerning them in front of the Gram Panchayat. This improved the faith of the villagers in Gram Panchayat. Ramu regularly conducts ward level meetings in his ward. People of his ward feel proud that their decision for make Ramu a member of Gram Panchayat was right.

Several meetings to orient citizen leaders and citizen collectives on development schemes and functions of Gram Sabha were conducted by PRIA & partner organisation, Eco-club in Chinnaelkicherla of Kondurg mandal in Mahabubnagar, Andhra Pradesh

Ms. Nagamani, one of the active citizen leaders in Chinnaelkicherla, gained knowledge and information on drinking water and sanitation schemes in the orientation programmes. After the meetings, she interacted with other citizen leaders and members of citizen collectives and highlighted the problems faced by them regarding drinking water and sanitation. The citizen collectives and citizen leaders decided to put these problems up before the Gram Sabha and resolve to solve the problems at the earliest. When GP conducted the Gram Sabha, all the citizen leaders and collectives participated in it and highlighted the problems of drinking water and sanitation in the village.

One month later, all the citizen leaders and citizen collectives got the latrines constructed under ISL scheme and hand pumps were fixed to the borewell for drinking water.

Manyapalem is a small hamlet in Mamidilova Panchayat, Anadapuram mandal, Visakhapatnam District. It has a large tribal population. Being mainly illiterate, many of the tribals in the district do not have the ST certificate which gives them the benefits of government programmes. The community realised the importance of the certificate when a student was denied admission for not submitting the certificate inspite of the fact that he belonged to the ST community

This problem was put up in a meeting conducted by PRIA & its partner Sanjeevini. Devudu, a citizen leader promised to do the follow up of the issue. The problem was put forward in the Panchayat meeting. It was decided in the Panchayat that the Mandal Samiti should be approached for further action. The community along with Mr Devudu went to the mandal Revenue Officer to apply for the certificate. The work was done immediately in Mandal Samiti and people were asked to collect their certificates from the Zilla Parishad. Mr Devudu represented the community in the Zilla Parishad and finally got the certificates. The process went on for six months. Today, the village is proud of Mr Devudu. Encouraged by his achievement, tribal people are taking the initiative to develop the village by coming out and speaking to Elected representatives and officials.

Drinking water is a major problem in Ianada village, Padmanabham Mandal, Visakhapatnam district. The need was to guide people for solving the water shortage in the village. PRIA planned an intervention by orienting CLs / CCs / SHGs on Swajaldhara. scheme. The guidelines in the schemes were provided in the Gram Sabha meeting. Sarpanch/pradhan, upa sarpanch, and other panch members were also present in the meeting. After the meeting the SHG went to the sarpanch with the proposal of submitting an application for getting water from the scheme. The SHG also gave an assurance that they would be responsible for collection of contributions from the villagers. The sarpanch submitted the application. Thereafter, the concerned RWS JEE inspected the Panchayat to assess the requirement for water. He gave a green signal for sanction of the Scheme to the village. The process has started but it is yet to be sanctioned by the District Water and Sanitation Committee.

Ponnamma James, a married woman with two children was a social worker associated with an NGO called CAIROS ( Kasargod district, Kerala) and was working as a coordinator. She was a regular participant of PRIA & Sahayi’s various orientation and training programmes. These programme motivated her to be involved in Panchayat Raj activities like mobilising women for Gram Sabha, etc. The leadership qualities gained through Sahayi’s training helped her to emerge as a potential candidate in the LSGI election . Supported by a major political party, she became a member of Panathadi Panchayat (Ward No. 13). During her participation in the LSGI orientation to newly elected representatives, she thankfully acknowledged Sahayi’s contribution to her upliftment and expressed confidence in working as a responsible people’s representative

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