MANUVIKASAA Group of Volunteers for Education, Environment and Rural Development
Organization Profile
History of the MANUVIKASAMANUVIKASA is a non governmental and non political organization developed by educated and experienced social workers. All of the board members are having experience in women, children and youth development activities. MANUVIKASA try to benefit depressed families of the targeted villages through empowerment of women, youths and providing education to the children. Managing Trustee of the MANUVIAKSA and all other trustees are youngsters and having demonstrated leadership qualities to achieve the MANUVIKASA’s objective. MANUVIKASA selected North Kanara and Haveri Districts for its developmental interventions. These Districts are facing so many problems such as unemployment, illiteracy and ill health. These Districts are geographically divided into four types such as hilly area, plane land, semi arid area and coastal area. Major population in this area are SC’s, ST’s, tribals and below poverty line members.
Why MANUVIAKSA selected this area?This area geographically comes under semi arid zones and rainfall is very less comparing to the other districts. Density of the population is very high and people are duped by basic amenities. Major portion of the population is land less laborers and SC and STs who are living in separate area and not provided with adequate amenities like roads and drinking water. Only few people of the village are the owners of large area of agriculture land. Jowar, paddy and cotton are the main crops and farmers are facing rate fluctuation in the market. Landless laborers and small farmers are not having enough employment throughout the year. So they migrate to coffee estates and coastal areas in search of employment in summer. During that time dropout rate in primary schools will be very high and those farmers migrate along with their children. Girl children situation of the village is very crucial. After passing fourth or seventh standard parents discontinue their education. Few of them go to urban areas to serve the employed couple and most of them have to face manifold abuse.
In this area most of the poor people are trapped by the local moneylenders. These poor people approach the local money lenders during their critical position like health problems; marriage, house repair etc. local lenders use this opportunity and charge the high interest rate range from 60 to 120 percent. There is a need of rescue them from the money lenders through self-help centered development. Most of the local institutes like co-operative societies and gram Panchayaths are having hold of the richest people of the village. Bonded labor system is existed in these villages in the name of contract labor in Kannada “Sambalada Alu” against the advance amount taken by the family. The daily wages of the male members is from Rs. 45 to 50 and women members wage is average Rs.25. Women members are totally neglected in terms of decision making of the family matters.
The situations of the women are grievous in these villages. Most of the women members here are illiterates and are undergoing exploitation such as dowry, child marriage, divorce and unwanted babies. The women in SC, ST and below the poverty line family are facing manifold problems like lack of fuel, drinking water, poor housing system and drunkard husbands. MANUVIKASA intended to provide legal literacy to this women folk by creating awareness on their rights. MANUVIKASA intended to cover these women members under self-help concept and encourage them towards self-employment for upgrading their standard of living.
The situation of the youths is also same. Most of youths in this area are un-employed or seasonal employees. Due to the poverty and lack of awareness youths have became illiterate and there per day income is very less. They are not able to maintain their family and parents. Due to these all pressure they are lying in the trap of bad habits and illegal activities. In this situation they require employment to handle their life. Situation of the girl youths is more critical than the boys. Most of the parents will not send their girl children to colleges after their secondary and primary education. Their education will not help in getting jobs or any employment to lead their life. Automatically they have to depend on male members for their life security. In this situation girl youths have to bear all the harassment even if having invisible talents and capacity. This is very inevitable to address the issue of youths and facilitation is required to bring out the invisible capacity and talent of the youths and make them resources of the nation. MANUVIKASA intended to empower the youths through developing entrepreneurship amount the youths.
We can find out three types of human beings in a family viz. elders youths and children. MANUVIKASA will include elder members of a family through self-help promotion and youths through vocational trainings. In the same way children will be covered through supplementary education and other support service for continuing their education. MANUVIKASA observed that number of children in this area is dropping out of the school especially from the families of poor, scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and minority communities. These children can be divided into few sections and are categorized as follows.
Children from slum areas
In these Districts number of child rag pickers, beggars are living in slum area. Their parents are mostly migrated from the villages and don't have permanent shelters. But these elders will be working as laborers in construction works, scrap business etc. and earning about Rs. 80/- to Rs. 100/- per day. The earning of their children is the additional income to the family. But they don't want to save money and spend it for arrack, tobacco and other bad habits. Slowly these children will also practice these habits and loss their future. Government departments and few NGOs are running schools in these areas but they are not able to cover these children in the proposed Districts. Convincing their parents and motivating these children to join the school through non-formal method is only solution for this problem. The slum areas are highly risking areas in terms of prostitution. Girl children are in demand and being supplied for sex purposes in these areas. Severe health problems (Sexually Transmitted Infection) are observed among women and girl children by the health department and AIDS awareness volunteers. Incorporation of these women members and girl children through meeting, groups for creating awareness on health education is the need of the hour. Recently Taluk medical officer revealed the information that more than 40 people have been identified with HIV positive.
Children from villages: (Agriculture sector)
Poverty, illiteracy, social evils are most familiar factors in the rural areas of the district. Children and women are the immediate victims of this problem. Several land owners employing children as bonded laborers in village for domestic work, looking after young children, cow rearing etc. Parents of these children get loan from respective landlords and appoint children for particular period. As the result child will fall in inhuman atmosphere as a bonded labor facing discriminations, sexual and other form of abuse. The rules or any other pressure are not standing in this non formal sector to rescue these children.
Devadasi:
Devadasi is a system in which girl child is offered to deity and then onwards she has to serve the male public. Moreover the child will be pushed out of her family. This inhuman practice is invisibly alive and the male community of the village is exploiting victims of this evil. Children of the Devadasi families are also having inhuman plight and this project will help to get education for these children. Migration of families in summer with their children resulted in dropping out of children from the school and starts working in neighboring regions like hilly area, Goa or other coastal area of Karnataka and big cities. Slowly these children will fall into the trap of traffickers and will be transported to other areas for commercial purpose. Most probably girl children become sex workers in this process. Lack of knowledge among parents and lust of money resulted in desperate of children. So MANUVIKASA envisaged implementing this project for securing such children.
Tribal children
In the targeted area of MANUVIKASA tribes like siddies and Gowlies are living especially in forest area of Mundgod, Yallapur and Haliyal Taluks of North Kanara district. These children are forced to do collection of forest products and dairy activity to supplement the family income by their parents. Due to lack of awareness among the parents on education and lack of child friendly environment in their areas resulted in high rate of child dropout rate in schools and child abuse. MANUVIKASA intended to develop these children through supporting them to continue education and become a responsible citizen of the nation.
c) Demonstrated ability of the institution to mobilize resources from communities.
MANUVIKASA believes in capacity building of the community and involving the community in planning the project, execution, sharing of labor and cash contribution and maintenance and continuation of the project even after proposed project period. MANUVIKASA always stressed on the involvement of women and youth SHGs for achieving any developmental and research projects. Since four years MANUVIKASA has conducted manifold activities without external funding support and mobilized community resources. On this ground MANUVIKASA feels that ability of the organization in mobilizing resources from the community is excellent.
d) Current objectives and major activities undertaken
Objective of the organization:
· To undertake the preservation of the natural resources mainly land, water, vegetation to sustain life on this planet by maintaining ecosystem and to prevent exploitation of these resources by some section of the society and ensuring equitable distribution to meet the basic need of all, especially the poor.
· Care and service for the Educational, Economic, Environmental, Cultural needs, Welfare and well being of all the persons residing in India irrespective of Caste, Creed, Race, sex, language or religion and more specifically downtrodden, economically backward rural folk living below the poverty line in particular with prejudice.
e) Other Objectives of the Organization:
· To help reduce poverty and promote community economic development through rural credit particularly to women, landless laborers and other disadvantaged groups through Income/employment generation, rural enterprise promotion and better health care promotion with focus on dalits, lambani tribals, Shepherds and Muslim minority communities.
· To improve rural livelihood through sustainable management and development of natural resources and promotion of improved environment friendly agricultural practices.
· Working with communities to assist and empower women in target groups to develop community based structures and organizations with self-help concept with special emphasis on development of women and developing local women as SHG leaders, members of village Grama Panchayats and in other local level institutions.
· Working in co-operation with other local agencies, Government Departments which, are concerned for meeting the needs of the target group in different ways and establishing operational links with such agencies.
· To initiate research and development projects with community participation which ultimately aim to influence the reduction of incidence of poverty, child labor and environmental destruction.
f) Experience / Activities undertaken:
Number of developmental programmes and projects have been implementing for poverty alleviation in different parts of the India by government departments and Non Governmental Organizations. We have introduced variety of strategy for developmental initiatives. Contribution of the NGOs in nation building is considerable. As an NGO MANUVIKASA in its 4 years of experience with experienced board members, initiated variety of developmental programmes in its target area for poor women, youth and children.
Women development programmes
Main target group of the MANUVIKASA is poor rural women folk. Since its beginning, organization is putting efforts for making women more productive. Endure of the MANUVIKASA focused on social economical and educational development of the rural poor women for their empowerment. MANUVIKASA promoting SHGs in rural area to organize women and youths under one small group for giving them institutional framework. Under these small groups women and youths are being encouraged for savings, credit management and self-employment. MANUVIKASA is conducting trainings for these people on legal education, health awareness and women rights. These SHGs will be linked with the bank to mitigate the credit need of the poor. Proclamation of the MANUVIKASA is empowerment through self-employment, providing self-employment and entrepreneurship programme for women to start up employment. Now MANUVIKASA is conducting SHG promotion and strengthening activities in Haveri and North Kanara district.
Eradication of child labor system and education development programmes
MANUVIKASA has considered education as a basic necessity of every person like food, cloth and shelter. Child labor system and child abuses are the main obstacles for human development and universal education. So MANUVIKASA is addressing these issues through different means viz. Motivation of child labor and their parents towards education, campaigns for universal education, financial help to poor children and networking and lobbying against child trafficking and any type of child abuse.
Entrepreneurship development and youth development
In the working area of MANUVIKASA, a major proportion of the people in society is not provided with sufficient means of livelihood. People who are living below poverty line are facing immense problems like ill health, lack of food security and un-employment.
It is very difficult to solve this problem by any government except the economic development of the people. Engaging people in employment not in wage employment but in self-employment is only the solution for all the above problems. MANUVIKASA realized this truth and encouraging people towards self-employment through conducting entrepreneurship awareness programmes, skill trainings; value added programme to agriculture produces and providing bank loan facilities and linkage to the government programmes such as SGSY and PMRY programmes to desirable beneficiaries.
Organic Farming practice
Organic farming practice is being implemented in Haveri and North Kanara district with support of RKVY project, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad. Already basic information has collected. This project includes awareness generation among farmers about organic farming, identification of selected crops for organic farming, development of soil and water conservation structures; motivate them for horticulture and animal husbandry activities etc. Ultimate aim of this project is sustainable development of the farmer community with self-reliance in the farm practice and develops total organic farm practice in selected villages within the period of 05 years.
Preparation of Bio-diversity registers
MANUVIKASA is situated in bio-diversity hot spot area and having interest in documentation and conservation of the bio-diversity. MANUVIKASA has collaborated with Department of Forest and Bio-diversity board Bangalore to prepare peoples bio-diversity register in selected Panchayaths. Already this organization has prepared a people bio-diversity register in Manamane Panchayath of Siddapur Taluk with the involvement of local people, Gram Panchayath and Bio-diversity management committees.
Maintenance of RSK under RKVY project
This year Department of Agriculture has recognized the MANUVIKASA work and sanctioned a project under RKVY to maintain Raith Sampark Kendra at Mirjan Of Kumta Taluk and Kondli of Siddapur Taluk. MANUVIKASA has appointed experienced staff to implement agriculture development activities with farmers especially acceleration of farm mechanism, development of horticulture, sericulture, development of organic farming practice, demonstration plats and train farmers on bee keeping, floriculture and poultry and animal husbandry activities.
Enrichment of planting and climate change
MANUVIKASA is distributing wild fruit and medicinal plants in Siddapur Taluk of North Kanara District for enrichment of planting. And also organization is developing energy efficient Choolas (stoves) to reduce dependency on community on forest for fire wood. MANUVIKASA is conducting awareness programmes in schools and community level to generate awareness on reduces climate change.
g) MANUVIKASA plan for coming days
MANUVIKASA planning to adopt more than one thousand depressed families per year for implementing livelihood development programmes
· Education and health support to children
· Empowering women through self help groups
· Empowering youths through self employment
· Development of rural livelihood through prevention of migration
· Environment development and bio-diversity conservation
Appeal
MANUVIKASA is an NGO working for development of depressed family of North Kanara and Haveri Districts of Karnataka state, India. This organization is financially not strong to achieve its objective. MANUVIKASA intended to cover at least 1000 below poverty line family or depressed family per year for livelihood development programmes such as education, health and employment generation. MANUVIKASA also intended take up reduce climate change programmes in targeted area. MANUVIKASA requests like minded people, groups, NGOs, funding agencies and philanthropists to contribute in the form of cash, kind, and volunteers’ support, any type of assistance, collaboration and intellectual support to achieve the objectives.
For more details contact ………..
Contact person : Harischandra Bhat and Nagaraj Hegde,
Village : KARJAGI
Post Office : BALUR
Taluk : SIDDAPUR
District : NORTH KANARA
State : KARNATAKA, INDIA
Pin Code : 581340
Telephone No : 91-8389-249729 Mobile No: 91-9845982552 E mail : manuvikasa@gmail.com
******************
