Pragya Thapaliya’s Post

ENOUGH : refers to sufficient, full or satisfactory. World Vision Eswatini will soon be partnering in a campaign called ENOUGH. The organisation will be advocating for ENOUGH food for children in Eswatini. Let us all join hands and shout in one voice that No child deserves to go to bed on an empty stomach. No child deserves to go to school on an empty stomach. Let us all work together towards reducing malnutrition (all forms) Let us all work together towards ending hunger. No baby deserves not to be Breastfed. I am thrilled that the Kingdom's National Strategy for 2025-2030 will be centred around SDG 8 (Decent work and Economic Growth). This is a positive move towards an improved livelihood for the unemployed youth in the country. #foreverychildenoughfood #foreverychildabalancedmeal

Putting rural India first

What does our Smart Farm Project entail? Here we break down the key strategies of our Daspalla demonstration project and explain how they help improve rural livelihoods. #jeevika #smartfarm #livelihood #women #sustainable

Attention all changemakers! We're on the lookout for remarkable sanitation endeavors spearheaded by Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs), showcasing robust community engagement. We are currently preparing a compendium of best practices for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0, highlighting exemplary initiatives from across all states and union territories. Your contributions will play a pivotal role in this nationwide endeavor. We're specifically interested in initiatives situated in urban or peri-urban areas across India. These initiatives could cover a wide spectrum of sanitation aspects such as solid waste management, wastewater management, used water management, and waste to wealth solutions. Whether you've been directly involved in relevant projects or are aware of pertinent case studies, your insights are invaluable. Kindly share your contributions with us at manasmita@cureindia.org and ritupramanik@cureindia.org. Together, let's pave the way for cleaner, healthier urban communities in India. #SanitationInitiatives #CommunityEngagement #SwachhBharatMission2.0 #UrbanDevelopment #BestPractices

The article discusses issues encountered by tribes in central India, including loss of biodiversity, lack of land, food insecurity, and illiteracy. It also stresses the significance of providing food subsidies, improving governance, and preserving tribal values to uplift their communities. -By Dibyendu Chaudhuri and Parijat Ghosh #happyreading

Based on the "Status of Adivasi Livelihoods (SAL) 2022" report, which sheds light on plight of Adivadis in MP and Chhattisgarh emphasizing lower income, landlessness, illiteracy and malnutrition, Parijat Ghosh and my article on Ideas for India (I4I)...

#eveningdigest This practically means the Cost of Living is high across the Country. K5,000 is not easily earned in many households especially with the high prices for Rent/Accommodation. The Government alone cannot make some magic happen to turn this situation around. The Private Sector needs to be actively involved and Entrepreneurs need to diversify their creativity and innovations to find a meaningful sustainable solution to this. Ironically, this also creates opportunities for new businesses that can take advantage of the market gaps.

#Parhaiyas, identified as a 'particularly vulnerable #tribalgroup,' predominantly inhabit Jharkhand's Latehar and Palamu districts. Deep within India's forests, they traditionally sustained themselves through shifting cultivation, hunting, and gathering.   Unfortunately, due to factors like #waterscarcity , environmental degradation, wildlife and forest policies, habitat encroachment, and persistent denial of land rights, these communities have lost their traditional livelihoods.   This has led many to endure 17-hour shifts in brick kilns in #uttarpradesh and #bihar , affecting the education of their children and perpetuating a cycle of poverty. Padmini Ramesh and SANGEETH Sugathan highlighted challenges such as food insecurity and Aadhaar-related exclusions faced by the community, despite government initiatives. https://lnkd.in/dCN7h8A3  #poverty #brickwork #waterscarcity #forests #landrights #tribal #environmentalconservation #jharkhand #bihar #governmentinitiatives #Indiaspend 

Long Route vs Short Route and Our First Milestone In 2020, just after the pandemic, I left Delhi and returned to my village in North Bihar with the hope of building a community rooted in harmony, sustainability, and celebration. The goal was to create a village where community-centric living and leadership could navigate even the greatest crises. We aimed to engage with every aspect of village life: 🔸 Milk Cooperative Initiative We mobilized people and formed a milk cooperative. ⁉️ But we failed! Though it brought people together initially, it eventually became the concern of just one person and collapsed. 🔸 Campaign on Governance and Transparency We organized a campaign on Gram-Swaraj, Panchayati Raj, transparency, and publicly funded elections. Over a year and a half, we facilitated community dialogues across 14 wards. Our emerging team contested the Panchayat election with a publicly funded, issue-based campaign. ⁉️ But we failed! Despite support and raising awareness, our candidate did not win. Villages reflect larger systemic crises. They mirror big cities in consumption behaviour, climate response, and social values. The caste system persists in its cruellest form, and economic centres have collapsed. Leadership and systemic crises are most complex in villages. Moving Forward ◆ We need to strengthen the community fabric. ◆ Nurture leaders with constitutional values and local solutions, weaving systemic structure and culture in villages. We’ve started engaging with village interest groups on Sangharsh (struggle), Sewa (service), and Nirman (creation): ● Creating new spaces for community dialogue. ● Raising awareness on issues and systemic understanding. ● Catalyzing community initiatives. ● Revitalizing Gram Sabha, Ward Sabha, and other rural institutions. ● Promoting volunteerism in the village. Most importantly, we are organizing local leaders (Prahari) to sustain and scale this culture and campaign. Recently, our Prahari: ● Mapped and evaluated carbon emissions in their villages. ● Designed actions to reduce local carbon emissions. ● Successfully mobilized and organized their Ward Sabha. ● Completed a comprehensive water audit of their villages. Please connect with us if you want to support or collaborate, especially on the Prahari Action Project focused on building a chain of rainwater harvesting systems. _______________ We are building Gram Chetna Andolan as a collective of hyperlocal constituents around the meta-crisis of our time and solving the problem of Community leadership, participation and Ownership in different rural institutions through mobilising, organizing and training the local leaders (Prahari).

Reality of living in rural Malawi hits different when you actually live with your host community as one, use the same resources as the ones they use and even harder when you are expected to deliver towards your work but charging your gadgets is a problem as a large percentage of Malawi’s population is still not connected to the grid…in 2024!!. The past few weeks that I spent in a number of villages were quite eye-opening as opposed to when I had previously worked on projects usually just visiting the project sites and going back home at the end of the day. These remote areas are not the usual ones you access by Land Cruisers but the ones you have to get off the bicycles and walk to the place because there are only footpaths that go through maize fields, areas with barely any NGO projects going on! My observation (and maybe two cents) from this: 1. A lot of people in these areas settled on land that they inherited from their forefathers, which is a plus to farming as their source of livelihood but do not maximise use due to lack of technical know-how or access to monetary resources. During my most interactions, people’s go-to-crop is maize in hopes of securing food but they farm with no fertiliser or manure; the same way one would grow groundnuts or sweet potatoes. Maybe this is where crop diversification would come in or how to make manure? Some of the locals confessed that even though they have a designated Agricultural Extension Officer, they rarely make appearances to impart knowledge on issues to do with farming perhaps because of resources or as I mentioned earlier, difficulties in accessing the areas. -As we are trying to revolutionise and industrialise our Agricultural Sector, I imagine it is crucial to first deal with the issues at the micro level with the people that actually own land and are very willing to focus on agriculture but also depend on it as a source of their livelihood because how do you go large scale when people barely know how to make manure? 2. I interacted with a lot of guardians that were looking after children who dropped out of school and the most common reason was the “development fee” that learners are required to pay for administrative costs at school. As much as this money helps towards printing exam papers among others, it might also be a step backward towards ensuring retention and re-enrolment work in advocating for equal access to education. Mwk1000 to decision makers in boardrooms may not be anything but it sure is something to someone who can hardly find that to put food on the table. 3. It’s 2024, please at the scale that the Malawi Rural Electrification Program is right now, extend it in tenfold. I empathise with the Health and Education practitioners that reject transfers to some of these areas, it’s hard to live without electricity- considering both personal and professional angles.