Deepastambha Charitable Trust - Gramarthan

 Deepastambha Charitable Trust 

Gramarthan

In last three decades, India has seen massive migration from villages to cities. The reason behind this migration is cultural, technological changes and enormous economical pressure on lower income groups to survive these rapid changes.

This trend has put cities under immense pressure of basic civic amenities such as water, shelter, health, education, transport etc. But now, the trend is going backwards where people have understood the importance of development of villages and releasing the pressure on cities.

Gramarthan is a combination of Sanskrit words, which says “Sustainable development of rural community taking into consideration environmental, cultural, economical aspects.”

Principally it is based on sustainability and ownership.

Gramarthan started with discovering villages where we can prototype few activities .The objective behind Gramarthan is to implement such models, which will make the people self-governing, self-sustainable and cultivated. Gramarthan focus is always on villagers’ development than village development.

In 2013 our search began for “the village” to our effort. It was a long process from visits, meeting different experts, exploring different plans, studying the approaches, involvement, taking decisions and most important appropriate communication.

Gramarthan started with discovering villages where we can prototype few activities .The objective behind Gramarthan is to implement such models, which will make the people self-governing, self-sustainable and cultivated. Gramarthan focus is always on villagers’ development than village development.

In 2013 our search began for “the village” to our effort. It was a long process from visits, meeting different experts, exploring different plans, studying the approaches, involvement, taking decisions and most important appropriate communication.

Villages : (Ranjane, Kondgaon, Khamgaon, Ambed) ,Taluka Velhe

Objectives

• To assist the villages in availing the basic needs with natural resources
• To arrange expert interactions for using different available resources in constructive manner.
• To help villagers in acquiring the basic medical facilities, education, income generation techniques, women empowerment, technological opportunities.
• To make the villagers independent and self-sufficient in all aspects.
• To fulfill the their basic needs with the help of easy solution and technology

Summary:

“Gramarthan”, kicked off with visiting villages nearby Pune. We did research by meeting experts in the field, understanding different views and history of the subject, doing surveys, communicating with villagers at different villages etc.

Based on research we selected the area and started our work with village “Ranjane” located in Velha area.

Details

Team building activities- Under “Swach Maze Gaon” activity we have taken 6 cleaning Campion in villages. In this activity we have archived People/ student participation    in cleaning activity. Awareness about health and hygiene in villager. And Reduction of plastic, thermo Cole usage in daily life style, and its awareness.

Water Management- We made pond capacity from 5 lacs liter to 20 lacs liter. We built Proper constructed pond with gate. We will measure its results in 2017-2018 financial year from July 2017 onwards. We found wells and Boer wells water level in better condition in this year. 

Niramayaa (Health & Hygiene) - Woman Hemogram checkup. Target was Anemia Free village. Doctor visit with diet consultation & medicine health awareness lecture. We have arranged 4 blood checkup camp with distribution of medicine and diet consultation. Over 200 women have taken benefits from this. From Monthly OPD-20 to 30 people are taken benefits from each OPD. We have conducted one Eye checkup camp: 46 people benefited in this camp. We found 6 cataract patient and one savior case. Consulted for further checkup. 

Educational activities - We have done Library set up of over 1500 book available in it. For reading techniques we are taken 4 expertise lectures. Many students taken benefits of this activity. We have installed Skool-Falak (A board which contains the information for improving students's research oriented attitude) in all the 5 schools.

“Swachha Maze Gaon” -

“Swachha Maze Gaon” is an initiative under project “Gramarthan” being executed by Deepastambha Charitable Trust since 2013. Our objective is to encourage and implement a sustainable and eco-friendly “Waste Management Systems” across villages.

We conducted following various activities under this project:

1. Conducted a survey to understand the current garbage disposal system at villages and identified broad level areas of challenges as follows: Plastic garbage Shenkaai Waste water management

2. Conducted various awareness program for villagers and students based on: Types of garbage and its segregation. Adverse effect of the traditional but inappropriate way of garbage disposal. Bio-degradable options and encourage its usage. Design different possible prototypes for a sustainable and eco-friendly SLWM suitable for the problem areas in the village. Conduction of cleaning drives ,march and awareness activities with the participation of villagers and Deepastambha members

3. Plastic Kachara Mukta Goan: 

Involvement of all the students from 5 schools of 4 villages in below 3 stages:
a. Swachha Maze Ghar
b. Swachha Maze Parisar
c. Swachha Maze Gaon

4. Shenkaai and waste water problem: 

Study of NADEP ,Magic pit model Training sessions with the help of government bodies (Gram-Sevak ,Agricultural officer) Secondary survey to identify locations and respective people. 

Execution of various activities like-
a. Finding out interested and motivated people
b. To assist villagers to make job card
c. Coordination between implementation agency and people.
Currently for setting an example for other villagers, we have convinced few villagers for this implementation.

5. Motivational activities for student and villagers:
We conduct various appreciation activities for student motivation. Recently for “Swachha majha Ghar” we appreciated few students in the presence of BDO (Velha – Tluka).

6. Disposal of collected plastic:

Currently the collected plastic garbage is given for plastic recycling at Pune recycling plant

Other activities -Attending Gram Sabha’s for interaction with villagers for each activity and participation in decision making of village management. Pre activity visits for activity awareness. Also taking village volunteer development program to encourage villager’s participation in day to day activity.