More and more, it is being accepted that sustainable improvements will take place only if the people of a village take over the development of their village. Developments at the field level cannot take a top-down approach and hope to have any far-reaching or sustainable impact. Community organisation remains a priority with us at SAMUHA.
People's institutions are organised to ensure that the priorities and interests of the poor are effectively addressed and managed.
The organisation of the community into different groups of people that have the same interests, goals and objectives comes under our Community Organisation programme.
VDS WATERSHED ORIENTATION
This was an orientation to watershed for the members of Management Committees (MC) of Advibhavi and Juelkunti Village Development Societies (VDS), organised on July 11, 2002 and July 24, 2002 at the respective VDS offices. Ravi Kumar, an inhouse resource person, facilitated the orientation. In Advibhavi, 21 members participated in the orientation while there were 19 members present in Juelkunti.
Topics covered were:
a) the concept of watershed
b) objectives of a watershed
c) concept of the Kanakanala Watershed Project
d) villages and total area to be covered in Phase II of the project
e) concept and formation of People Technical Resource Group (PTRG)
The orientation was geared towards creating awareness among Management Committee members on concepts like watershed, development, and watershed management.
COMMUNITY ORGANISATION SKILL DEVELOPMENT
A Sanghatan Training for SAMUHA staff members at Tavaragera was conducted during June 24 to 26, 2002. Mahesh Lobo, a resource person, facilitated this training and five project staff members participated in the training. The training session focused on subjects like decision-making and the preparation of lesson plans. It covered areas like effective decision making, problems in the decision-making process, different strategies for decision making, types of decisions, and guidelines for making decisions. As part of the training, participants prepared modules that would help them adopt what they learnt in the programme.
