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The mobile health unit visits a community |
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Mr Chandra Sekhar Sahu, Central Minister for Rural Development, inaugurating the Village Resource Centre at Mohana |
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Mahasabha on issues concerning Dalits and the East Coast Fisher People Forum on issues concerning fisher folk.
In the third sector, PREM proposes to build up three trusts - one for the development of a resource centre on Adivasi empowerment, one for development of education and one for development of health of the marginalized Adivasi, Dalit and fisher people, especially among women and children. The rationale behind establishing separate trusts is to build decentralized structures within the different organizations and create autonomy and opportunity for development of individual activists.
The resource centre for Adivasi empowerment will be situated at the PREM headquarters in Mandiapalli. The objectives of the centre will be
- Promotion of Adivasi culture, values and indigenous knowledge
- Initiatives for documentation and preservation of the rich Adivasi heritage
- Engineering strategies for capacity building of indigenous communities to enable them to be accommodated in the processes of globalization and liberalization
To achieve these objectives the proposed resource centre will operate a fully-equipped training facility with a library and documentation unit, a museum and a herbal garden. Adivasi youth, who have completed some years of formal schooling, will have the opportunity to participate in workshops and short-term courses in skills training and enrichment of indigenous knowledge. Efforts will be also undertaken to organize consultations and seminars for documentation, preservation and promotion of Adivasi culture, folk arts and value systems.
PREM proposes to create two separate trusts for health and educational. Through the health trust it plans to capitalize on its experience of the past two decades in delivering healthcare for marginalized sections of the society living in the most inaccessible regions of the state. Similarly, through the educational trust, it plans to draw on its knowledge and expertise in management of continuing and vocational educational innovations.
Village Resource Centres
PREM runs eight Village Resource Centres in Gajapati, Ganjam and Puri. Each village location is inaccessible through most systems of communications technology. Through a PREM initiative, sponsored by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), these centres are connected through satellite communication facilities to the main PREM campus and to each of the other seven resource centres.
Twice weekly broadcasts are made from the small studio at PREM HQ on a wide variety of issues that directly impact on the communities, including livelihood, governance, water and sanitation and child rights. The participants at the centres can therefore benefit from the knowledge and expertise of professionals and practitioners in different fields, including medicine and agriculture. Participants at the Village Resource Centres can interact with the guest speakers in asking questions and raising issues.
Following the overwhelming success of the project in its first year, ISRO has contributed funding for additional Village Resource Centres for PREM’s project areas.
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An expert interacts with community members at the Village Resource Centres through satellite technology, funded by ISRO |
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