Project PREM-UNFPA

Diverse views on human rights, population, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality and sustainable development merged into a remarkable global consensus in the International Conference on Population and Development held in 1994 at Cairo; it placed individual dignity and human rights, including the right to plan one’s family, at the very heart of development. The Nairobi Summit on ICPD25 in 2019 saw the progress on the mandate slow and uneven: hundreds of millions of women around the world were still not using modern contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and global targets on reducing maternal deaths had not been met. The summit made some 1,300 clear, concrete commitments to advancing the goals of the ICPD and securing the rights and dignity of all women and girls. Ultimately, gender equality and SRHR (Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights of women and adolescent girls) became the essence of the whole exercise.

The 10th country programme of UNFPA thus envisions “an India where every woman and young person, including those from the most vulnerable groups, enjoys gender equality, fully realizes sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, and fully contributes to sustainable development”. UNFPA partners with governments, other agencies and civil society to advance its mission.

People’s Rural Education Movement (PREM) has launched the ICPD program of action in collaboration with UNFPA Odisha Office setting as objectives the thee transformative results, namely,

No unmet need of contraceptives (to prevent unwanted pregnancy)
No preventable maternal mortality (fulfilling the Sexual Reproductive Health and Right of women and adolescent girls)
No gender based violence (combating patriarchal customs, traditions, social norms and practices and establishing gender equality).

4 indigenous communities, that is, the Munda and Santali tribes of Mayurbhanj district, the Lanjia Saura of Gajapati and the Sudha Sabara tribe of Rayagada district, have been adopted as deserving target groups for the program.

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Tribal Academy:

Odisha Adivasi Manch (OAM), the state level tribal communities’ action for a came into being in 1992 in the process of community organisation and action movement spearheaded by PREM. Since its inception, OAM has remained steadfastly committed to the cause of Adivasis in Odisha and, been engaged in unwavering advocacy and lobby for the realization of tribal rights and entitlements. Tribal academy is an offshoot and functions as a wing of the Odisha Adivasi Manch.

Mother tongue based tribal institution, the academy is a learning or study hub, a place for learning mother language/script, culture, social tradition, traditional organic agriculture, livelihood and value system and an informal structure meant for the tribal’s self-discipline and governance, - a source of self learning and empowerment; The academy helps maintain the unity, equality, gender equity among the people of Adivasi community leading to its harmonious management. It retains the cultural heritage and upholds the culturally ingrained and valued sentiment of ‘caring for and sharing with and protection of one another’ in Adivasi community.

The PREM-UNFPA project’s effort has been to make the academies more structured and systematic. It facilitated the registration of all the targeted 4 tribal academies and got them well furnished and placed learning materials for consciousness building on the ICPD mandate.

How will the Academy benefit Adivasi society?

The Academy can retrieve its value based past history
It can revive the Adivasi language, culture and traditions that are on the verge of extinction.
It can keep safe its own culture from the infiltration of external impure, polluted, corrupt, culture and to elevate and bring the culture and language up to the international level of reputation.

The present generation can obtain education by this and work towards the preservation of the Adivasi language, culture, their rights and provisions.
This will be instrumental of tribal people’s holistic health, education, livelihood and development.

Existing Sun/Thursday Schools and newly started Mother tongue based Newsletters constitute the main mechanism for the double objectives: retention of cultural heritages and languages on one hand and the dissemination of the ICPD mandate related messages on the other..

Sunday/Thursday Schools

The tribal academies have more than two hundred Sunday schools each. Munda community has developed syllabus and books up to 10th standard in Mundari language. Children as well as adult men and women attend the classes at different time periods set for them. The objective is to preserve the Mundari language, script and culture. Lanjia Saura community has Sunday schools for young and adult althrough the year and it has Biblical themes allotted across all Sundays to discuss. It has some health and social subjects too. Santali community too has Sunday schools to preserve their mother language, script and culture. The Sudha Sabara community runs its schools on Thursdays to deal with religious matters.

ICPD mandate ingrained Syllabi have been disused and attempted at over several workshops held at state and sub-state levels with the full involvement of respective academy leaders. The academies have integrated the ICPD mandate into the cultural ethos of different academies.

Newsletters

Newsletter has been envisioned and used as another channel of communicating the messages related to the ICPD mandate. It has wielded impact on lay people and government officials of the corresponding community for it highlighted both its cultural values in mother tongue and not in the state language unlike before and the mandate quite relevant to the situation of women and adolescent girls in the community. Write ups were from the members of the academy and the community at large. Every academy has an Editorial Board to collect materials, to review the materials along with the project and UNFPA state officials, finalize and get them printed in the respective tribal language and script. .

Media Magnet, A New Delhi based agency has been hired for three months to train the academies and the editorial boards in art, techniques and skills for a standard product that could be heart touching, inspiring and impressive to their counterparts in far off cities and states of the land and even abroad.

Traditional Healer KIOSK Setup in Gajapati Mahochav

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Dist. Level leadership and sensitiztion workshop

Meeting with Mundari Sunday School Teachers implementation of ICPD Mandate 07102023 Badasa

Traditional Healer KIOSK Setup in Gajapati Mahochav

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Odisha Christian Theological College (OCTC)

situated at Gopalpur-On –Sea, Ganjam has joined PREM’s ICPD Program of Action. An ICPD mandate based course of three years duration has been developed in consult with an external resource person, Ms. Sarusu Thomas from Bangalore as well as an advisory committee of OCTC constituted of high level personalities of CNI like bishops, principals, presbyters etc; this is to form part of the theological study of the students so that they after graduating from the college would build awareness on the subject among the faithful. 18 denominations under the Church of North India from Odisha and Chhattisgarh have been brought together to thrash gender issues over several orientation cum-consensus building workshops. Resultantly, the church leaders have pledged to establish gender justice in the church administration and ministry. The Board of Directors of OCTC and the Advisory Committee have involved themselves in workshops held for them on gender besides their participation in the appreciation of the ICPD mandate based draft course for OCTC; they have laid stress on women’s right and aptitude to be recognized in the church ministry, gender justice and Sexual Reproductive Health Right to be materialized at home and in the Christian society on the whole.

Model Girl Friendly Panchayat is another strategic engagement of the PREM-UNFPA project; it imbibes the targeted Panchayats with the attributes and attitude that would uphold women’s right, bring about their empowerment and emancipation from the dehumanizing patriarchal structure, customs and practices. 29 Gram Panchayats from two blocks of Gajapati district of Odisha have been adopted for the program facilitated by 11 cluster resource persons and coordinated by a Master Trainer.

Strengthening 4th Standing Committees

The cluster resource persons’ attempts concentrate on empowering the 4th Standing Committees of the Panchayats concerned particularly with the development of women and girl children. Initially the project imparted a five days’ long training to the members of the committees on the provisions of the Panchayati Raj Institutions against the background of the patriarchal systems and norms. Provisions for adolescent girls and maternal health too were discussed at greater length.

The resource persons work towards ensuring the monthly meetings of the committees, the full-fledged attendance of the members whosoever and formulating the agenda prior to the meetings. Resultantly, the meetings of the committees have been regular with full scale attendance as per the schedules. The meetings focus on burning issues and needs in the respective Panchayats. Most importantly the decisions are put in writing as the resolutions unlike before. The resolutions are presented in the Panchayat meetings and action plans, drawn. Subsequently Letters, endorsed by the respective Sarapanches, are issued to ICDS centers and Schools for visit as per the resolutions. After visit, necessary remedial actions are taken. In places where negligence in duties are found out, constructive feed backs and support is provided for improvement.

Constant monitoring of institutions under the Panchayats has resulted in building positive attitude and unfailing success. The visits paid were not for fault finding but for taking appropriate developmental measures with the support of the concerned Panchayats and blocks. Such exercises by Adivasi women of the standing Committees have built in them self confidence and courage to fight corruptions and evils. Women’s leadership has been unwavering and commanded respect of their male counterparts. There is no proxy business in these Panchayats., there was refresher training program on the concept of Women and girl friendly Panchayat for the stakeholders and block level interface workshops with the Model Women and Girl Friendly Panchayats for garnering proactive cooperation and support of the respective BDOs, CDPOs, Chair persons and Vice-chair persons and Members of Panchayat Samities, Anganwadi supervisors and the Tahsildars whose presence and participation was solicited. Women have grown right conscious, vocal, strong and confident of doing everything that comes under jurisdiction. Women’s in participation in Polisabha and Grama Sobha has increased in number and articulation of issues and needs. They have become assertive of their rights.

Women Help Desk:

Strengthening women’s Help desk is another task of the cluster resource persons. Women’s Help Desks have been established in all the 29 operational GPs. The 4th Standing committees pay regular visit to the Desks every month. The volunteers in the desks enroll issues of women and girl children’s concerns in a particular register. Sometimes, the 4th Standing committees held meetings of women on their issues there. Widows who came for pensions and other women, for food materials under PDS walk into the desks, wait there until their turns come, take rest as long as they want and make use of the toilets constructed therein purposefully. The Panchayat maps drawn and put up with the project support in these Panchayats help women locate villages and institutions of the Panchayats as necessary. There are some learning materials too there educating women on health, socio-legal matters and so forth.

SSEPD (Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disability)

The Department of Social Security and Empowerment of Persons with Disability (SSEPD) at IIC, Jatni, Khurda organizes the following activities in collaboration with UNFPA, Odisha And PREM:

Anand Mela: An innovative and inclusive program it provides a supportive and enriching experience for residents of Old Age Home, Children from Child Care Home and Children with Disability from Special Schools, with diverse abilities, to participate, enjoy, learn and grow, interact with peers, empathise one another and reducing thereby social isolation and cultivating a sense of belongingness among the participants.
workshop of NGOs, experts, networks/alliances of People With Disabilities, Special Educators, Rehabilitation Professionals, Adolescents with Disabilities (AwDs) on nurturing creative expressions of adolescents with disability for identifying, nurturing and integrating creative expressions in the special schools towards achieving the larger objectives of 5T transformation of Special Schools functioning under SSEPD Department, Govt. of Odisha.
Hackathon Innovating Assistive Technology for Adolescent with Disabilities
Celebration of the World Disability Day in collaboration with UNFPA showcases innovative assistive technologies and diverse Life Skill Education programs through interactive stalls catered to persons with disabilities.
Development and implementation of a transformative curriculum in special schools complementary to the existing 5T initiative to improve the teaching-learning environment.
The Special Summer Camp for Children with Special Needs (CWSN) intended to provide an enabling environment and opportunity of joyful learning with the help of various creative recreational activities

The project’s vision by 2030 is to see that

the 4 tribal academies are self sufficient fostering culturally imbued, ICPD mandate driven Sunday schools and Newsletters, regularly published in mother tongues,
the trends of adolescence pregnancy, child marriage and preventable maternal mortality are fully under control as a result of adolescent girls and adult women being considerably conscious of and realizing the Sexual and Reproductive health services and rights,
women and adolescent girls enjoying equity and equal opportunities with their male counter parts and their rights, respected; they are free from discrimination and violence; men and women exist in mutual understanding, mutual respect , cordial and affable relationship between them
the 4th Standing Committees and women’s help desks in 29 GPs are well equipped with necessary human and material resources leading them to proactive action and developmental engagement
Church leaders are well versed with ICPD mandate and its relevance to community situation and Biblical phrases inspiring Christian communities with gender equitable life at home, in the congregations and in the church administration and ministry.
Differentially able children will be well equipped with knowledge and skills to live happy life as well as to serve as employees in private and public sectors.