Empowering Villages in Rural India

Dear Friend,

We are thrilled to announce that GlobalGiving has awarded Seva Mandir with 5 achievements (Effective Organization, Staff Favorite Organization, Top Ranked Organization, Vetted Organization, Site Visit Verified Organization) making us a top-ranked organization for 2019!

All thanks goes to our dedicated supporters that we are able to keep accomplishing more every year and changing people's lives for the better. We can't thank you enough for your support and we look forward to another successful year!

Jardaya is a small village situated 27 kms away from Kumbalgarh in Rajsamand district and is inhabited by 150 tribal families from Bhil community. People rely on multiple livelihood options for earning their daily bread. Major source of income for the people in the village is through daily wage labor where they migrate to nearby states or work in marble mines nearby. Animal husbandry and agriculture are other options for income. But as the land is very undulating and eroded, the land that is available for cultivation is very less and people cultivate in very small fields. Dependency on monsoons and water scarcity further restricted their production from agriculture. As a result, the economic condition of the majority population is extremely appalling and ensuring clean drinking water always remained a major life struggle for many.

Seva Mandir initiated its work in this village in 2002-03 through activities like well deepening, land leveling, soil and water conservation etc. Although these efforts were limited to only sixty- six families of the village then, the results of these works motivated the whole village to join hands and come together for overall development of the village and conservation of its natural resources. Seva Mandir helped to create democratic and community ownership in all development works through several capacity building events and dialogues with the village. Gradually the local community came together to establish systems of community ownership and equitable benefit sharing mechanisms for all.

In 2008, through Seva Mandir’s facilitation, a village development committee was democratically elected by the villagers and it started working on issues of common land and water management. Through regular village meetings and mass awareness, Seva Mandir was able to work on drinking water, land rehabilitation and conservation of common pastureland land in Jardaya. It was extremely difficult for the committee to motivate people for coming together because many of villagers had illegally encroached the community pasture land (grassland) and were adamant on not vacating the site. After lot of meetings and repeated dialogues, the committee was finally successful in removing most of the encroachments except ten. The committee threatened them that they will file a complaint with the police if they are still not leaving the site after which they were finally able to vacate them and build a boundary wall for the pasture land. This land is now providing fodder/grass benefits worth two lacks of rupees (Approx. $3,000) every year to the whole village.

Villagers also voluntarily contributed in constructing soil and water conservation structures like stone check dams and trenches in the village so that ground water levels can be improved. While working on the pastureland, gradually a very strong sense of community belonging and leadership evolved in the group. There were initiatives for plantation in the pastureland and the committee made rules for management and security of the site. They employed a guard for guarding the premise and made rules for penalizing any rule breakers for any disturbance on the site.

The committee then moved forward to take up and tackle other issues in the village and persuaded Seva Mandir to provide guidance and support for clean drinking water facilities. They also started approaching the local governing bodies – the Panchayats for various issues. As a result of their efforts five drinking water tanks, two child day care centers for ensuring early childhood nutrition and development, a community hall and a health center were constructed in the village through Seva Mandir and Panchayat (local government body). The committee has been itself monitoring the quality of services in all these centers.

With more than 72 toilets and bathrooms constructed with the help of Seva Mandir, Jardaya has also been actively promoting government’s ‘Clean India’ campaign from the forefront. The village committee ensures the maintenance as well as regular usage of these toilets by the villagers.

These continuous and motivated efforts have helped in improving ground water level situations, removing illegal encroachments for community benefit and the village is moving towards comprehensive development. 8 other nearby villages were motivated after their work on community pastureland developed community pastureland sites in their villages. These interventions have led to the development of regions as a whole and these villages have not faced any water scarcity or grass scarcity situations in recent years as compared to the other villages. Jardaya village group has not only become one of the most active and vigilant communities Seva Mandir has ever worked with but also one of the leading examples in our work area to motivate nearby village committees to strive for same.

Jardaya village group has also been awarded Ummedmal Loda award in 2018 for its incredible work at grassroot level in nature conservation and promoting community ownership of the resources for a sustained period of time. Village groups like these give us the motivation to continue working for our cause and reiterate our belief in the extraordinary power of common people.

Thank you for your support and for the confidence that you have placed in us. None of this would have been possible without you.

Regards

Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team

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