ANNUAL REPORT2012-13

Towards Sustainable Livelihoods

DARABAR SAHITYA SANSAD (DSS)At- SODHUA, P.O- DALAKASOTI, Via- BALIPATANA

Dist- KHURDA , PIN- 752102 , ODISHA, INDIA TEL (FAX)- 0674 2468529, 2468744

Email - darbar4@rediffmail.com

DARABAR SAHITYA SANSAD (DSS)2

Mr. S.K. Singhdeo, Dr Adwaita Patra and guests in dias, during district interface of women vegetable growers’ cooperative

Representatives from AWO International-Germany during their visit to DSS project site.

Mr. Arjun Gurung from AWO International< Kathmandu office during his visit to project site( inspecting the pump house under PLSVGC project.

A training programme for cooperative leaders at DSS office, organised by Madhyam Foundation, Bhubaneswar.

Training of computer software with simputer use in daily saving and credit programme for cooperatives.

Bumper production of Tomatoes this year led to distress saling at very low price as Rs.0.50 per kg. DSS took marketing tie up measures to curb such

distress saling.

Anual General Body meeting of Sabuja Krusi Utpadanakari Samabaya Limited( cooperative)

Two women producers shorting and grading their produces before com-mon procurement.

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About DSS …..The history of Darabar Sahitya Sansad ( DSS ) dates back to early nineties. A group of adolescent boys used to flock around a rural library in village Nischintapur, reading books and magazines and discussing on literary development. Two consecutive serve floods devastated the area during the year 1980 and 1982. The boys could not keep quite. They helped the govt. machineries in evacuating the people as well as distributing the relief materials. This small taste of social work prompted them to come to a common platform “ a society ” which could provide them the strength and the opportunity for youth work and social development. Finally a society was formed during 1982 with the name “ Darabar Sahitya Sansad ( DSS )- a people’s court for social justice , on a platform of young and literary people.

VisionDSS visualizes, self-sufficient and self managed villages in Orissa where each and every individual across the communities, live in peace and harmony without fear of discrimination or denied justice. Every individual to maintain a prosperous life with self-dignity and concern for community and environment at large.

MissionThe Mission of DSS is to help the poor and marginalized sections of the society in building their confidence and capacity for managing their socio-economic and political development process. DSS aims at working with geographically vulnerable communities as well as socially vulnerable groups like Women, Scheduled castes, Artisans, Landless labourers, Marginal farmers etc, with their participation and ownership of the process.

Area of OperationDSS operates in 150 villages of 3 coastal districts of Orissa viz. Puri, Khurda and Balaswar.

Legal Status• Registered under the “ Societies Registration Act of 1860 ”-No- 719 / 279 of 1984-85.

• Registered under “Foreign Contribution Regulation Act of 1976, Ministry of Home Affairs-Govt. of India- No-105020062

• It is also registered under section 12(A) and 80(G) of Income Tax Act of 1961.

Board MembersSl. No. Name Designation Occupation

1 Mr. Shishir ranjan Dash President Dev. Consultant

2 Mr. Srikant Kumar Mohapatra Vice-President IT professional

3 Mr. Kedareswar Choudhury Secretary Social Dev. Worker

4 Mr. Rajanikant Mohanty Asst. Secretary Social Dev. Worker

5 Mr. Adwita Kumar Patra Member Agri. Consultant

6 Dr. ( Ms. ) Anusuya Dash Member Doctor ( Sr. Lecture)

7 Ms. Dharitri Dwivedy Member Dev. Consultant

8 Mr. Subash chandra Nayak Member Educationist / Lawyer

9 Ms. Laxmipriya Sahoo Member Women Dev. Activist

10 Mr. Debaraj Sahoo Member Craft Teacher/Designer

11 Ms. Menaka Pradhan Member Women Dev. Activist

DARABAR SAHITYA SANSAD (DSS)4

Promotion of Livelihood for WomenLow cost micro credit through SHGs DSS has been promoting and hand holding SHGs with poor women and facilitating compulsory savings and credit activities among themselves.

Secondly DSS provides capacity building support to SHGs through

• Attending regular group meetings/ federation meetings with guidance for livelihoods.

• Promoting and strengthening GP and Block level federations of SHGs to promote self help.

• Conducting regular training and e x p o s u r e programmes for SHG leaders to increase their managerial capacity.

Achievements so far• 492 no. of SHGs and 106 no. of JLGs were

formed covering 6818 no of poor women in 118 villages.

• The SHGs do regular savings and circulate internal credit.

• DSS disbursed a low cost creditof Rs.1491000 to 239 women SHG borrowers.

• The rate of recovery has been 100%.• Rang De, a social investor’ platform is assisting

DSS in supply of low cost credit to poor women.

• A women cooperative ( Self Help )” Samrudhi” has been formed taking 998 members and various promotional activities have been undertaken with help of Access Development services, Bhubnaeswar. The cooperative has a cumulative savings over 6 lakhs and a loan lending over 7.5 lakhs.

• 2 cooperatives have saved Rs.83665 and circulated internal credit worth Rs.187000.

• 2 cooperatives have produced and marketed 3260 quintals of vegetables by 479 members.

• The income level of women producers have been incresed around 60% through crop planning, organic use, market linkage and increased bargaining power.

Enterprise dev. through HandicraftsDSS has been promoting Handicrafts programme for women artisan groups with the help from DC(H), GOI since long. This year the progress was

• An innovative design training in Terracotta covering 10 women artisans continued for 3 months and 27 types of prototypes were developed.

• DSS facilitated marketing for groups by order supply and exhibition participation. This year handicrafts worth Rs.2.4 lakh were promoted through sales.

Micro Enterprise Promotion Vegetable Growers’ CooperativesDSS started Micro Enterprise Promotion for 500 matured SHG members in 20 villages of Khurda & Puri districts with support from Madhyam Foundation/AWO International.

• 2 Vegetable growers cooperatives have been formed taking 534 women producers.

• Regular training and exposure have been provided in organic farming, crop planning, financial litercacy, cooperative management etc.

• Water lifting pumps, bore wells, grading centre, sales centre, market linkage assistance have been provided.

M A J O R A C T I V I T I E S … .

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Migration Support Programme DSS has focused on disaster induced migration support activities in 2 blocks viz Nimapara in Puri dist and Balipatana in Khurda dist in coastal Orissa with assistance from Jamsetji Tata trust, Mumbai.• DSS has been engaged in providing services to

vulnerable migrant labour and their families at the source areas. It has a two pronged activitiy focus. One is to councell and skill train the potential youth for migration in different vocational skills and try for local job placements in order to curb migration. The second objective is to provide services to already migrated youth so that their migration can be safe and secured. Under this programme various activities have been undertaken during this year.

5) 11 community awareness camps organised and 542 community members made aware of migrant problem.

6) 21 legal awareness camps/clinics organised making aware of 523 people and solving 15 legal cases.

7) 10 PRI awareness camps were organised where 329 PRI members participated

8) 2 constuction workers collectives formed taking 105 membersin two blocks. 102 const. workers are registered under Odiasha constuction workers’ welfare board.

9) 80 potential youth migrants are trained in computers and driving and majority of them are placed/self employed.

Achievements this year1) A status survey is continuing in 32 GPs in order to

know the extent of migration, trend, occupational structure, health ststus etc.

2) Registration of migrants is being done at each Gram panchayat and the data is kept with panchayats.

3) 1828 no of Identity cards jointly issued by DSS and local sarpanches have been provided to migrants as a token of identity in order to avoid identity hasstle at their work place as well as during travel.

4) 9 no of health camps organised and 430 no of migrants and their family members are made health aware

10) A study has been underway on “ status of women in migrant families” to know the effect of migration on women.

11) A study has been underway on “ socio economic status of migrants” at work place( destination).

12) 27 Registartion camps have been organised where 1074 migrants participated and got registered.

13) Regular monthly collective meetings, stakeholders workshops, legal awareness etc are being organised.

14) One destination visit has been made to Chennai and 5 awareness camps were organised.

15) Panchayat level data base of migrants have been created at each panchayat for easy information flow during time of any emmergency faced by migrants at their work place.

DARABAR SAHITYA SANSAD (DSS)6

Donors who supported this year

• Jamsetji Tata Trust, Mumbai• Madhyam Foundation / AWO International• Dev. Commission (Handicrafts), New Delhi• Access Dev Services,New Delhi / Rabo Bank,

The Netherlands• Reach India/ Usha Internatinal• Members of DSS• Project beneficiaries from different villages.• Rang De (low cost credit)

Future Plans for coming 3 years• Promote Micro/Group Enterprises for 500 poor women in SHGs in farm and Non farm sector.• Provide low cost Micro credit support to 1000 poor women.• Promote Micro/Group Enterprises for 150 women artisans in Handicrafts.• Promote climate change awareness and education / DRR education in 50 villages.• Provide services for safe migration to 3000 migrants.• Promote vocational training for about 300 youths to check out migration and employability.• Promote ICT for community empowerment.• Promote Women Empowerment, Youth dev., Literary & sports activities.

Human Resource Development

• 12 numbers of staff participated in outside training programmes/workshops in various subjects like livelihoods, micro enterprise , Handicrafts, Insurance, organisational development, cooperative management, MIS management etc. at Madhyam Foundation,Aazeevika Bureau, Concern WW, DST, DC-H, Access Dev. Services etc.

Climate Change EducationDSS has been continuing a climate change education programme in 15 schools in Balasore district. The programme is supported by DST,GOI. 15 weather stations have been set up and the students take real time observation of different weather indicators on a daily basis under the guidance of a trained science teachers. The students are taught weather observation and forecasting.

Usha Silai School ProgrammeWith the support from Usha/ Reach India, DSS conducted a Silai school training for 10 women enterpreneurs, who were supported with infrastucture to run 10 silai schools at their native villages. All the 10 schools are running with a student strength of 53 women/girls who are aspiring to take up tailoring as their vocation.

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Our Auditor:

Sanjeev Kumar & Associates475(P), Essen Den, Asian Plaza,

Khandgiri, Aiginia, Bhubaneswar-19

DARABAR SAHITYA SANSAD (DSS)At- SODHUA, P.O- DALAKASOTI, Via- BALIPATANADist- KHURDA , PIN- 752102 , ODISHA, INDIA TEL (FAX)- 0674 2468529, 2468744Email - darbar4@rediffmail.com

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Heartening to see the sincerety and dedication of Kedarji and his team towards development of rural Odisha in their choosen areas of work. I wish them the very best.

- Chetan KapoorConsultant, SDTT

Good work. Need Extra attention to fully operationalise the collectives.

- Arjun GurungAWO International, Germany

Thank you very much for your time and explanation of your systems. It was a very enjoyable visit.

- Clare fayCONCERN, Dublin, Ireland

DSS is doing wonderful work with artisans. Wishing them all the best.

- Deepa Sundara rajanProgramme Director, CSO Partners, Chennai

A View of DSS Head Office

What they say about DSS . . .

Thanks for everything. It was a great learning visit. Hope for a healthy, fruitful associationship.

- Zaineb AliAazeevika Bureau

Thank you for a very enlightening visit during our evaluation mission.

- Bernward CausemanGermany

A lot has been achieved by DSS on promotion and capacity building of rural women. Wish all success through.

- Jayant Kumar SahuManager, NABARD, Bhubaneswar

We came to monitor Usha silai training. We are happy to inform you that, you are doing a very nice work. Please keep up this standard of work. Sky is the limit.

- R.N. Das, Priyanka Dey, Ashok MohapatraReach India, Kolkata

Route Map

ToChennai

To KolkataBhubaneswar

Puri

DSS

Balipatana

Uttara Chhak

Nimapara

Pipili

Konarka