Project Week

Overview

This page lists projects that MUWCI students attend during their CI (Community Interaction) Project Week, which usually takes place in October of their first year. Many students choose to return to work with these organizations during later project weeks, although many use those times to take a break from the hectic pace of life on campus.

Projects 2009

Child Survival of India, New Delhi
www.childsurvival-india.org

Child Survival India is an NGO in development established in April of 1991 with the goal of helping the marginalized and vulnerable sections of community find new avenues and alternatives of development. Initially, they started as a child focused organization. However over the years, through community feedback and grassroots experiences, there has been a change in their approach and strategic focus. An integrated approach to development with a prime focus on health and gender issues is now the basic theme of all their programs.

The organisation works not only with children but with other vulnerable groups like women in distress, people living with HIV, Adolescent girls, truckers, commercial sex workers etc. Working on the mission of helping people help themselves, primary aim of the organization has been to mobilize and empower the communities to work for their own development.

Sirsi, Karnataka
www.kalpavriksh.org

This Project Week will involve active participation with an NGO in their efforts to get communities involved with biodiversity conservation. The effort facilitated by Kalpavriksh near the town of Sirsi in northern Karnataka is an innovative experiment in getting ordinary people involved with protecting biodiversity. This community programme is in the forests of the Western Ghats in Karnataka. We will be staying in village homes, participating in seed collections and other activities, getting to know the local community and how they live (including the rich local cuisine!), interacting with environmentalists and ecologists, and hiking into the heart of the forest. MUWCI students have been to Kalpraviksh before, and always enjoyed the experience tremendously.

Agragamee, Orissa
www.agragamee.org

Agragamee is involved in so many things: Natural Resource Management, Community Mobilisation and Women's Empowerment, Policy Advocacy, Education, etc. They work in some of the poorest areas of India with tribal and poor communities to work towards self-sustainable development, in ways that the tribal and poor communities want to develop.

Students on this Project Week can learn a lot within a week time, provided they are willing to learn. Depending on the numbers, students will engage in many topical discussions with the employees of Agragamee, along with a contribution of labour for a community work like digging a tank or canal or making compost pits, etc. If smaller number of people come, students could divide into smaller groups and be placed then in different locations to have closer interaction with the tribal communities. As there is such a wide range of activities that Agragamee does, the potential for student participation is immense; after a few days of orientation, students can either work on a project together or split up to focus on an issue or area that most interests them.

CHiRAG, Uttaranchal
www.chirag.org

Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHiRAG) is a non-profit grassroots development organisation working with rural communities in the Central Himalayan region of India. The main office of CHiRAG is located in the village of Sitla (overlooking a spectacular view of the Himalayan range), in the district of Nainital, in the Kumaon Division of the state of Uttaranchal. CHiRAG is also involved with issues of social empowerment and community mobilization, income generation and training and communication which it considers critical to its integrated development strategy. Areas of intervention include preparatory schools or balwaris, primary school support programmes with a thrust on environmental education, village libraries, science laboratories, centres for adolescent girl empowerment, preventive and curative health programmes, and a local self-governance (Panchayati Raj) programme. It has also set up the Kumaun Grameen Udyog (KGU) which runs a weaving centre as well as an oil extraction unit.

During, our 6-day Project Week trip in November 2005, we were introduced to the work of CHiRAG. We were taken to the health centres, introduced to the adolescent girls programme, we worked in the horticulture farm (where we were familiarized with various medicinal herbs and other plants and the experimental work being done). We also visited the weaving and oil extraction unit. We also attended a village meeting where issues of forest preservation were discussed. The trip sensitized us to the problems associated with Hill development, the social issues involved and how the Natural Resource Development of a region could not be addressed unless community mobilization and participation was encouraged and the people, especially women, were empowered both financially and politically.

Please check the following links:
www.canadaindiavillageaid.com/chirag_newlife.htm
www.bostonglobalaction.net/UK/chipko.html

Himmat, Gujarat

Our plan is to take a group of MUWCI students to the heart of the Gujarat riots, near Ahmedabad, to work with women and children who were affected by the riots in Gujarat. We have worked with these women and children for several years now and have good ideas for future projects. We hope to organise "Summer Camp" type activities for them and would also like to brighten their environment. We have made contact with the head of their school who is happy to work with us. There is a lot of planning to be done, however, and we welcome the ideas of new first years. If you have a lot of energy and patience, like working with children and would like to spend your first project week doing something useful then this could be the trip for you.

Saho Chetna Kendra, Himachal Pradesh
www.navrachna.org

The aims of this project week are to work with one 'awareness raising center' supported by the RTDC branch of the Indian NGO Navarachna, which is focused on rural mountain development. We will learn about the complexities of development in the rural Himalaya, the life of the local people, and time permitting go for an overnight to a village higher in the mountains. The core area of activities addressed by the Saho Chetna Kendra is natural resource based livelihoods for the hill population and the associated natural resource management issues, so the actual project will focus on these issues in some way. Last year's trip spent considerable time learning from the wise leader of the Chetna Kendra, Rattanji, and looking into the projects he and the Chetna Kendra had just begun - afforestation, floriculture, sustainable farming practices, among others. Building on the experiences of last year's group, this year's group should be able to participate actively in some of the Chetna Kendra' projects in awareness raising.

Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), Bangalore
www.apsabangalore.org

Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA) is a child-centered, rights-based, community development organization founded in the year 1981. APSA is located in Bangalore. APSA works at two levels - at the grassroots level where the focus is on empowerment of the poor and at the macro levels of the state and the country through advocacy and policy planning. This two-pronged approach is reflected in the planning and implementation of all of APSA's projects.

Last year's project week in APSA was planned collaboratively by MUWCI volunteers and APSA staff. After a day's orientation to APSA's projects, our volunteers spent the rest of the week with the Child Labour project, who at the time had a campaign in progress. Therefore our volunteers took part actively in conducting surveys, even rescuing two child labourers. They accompanied the Child Labour project team to government institutions, visited slums, attended women's group meetings - all of which helped them arrive at a holistic picture of child labour in the context of urban poverty. They also learned to deal realistically with issues of rehabilitation, processes of law, child rights versus family rights, etc.

Irula Tribe and Crocodile Bank, Tamil Nadu
www.itwwsindia.org

The Irula project week, located in rural and coastal Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, has two aspects to it. In the first phase students will go to a village in the interior and work with the Irula Tribal Women's Welfare Society (ITWWS). The Irulas, one of the sixth oldest forest dwelling peoples of the world were famous as snake catchers. Under British India, they were encouraged to continue with this profession as the snake skin would then be exported at a high price. After independence, the Indian government banned trade in snake skin and the tribe lost its livelihood. The ITWWS is one of the initiatives to economically and socially rehabilitate the Irula tribe. This tribe has a depth of herbal medicine that is unparalleled. So at ITWWS, the tribal women gather herbs from neighbouring forests, process them and sell them for a living. They are also involved in large scale afforestation and contact with neighbouring villages for social and political education. The Irulas are mainly a tribe of hunter/gatherers, who now have license to capture venomous snakes in order to make anti-venom. On the project week, for three days volunteers from MUWCI will work on planting saplings and other work in the medicinal gardens as well as work on grinding and packing herbal medicines. A snake hunt, led by a member of the Irula tribe is one of the aspects of the project.

The second aspect of the project involves working at the Madras Crocodile Bank. This is a two day plan involving familiarising students with the background to the setting up of the crocodile bank and a familiarity with the reptiles themselves which involves handling the younger ones and feeding the rest. The place has nearly a 1000 crocodiles in about 10 pits. An important, exciting and marginally dangerous aspect of the project is the cleaning of at least one of the crocodile pits. This is done by the students as employees of the crocodile bank keep the reptiles away from the workers with the help of long bamboo sticks. Every once in a while a frisky crocodile breaks free and runs in the direction of the working students adding to the excitement. The crocodile bank also has innumerable poisonous snakes and is a centre for extraction of venom which is later used as a serum to counter snake bites. Handling snakes and becoming familiar with them is a voluntary part of the project. Surely an exciting week.

Shanti Nir (Nest of peace), Calcutta

There are two aspects to the Shanti Nir project, Shanti Nir, a Jesuit NGO run by Father Saju George, offers extra help to students of labourers in the evening. Many students are taught for free and some others pay for the classes. It involves reinforcing what students do at school. The students interact with children from Grades 6 through Grades 10.

At the different Mother Theresa Mission, deals with the ailing and the dying. At one facility, there are mentally challenged who are very ill and had been picked up from the streets of Kolkatta. The works involves taking care of their daily needs like washing their clothes, vessels after breakfast and sweeping and washing the open space as well as shaving them. For girls, it meant giving massage to some women and talking with them. Basically, they want to be heard out by a sympathetic ear.

NAANDI, Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh
www.naandi.org

The NGO Naandi is unique since it brings in large-scale donors to work with the local governments to support education. This project week visited the branch located in Sheopur District, a rural part of Madhya Pradesh bordering on Rajasthan. Students in this project week will get an opportunity to work hands-on with teachers and assistants in rural elementary schools by playing games, helping to teach a few basics to the children, and conducting interviews. We spent the mornings at the schools interacting with the children and the afternoons learning about other Naandi initiatives, meeting with baal mitras, or teaching assistants hired locally by Naandi, and interviewing residents of the villages to understand their perspectives on life, politics and education. Last year we stayed in a small hotel in the nearby town Sheopur, but there would be an opportunity for a home stay in the villages also. We also spent one day in the city Gwalior to visit the famous fort before returning to campus.

Sangama, Bangalore
www.sangama.org

Sangama is a sexuality minorities human rights organization for individuals oppressed due to their sexual preference. Sexuality minorities include, but are not limited to, hijras, kothis, jogappas, lesbians, bisexuals, homosexuals, gays, female-to-male/male-to-female transsexuals. Sangama aims to help them live their lives with self acceptance, self respect and dignity. They especially emphasize the concerns of sexuality minorities from poor and/or non-English speaking backgrounds and sexuality minority sex workers, who otherwise have little or no access to information and resources.

Sangama aims to bring sexuality, sexual preference and gender identity into the realm of public discourse and link it to gender, human rights development and other social movements. Sangama campaigns for the changes in the existing laws, which discriminate against sexuality minorities, including sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA). They work with family members, friends, co-workers and partners of sexuality minorities.

While at Sangama, we will have interactive field visits, watch documentaries, hear personal experiences from the community, session on lesbian issues, workshop on human rights and sexuality and an activity session / group discussion with a college in Bangalore where Sangama conducts their awareness program. We will also participate in campaigns should there be any during our time.

People's Watch, Madurai, Tamil Nadu
www.pwtn.org

People's Watch, a national human rights organization, is a program of the Centre for Promotion of Social Concerns (CPSC). People's Watch has been actively engaged in the protection and promotion of human rights in Tamil Nadu since 1995. People's Watch has sought to hold the State accountable to its citizens for the chronic abuses of their rights and has worked to advance a human rights culture disposed to safeguard both the welfare and the freedom of all people. The students can participate in presentations and discussions with the employees of People's Watch as well as with individuals and groups whom they serve.

Alice's Project, Varanasi

Alice Project is an NGO that is involved in educating under-priviledged children, but in a more holistic way. The website states: "Body and intellect are combined with yoga and meditation, taught as part of the core curriculum to every child every day. In this same way, spirit and emotions are not separate as they are part of our every day talking and thinking." Alice project also has teacher training and is involved in community development to promote education for adults as well helping to initiate community social projects.

The NGO is located in Sarnath a center for Buddhism near Varanasi, which is one of the oldest living cities on the banks of the Ganges river and one of the holiest places for Hindus.

Students who come on this project week will have an opportunity to interact with both teachers and students to understand the reality of life in Sarnath and the challenges the people there face. Students should be open to learning from the students there, participating in yoga and meditation, and will also be expected to share some of their own creative talents during the interactions.