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GANATAR

GRAM VIKAS FOUNDATION

Ganatar

The world of 12-year old Vasudev is a dimly lit one, filled with heat and ash - he works in a brick kiln in the Nal Sarovar area of Gujarat. Throughout the day, he mixes clay and straw and puts heavy moulds to bake. Like many migrant children from that area, Vasudev never got a chance to go to school, being too busy working his nimble fingers to the bone for a pittance.

The world of 12-year old Hansa Padhar is a mobile one - her parents are marginal farmers from the village of Devalthal, a drought-prone area in Ahmedabad district, Gujarat, due to which they are forced to migrate from their village every year in search of work. Hansa used to migrate with them as someone had to take care of the household chores and little ones. Attending school became a problemand Hansa dropped out.

Like so many migrant children in the Nal Sarovar area, Vasudev and Hansa would never have been able to go to school, had it not been for Ganatar, a CRY-supported organisation.

Ganatar works towards eradicating child labour especially in communities who migrate in search of work. Ganatar convinces migrant labourers about the importance of education for their children and by running residential non-formal education centres. During October to April (the migration season), Ganatar runs half-yearly hostels which function as homes for the children of migrating labourers while their parents are away, enabling the children to continue with their education, instead of moving around with their parents.

Vasudev was enrolled into a balghar or hostel and was given a basic education. Now in his third year, he dreams of being a saheb, a schoolteacher, and helping others like him. The hostel at Hansa's village houses around 30 children (including eight girls), both school-going and non-school going. The non-school-going children study in the alternate school started specially for them. Hansa started out as one of them. Today, two years later, she goes to the main government schooland is the first 12 year old girl in her village who has stayed in school till the 3rd standard. She intends to continue studying as long as she can.

Thanks to Ganatar and CRY, Hansa, Vasudev and many other children in the Nal Sarovar area now have a real chance at a better future.

Ganatar's initiatives in children's education have proven to be a model intervention among communities that migrate in search of work, and could soon be replicated in other states.

What was CRY's role in all of this?

• Funding Ganatar and its programmes like the balghars or hostels.
• Helping Ganatar plan campaigns and programmes aimed at mobilising the community, especially the migrant community, and teaching them about the importance of education.
• Providing training and organisational inputs that ensure the accountability and effectiveness of the programme.
• Linking the child rights agenda with the macro issues of livelihood.
• Building a leadership team at Ganatar and giving them inputs on how to advocate for community rights.
• Linking Ganatar to other NGOs through the state and the country, thus enabling them to share experiences and learnings.

This, in a nutshell, is what CRY attempts to do with each of the hundreds of organisations and thousands of communities it works with. At the core of all this work is the belief that each child has rights that society and the state owe her - the right to survive, to develop, to be protected against exploitation and to participate in the decisions affecting her future.

Gram Vikas Foundation


If you belong to a "backward caste", your land is mortgaged to the local landlord, and your whole family is bonded in labour to the same landlord, life becomes an endless tale of illiteracy, poverty, disease and exploitation. The Gram Vikas Foundation, a small CRY-supported grassroots-level NGO working in the Deoghar district of Jharkhand, decided to try and break this vicious circle, so as to create an exit route and new hope for the next generation.

Visibly abject poverty

Jharkhand is tribal territory, and the Deoghar district in the south of the state is marked by visibly abject socio-economic traits - low incomes, poor access to education and healthcare, ignorance about social evils like child marriages. Most of the villagers here from the backward castes have mortgaged their land to the local Mahajanas (landlords). Because of the denudation of forest cover (the traditional source of their livelihood), they are forced to migrate to neighbouring districts and states in search of livelihood. Those who stay behind inevitably see their entire family becoming bonded in labour to the same mahajanas.

It is in this milieu that Gram Vikas Foundation started operations. They set up informal shiksha (non-formal education) centres for the oppressed groups, and through these centres tried to educate the children and make them aware of their rights. Expectedly, the mahajanas were dismissive and discouraging, but Gram Vikas Foundation persevered and slowly started establishing itself. Gradually, the shiksha programs were extended to the parents of the children, covering issues like health (including maternal health) and hygiene, myths attached to traditional superstitions, wrong notions related to gender. Dai (midwife) training and micro savings schemes brought in the women. Establishment of small kitchen gardens helped reduce malnutrition among children and pregnant women.

Today...

• Bonded labour has been eradicated in the area.
• Traditional superstitions related to pregnancy and delivery practices have been removed.
• Predominant skin diseases, which were mainly due to poor hygienic practices, have been drastically reduced.
• The area has 4 primary schools and 1 middle school, and 80% of the children attend school.
• Dependency on the mahajanas for loans has reduced - the villagers borrow from each other instead of the mahajanas.
• The villagers demand, and get, fair wages for their work.
• Many people have got back their land, and some of the land has been redistributed

Murti's story

Murti is a teenager (13 years old) residing in Loharjor village, one of the 4 reference villages of Gram Vikas Foundation. Her family ekes a living by farming and collecting forest produce. Murti was a regular student of the non-formal classes conducted by Gram Vikas Foundation. Apart from giving her an education, the classes helped Murti develop her personality and gave her the confidence to pursue her convictions, as this story will show. When her parents tried marrying her off (they even found a "suitable" groom), she resisted, roping her class teacher, and thereby Gram Vikas Foundation, into her cause. It took a lot of persistence to convince Murti's parents to let her continue with her education, but eventually they agreed. Murti realised she can achieve whatever she wants if she goes about it with courage and conviction, and Gram Vikas Foundation showed all the villagers that there is, indeed, an alternative for their children.

1000 children attend a rally...on January 19, 2005

The Gram Vikas Foundation organized a Bal Srinkhala Rally on survival and development rights in Madhupur on January 19, 2005. Over one thousand children presented a Charter of Demands to the Block Development Officer (BDO) of Deogarh, asking for:

• safe drinking water
• 2 primary schools
• 3 High Schools
• a doctor's presence at the health centre
• mid-day meals and buildings for EGS Schools
• registration of children born
• regular supplies of Public Distribution System material in ration shops
• Common school system

Since the rally was organised along the Madhupur thoroughfare, it went a long way in creating awareness about child rights among the rural elite.

What was CRY's role in all this?

From formation and initial moral support, to financing the first non-formal education centres, to teacher training, capacity building and continued funding, CRY has played a crucial role in helping Gram Vikas Foundation achieve its vision of freeing the children of bonded labourers. As with all our projects, both CRY and Gram Vikas Foundation are working towards the day when we become redundant and the community is able to look after itself.