Rajasthan Mission on Skill and Livelihoods (RMoL)

Rajasthan Mission on Skill and Livelihoods (RMoL) is an initiative by the Government of Rajasthan to cater to the challenges of creating a large number of livelihood opportunities for the poor, increasing labour force and to increase the income levels of working poor in the state. Under the patronship of Honorable Chief Minister the mission is striving hard to design and implement the appropriate livelihoods strategies for the poor and the vulnerable.

For detail log on to: http://rajasthanlivelihoods.org/

…moving together, making together a better tomorrow…

Vishwakarma Self Help Group (SHG), at Kesarpura village (Mavashiya Panchayat, Shrinagar block, Ajmer, Rajasthan) has started one year back with the support from LIFE project. Group has started with the initial membership of 15 women of the Kesharpura village with the monthly saving of Rs. 100 and still after one year they have 15 memberships and saving of Rs. 100. at present they have the saving of Rs. 20000 with a bank account in Cooperative bank at Mavashiya Panchayat. Although till now they have not received any bank, but they have applied for it.  At present they conduct their meeting once in a month on every 25^th at 7.00 pm and during the meeting they discuss about the different development issues like agriculture, education and health and do the collection of saving amount and inter loaning among themselves. For inter-loaning they charge 2% interest rate per month.

Within the year all the members have taken loan once and also repaid it, they have taken loan basically for the purpose of agriculture and livestock…..when we have asked them about the leadership of the group, they have selected Ms. Kamladevi (45 years) as the president who is illiterate, they said she is able to manage the team of we all members and is enough bold to represent the group, to do the documentation of the group there is a qualified (9^th pass) secretary in the group and she do the all documentation part…..also they have the concept of rotational leadership, but it is on need and demand of group members. This group has its own bye laws regarding saving, loaning, attending meetings and point of discussion during the meeting, if some one is absent in the meeting , she has to take permission from the president and in next meeting she has to pay Rs. 10 as fine for the absenteeism!

When we have asked them that why they came together to form the group, they said we all work in NREGA , and are able to do some saving, so we thought its better if we would be in a systematic structure of group formation, but all this has been seeded by the LIFE project staff during frequent visits to the village and interaction with the village target families women….now apart from these 15 members other women also wants to join their group by seeing the progress of the Vishwakarma group…..they have given the name Vishwakarma, because the name represents the meaning of …working hard!...now these women are happy and their family members are also happy to see their progress…now they are able to spent some good amount on themselves and on their children education….now they wear neat and clean sarees, go for health check-ups and send their children to schools…in words of Kamladevi…project has changed their life!

Atma Manthan: LIFE project-Review Meeting

Atma Manthan

LIFE project-Review Meeting

23, 24 & 25 June, 2011

Venue: Disha- RCDSSS-Ajmer

This time review meeting has been given a name-Atma manthan-meaning ‘self-analysis, for not only for the partners, but also for the supporting agency Caritas India to see and analyse the pace of the LIFE project. The participants were Mr. Nelson ( HOD, Caritas India), Mr. Prakash (from Ask India) , Mr. Vinod Pandey (from Caritas India) and the entire LIFE project staff of both the SJVS-Banswara and RCDSSS-Ajmer  along with the Directors .

The process of atma manthan i.e has started with the prayer ‘Hamari hi muthi mein akash sara’ i.e. the whole sky is in our fist!  After the prayer there was a brief presentation on the process and the key decisions taken during the last review meeting (been held at SJVS-Banswara from 21^st-23^rd Feb 2011).

Later on Mr. Prakash and Mr. Vinod along with guidance from Mr. Nelson has facilitated the three day process based on discussion on PMF, activities, budget spent and result achieved   ( a brief process report has been prepared by the RCDSSS-Ajmer team).  At the end of the three day both the team presented their progress of last three months. From the review process following are the key points:

• Both the partners of LIFE project have PMF well developed and has been translated in the local language in Hindi, even there is sort of understanding on PMF at field animator level.
• Sustainable agriculture has become the central part of the agriculture component of both the projects. Clarity on sustainable agriculture has been seen amongst the staff and are interested to work on same.
• Both the partners have done quite well in terms of developing monitoring tools and its application of to all the HHs.
• This time, first time field animators also given presentation of the progress of their own village and on PMF
• Analysis of monitoring tools has also done in  better way keeping clear cut targets on the basis of certain criteria’s which targets the poorest of the poor in the target villages.
• Both the SJVS-Banswara and RCDSSS-Ajmer partners are open in terms of implementation of activities based on results for making the LIFE project to achieve the set results.
• With the support from caritas India, now two staff (one from each partner) has sent to CESSS-Amravati and both has been trained on sustainable agriculture. Also Caritas India with the inputs from the partners have developed the common demo-plot guideline in both Hindi and English for one of the key activity-agriculture demonstration plot.

At the end meeting has ended with the vote of thanks by Mr. Vinod Pandey.

Release of a Video CD accentuating on LIFE project by Caritas India ED...

A video CD on LIFE project has been released by Fr. Varghese (Caritas India ED) on 3oth June 2011. The video CD is an effort from the LIFE team of Caritas India to accentuate the ground changes in LIFE projects from the field of Banswara and Ajmer. There are 8 video documents in the CD and are shot by mobile camera, laptop web cam and normal cameras...

RTI at Post office …given pension from post office for survival…

Deva/Baldev, aged 67 years from Kesarpura village (Mavashiya Panchayat, Shrinagar block, Ajmer, Rajasthan) has applied for the old age pension one year back with the support from LIFE project staff and orientation on different government schemes at village level.

One year has passed but Deva has not received any pension from the government. He has shared his concern to the LIFE project staff Mr. Hemant (the field animator for the Kesarpura village) and Mr. Hemant has guided him on the concept of RTI (Right To Information Act) and suggested him to file an RTI to the concerned department (Social Justice and right department, Ajmer) regarding delay in pension and asking the reason for the same.

Deva  has filed RTI on 16^th June 2011 and within the week of his RTI his pension has started and he has received the pension of last 10 months at a time. He has received a total sum of Rs. 7645/- in his post office pass book for the old-age pension.

Now Deva is happy and sharing his knowledge on RTI to others and smiling with the thinking that in this old-age age he would be able to survive in better way with this support…he has shared that he has taken some money from his neighbour for some health treatment now he has paid that money back to the person with this pension money….for him projects like LIFE are really changing his life….