Kenyan farmers benefit from medicinal herbs farming

In Kenya, many rare and valuable medicinal plants are collected from the wild as communities rely on them for traditional medicine. Agnes Mulimi is 35 year old mother of four. Motivated and guided by Pragya, in 2013, she cultivated two rare medicinal plants on her own land. The produce earned her a profit that was one and half times more than that from a traditional produce. Cultivation of crops has been her main source of income for the past 10 years. However, cultivation of the medicinal plants on her farm, she says, has been a game changer as far as family income is concerned. She planted one acre of Ocimum and Mondia whitei in her plot and after the first harvest she received more money compared to the crops she had been cultivating. This encouraged her to concentrate with the medicinal plants which has seen her educate her four children, feed and clothe them unlike before where she would struggle with paying school fees. The children are happy too because they can afford to wear shoes to school now. Agnes has also bought a cow from the proceeds from medicinal plants farming. At the same time, she uses the medicinal plants for treatments in case any of the family members get ill, and this has reduced the healthcare costs.

Rain water harvesting in Kenyan homesteads

Lydia Kiserian along with the other members of the Women’s Water User Group in Laikipia county of Kenya, manages a rain water harvesting structure near their homestead. The women received guidance and support from Pragya in setting up the structure as part of its initiative to improve water access in Kenyan Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs). This water source has saved her from walking 3 to 4 hours every day to fetch water from the river, along with the children making several trips. The structure stores enough rain water for their domestic needs and for the livestock. Lydia is now able to engage in activities that brings extra income to her family. She has now joined a group to make beaded ornaments and sell them. The children in the household get humble time to concentrate on learning and doing homework rather than fetching water after school. 

Towards a brighter future...

Pragya is operating a skill building program for adolescent girls & women in Rajasthan, India. This is a project where we have targeted girls and women between age 15-30 years, often from tribal, impoverished families. We aim to place them in the hospitality, IT and retail sectors after they are trained in our Empowerment Centres in Dungarpur and Udaipur districts in Rajasthan. The initiative seeks to improve the provision of vocational skill-building and livelihoods development services in the area. We aspire to guide the individuals in setting up their own micro-enterprises or in finding paid employment. 

Champa shows products
to a potential customer at the shop

Champa Baranda is a first-year student of BA Political Science at a college in Dungarpur, and she has recently completed Pragya’s vocational training. Due to the health circumstances of her father, she has to support all her family members. Champa now has a retail job in a local saree shop, and she works everyday from 10am to 6pm. The owner of the store pays Champa a monthly stipend, and she has been given assurances of earning higher income and receiving benefits after she gains some experience. Champa says, “I want to study further and do a sustainable job with good income to look after my family”. She also adds that “this job is a stepping stone in my career and I will work hard for fulfilling my ambition”. 

Over time Pragya has expanded this project to the Delhi NCR area as well. In this region, we offer our program to both boys and girls who require vocational training. 

Neeraj and Anuj Sharma (both 18 years old) enrolled in our data entry course after completing their 12^th standard. Following completion of the course, they found employment at the Income Tax Department in Gurgaon, Haryana. Neeraj remarked that “the course was just right for him and the teacher explained all concepts very well”. This program gave Neeraj and Anuj the opportunity to learn how to use Microsoft word, excel, relevant formulas and pictorial representations of data. Moreover, it built up their confidence and they are now both very satisfied with their jobs.

Skill building course underway at Pragya's Gurgaon centre

The list of beneficiaries is constantly growing, and it gives us immense pride to share how they have reaped the rewards of our skill-building program. The list of employers that have hired these individuals includes companies and organizations from both the private sector and public sector. 

Learn more about this initiative here.

A look back at Pragya's work in 2018... and a look forward at what's to come this year!

As is often the case with the coming of a new year, Pragya UK’s transition into January is serving as an important time of reflection! Here we’ve had a look back at Pragya’s work and progress in 2018, as well as a moment to look at what we hope to achieve going forward into 2019.

2018 was a busy year for Pragya’s programme in India. Our Food Security for Himalayan Smallholders project continued to go from strength to strength, empowering farmers to adapt their practices in response to changing ecosystems, guided by each other as well as through services provided by Pragya-supported Agri-Advisors, including soil testing and weather information. Farmers were also supported to add value to their produce with services established to provide them with information on prices, buyers and markets, in order to enhance their revenues and help move their communities out of poverty. We trained women’s Self-Help Groups in Nutri-dense farming and dietary requirements in order to increase each family’s calorific and micronutrient intake, helping lift communities out of hunger and food insecurity. Pragya UK made a field visit to project sites in and around Uttarkashi, meeting with members of a farmers’ cooperative supported by Pragya for local value addition and the development of ethical trading links, and also visiting Pragya-supported crop research plots that provide insights enabling the Agri-Advisors to assist farmers in crop diversification and Climate Smart Agriculture.

A Schools on Wheels lesson in Bhapkund camp

In 2018 Pragya further developed its programme for migrant communities in the Indian Himalayas. The past year has seen an emphasis on the importance of reducing levels of educational exclusion suffered by children of migrant road workers, providing the basis for our ongoing ‘Schools on Wheels’ campaign which transports learning materials and a trained teacher to migrant workers’ camps. The classes introduce basic literacy and numeracy and encourage both the children and their parents to develop an interest in education, with some adult classes being run as part of the programme. The project staff have also made progress in their liaisons with local schools near the camps, encouraging admissions of the children of migrant workers despite lack of documentation.

We also made significant progress with our project establishing DMS-Himalaya, a community-led disaster preparedness model for the Himalayan region. With the aim of increasing the resilience of neglected communities particularly prone to natural disasters due to the region’s unique climate and geography, Pragya have introduced the citizen-led disaster management system in order to empower communities for grassroots disaster risk reduction and response. In the project’s recent year, Pragya-established Disaster Response Teams received further intensive training and orientation, the integration of the model within existing disaster relief programmes was heavily promoted in meetings with state government officials, and the project was enhanced by the addition of a new element, Eco-DRR, an initiative that incorporates community-based monitoring of ecosystem health as part of their disaster preparedness. The DMS-Himalaya system was even successfully employed on several occasions as a response to incidents over the year – a positive step going forward in the development of the project.

Establishing a fodder farm at Simpani

In Nepal, 2018 saw the continuation of Pragya’s post-earthquake rehabilitation projects, primarily focused on communities in the disaster-struck rural districts of Dhading and Sindhupalchowk who continue to suffer from the long-term impacts of the earthquake such as the loss of livestock and damages to housing, community water sources and cultivatable land. Combatting the earthquake’s negative impact on WASH practices in these districts, Pragya’s implementation of the rehabilitation project included the installation of water tanks and community toilet blocks in the regions where such facilities had been damaged, the formation of Women’s Water and Sanitation Councils to ensure the sustainability of WASH improvements, and workshops in schools and in the wider community to raise awareness and provide training on community hygiene, sanitation and waste management practices. The earthquake’s threat to Nepalese livelihoods also continued to be addressed with repair of irrigation structures and pipelines to increase farming productivity, as well as the establishment of community fodder farms in regions that would benefit from shared farming space. Pragya also helped rehabilitate livelihoods, supporting disaster-affected families with livestock and poultry packages, and providing training in fields such as organic farming, goat rearing, and candle making. These projects helped build local enterprise capacity for sustainable income generation.

As part of our initiative to combat trafficking and other gender-based violence (GBV) in Nepal, an issue which had particularly escalated in districts where economic distress caused by the earthquake has been highest, Pragya continued to monitor the previously installed Women’s Helpline Centres and conducted further discussion and training with the Women Vigilance Committees. Helpline leaders and committee members have received further training in effective support to victims of GBV and awareness raising of the issues within their communities. Extensive efforts have also been made to establish linkages with police and government departments to foster an integrated response to GBV and a comprehensive support network for victims of GBV and those at risk.

A cultivation field demonstration session in Isecheno

In Kenya, the conservation and cultivation of medicinal plants in Kakamega Forest was a priority in 2018. The initiative saw Pragya addressing the depletion of threatened medicinal plant species by supporting Pragya-established Community Conservation Groups educating them on the importance of local biodiversity and building grassroots capacity for species identification, habitat monitoring, data collection and analysis. Awareness campaigns were also run in schools where children were encouraged to participate in conservation efforts and feed information learnt back to their families and peers, ensuring a greater scope of impact as well as the sustainability of the project. Pragya also expanded its earlier established plant nurseries in 2018, building propagation sites for important endangered medicinal plant species as a crucial conservation effort as well as a means of income generation for families within the community.

As for 2019… our commitment to transformational change for the communities with which we work of course lives on. Our efforts to strengthen community disaster preparedness remains a priority, with a view to the regional expansion of our work and the adoption of the latest appropriate and affordable disaster management technologies. We will significantly expand and enhance our Food Security work, helping secure the prosperity of smallholder farming communities in the face of climate change. We remain committed to serving the needs of highly disadvantaged ethic minority and migrant communities, supporting their access to education, health care, and rights, towards a brighter future. 

Our gender programme in 2019 will continue to challenge the many forms of violence against women that persist across the regions in which we operate, including work in south Asia to tackle the regionally-interconnected trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation and bonded labour. We will be exploring partnerships to further our maternal and reproductive healthcare work, working to improve the accessibility and capacity of community health services, helping to combat the appalling maternal and infant mortality rates commonly found in the marginalised and last mile communities that Pragya serves. Pragya will also strive to enhance access to safe water and quality sanitation in desperate communities deeply impacted by climate change, providing a vital lifeline in harsh environments and combatting the spread of water-borne diseases. We remain committed in 2019 to supporting the development of sustainable, culturally-appropriate livelihoods for those most desperately in need, with an emphasis on below-poverty-line and female-headed households. Our work in conservation will see neglected communities supported to conserve local biodiversity and protect habitats from anthropogenic pressures, through a combination of awareness-raising, community-led habitat monitoring, and advocacy. We will also support energy-deficient and under-electrified communities meet their energy needs by empowering communities to adopt and manage clean, off-grid energy technologies, which in turn will positively impact community education, healthcare and economic wellbeing.  

A flood affected Chars Community

2019 will also see the expansion of Pragya’s work in Bangladesh. Pragya has recently established its programme with the vulnerable communities of the Chars, or River Islands, in Bangladesh with the aims of enhancing disaster resilience, improving the standards of WASH and livelihood capacities, and empowering women and girls for their protection from trafficking and other gender-based violence.

This is just some of the vitally important work Pragya is committed to in 2019. Everything we do is only made possible through the generosity of our supporters. If you’d like to make a contribution to our work and join us on our journey, please visit https://www.pragya.org/donate.php - Thank you so much.

And this time it is Strawberries in the poly houses of Nepal

Maya Tamang a 40 years old woman lives in Gamailo and was selected as one of the farmers for poly house beneficiaries in Nuwakot district of Kakani Gaupalika. Maya has a family of 7 members and has 2 children. Being illiterate, Maya Tamang did not have enough alternatives for livelihood which made her a potential beneficiary and work as a farmer for poly house in Nuwakot District of Kakani Gaupalika.

Looking at the development indicators of life of villagers, Pragya implemented the project called “Improving Rural Livelihoods, Water & Sanitation in Earthquake Damaged Areas of Nepal” where a holistic rehabilitation programme is being delivered in Nepal. Current interventions are aimed at addressing critical needs of poor households affected by the earthquake in four disaster-affected districts in Nepal. The interventions are focussed on water and sanitation, short-term income generation, long-term livelihood development and protection of women from gender-based violence.

Selected as one of the livelihood package beneficiaries under the project, Maya decided to take this opportunity in the hope of providing better support to her family. Under the project staff’s supervision, she adopted poly house for strawberry production. After receiving support for the polyhouse like silpaulin sheet and bamboo, she zealously spent her time on the construction of poly house. Furthermore, the number of training she received from other organization during the previous year helped her to implement the technology, appropriately.

Maya Tamang in her polyhouse where she has planted strawberry

The variety of strawberries cultivated in Nepal requires an altitude of 1500 - 2500m with a temperature range of 4 - 25 degree Celsius and 3000 - 4000 ml of rainfall, making Kakani the ideal location for such cultivation. The preparation for strawberry cultivation begins around the month of June. After the months of tending, the actual plantation is carried out during September and the produce is ready by November.

Before planting strawberry in poly house, Maya Tamang used to cultivate maize in her farmland. During that time the income she incurred was very less which was not sufficient for her family. But after the strawberry cultivation in the poly house, she is able to have a good yield. In Maya’s words, it was not only her effort alone, her family members have also contributed equally to the cultivation of the strawberries. They helped in watering the plants and put fertilizers and nutrients regularly in the soil. Maya has already sold about 100 kg of strawberry this season and earns 30,000 INR and is still selling the strawberries. Her target is to achieve an income of 1, 50,000 INR. She is happy and satisfied with what she has gained and wants to work harder to make more money from the strawberry fields.

Strawberry in Maya Tamang's polyhouse

“We have seen difficult times when we did not have money to pay for children’s school books for school. Now life has become easier as we are able to manage our daily expenses smoothly,” says Maya Tamang.

Together, Maya and her family have planned to save half of their income for their children’s education and invest the other half to buy food grains that will keep them secure for the entire year. She wants to bring women in the community together, who are interested in strawberry farming along with her and are willing to develop micro-entrepreneurs so that the women in that area do not have to migrate to other places in search of work which will also help in stopping human trafficking in this area.

Gaining their voices to say "No more violence!” through Know Your Rights Campaign

On International Women’s Day, Pragya in India mobilised communities in five districts across three states in the first phase of its biannual ‘Know Your Rights’ campaign under the project 'Comprehensive primary prevention programme addressing violence against ethnic minority women in India’ focussed on the community-led interventions to address violence both within family or private sphere and violence that occurs in the community or public sphere. The project is currently running in the states of Rajasthan, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh, with a special focus on the tribal population. In order to create safer and enabling environment for women and girls, Women Peer Group (WPG) leaders across 5 states are actively engaging the community members to provide guidance on health, nutrition, rights, and issues related to violence against women and girls (VAWG) and empower girls by taking collective actions to prevent VAWG in the target communities.

Women participate in KYR campaign in Lakhimpur, Assam

These WPG leaders, the anchors of the project conducted the KYR campaign by organizing an interactive street-play called “Ramli kyu maar khaye?” portraying one day in the life of a rural woman fictionally called Ramli, who faces domestic violence and how others in the village like mukhiya, Women Peer Group leaders and neighbours around her come forward to combat the violence done to Ramli and positively influence her husband (fictional name Devilal) to say no to violence by informing him about the adverse effects of violence on women and the existing laws that women can use to exercise their rights.  The audience applauded the performance of Pragya volunteers and had a lively discussion with the staff on countering violence against women.

The rallies conducted had the participation of both community members and school students. The posters which were developed for the campaign highlighted the issue of domestic violence, education of and celebrating the girl child. The message through these activities emphasized that as responsible citizens, we should not remain as mute spectators when we see any form of violence in our neighborhood and to deal with every act of violence in a collective and concerted manner. Around 731 people participated actively in the street play on domestic violence and the rally along with an extended outreach of over +1500 observers of the rally.

School children in Chamba participate in the rally

The campaign also employed stimulating media like SMSs in vernacular focussing on the messages related to eliminating violence and women and educating girl child. These messages reached out to over 10,000 people in the target districts. The campaign also underlined the need to ensure safe domestic spaces and recognize that domestic violence exists around all of us and there is a need to come together to uproot this evil practice which enabled a platform to villagers to voice out their concerns and emerging needs related to construction of toilets for girls in the government schools, safety of girls and domestic violence. The stakeholders also informed the villagers on various mechanisms and bodies functioning at the village and panchayat level to help and guide aggrieved women on violence-related cases and ease out the legal process.

The event saw a magnificent turnout from the local communities who were moved by the essence and spirit of the message, “Har vyakti ka hain yahi kehna, hinsa ko ab nahi hain sehna!” (Every person says, we won’t tolerate violence!). In some of the locations, like Sonitpur and Lakhimpur, people also traveled from different villages to the location of the campaign, sharing the need to have such campaigns in their villages for sensitization on the issue of domestic violence.

Our campaign event covered in Dainik Bhaskar, Rajasthan

The Know Your Rights campaign was also covered by the local vernacular newspapers in all the three states. The Know Your Rights campaign would continue for the next 2 months where Pragya will continue engaging the communities to create safer and healthier spaces for women and girls. 

Empowerment Center Caretakers provide information and referral services.

Dipali Mech [name altered], a domestic worker in Assam, wants her monthly wage to be paid on time. Renu Daimary [name altered] wants divorce and compensation from her husband for the years of emotional violence that she has faced. Jamuna Saikia [name altered] and Mandira Boro [name altered] want compensation from their employer for the physical assaults they had experienced at their workplace. In Rajasthan, Sharda Kumari [name altered] wants an end of the restrictions imposed on her mobility. All of these women had once approached the Empowerment Center [set up by Pragya with support from UNTF EVAW] in their vicinity, seeking information and guidance to solve their problems. At these centers, they met the women facilitators, who are very supportive friends and mentors to them now.

Semima Khatoon is the facilitator at the Empowerment Center in Sonitpur district, Assam. She hails from Keherukhunda village and has 10e11 years of experience in the field of social work. Before taking up this role, she has taught English, Hindi, and Assamese to children in primary school and run awareness campaigns on vaccination for a local NGO. Priyanka Kumari is the facilitator at the Empowerment Center in Dungarpur district, Rajasthan. She is a resident of Chak Mahori village and has completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in History, Political Science, and Geography. Both of them have been working untiringly to fight against illiteracy, poor access to information– that further exacerbate violence, and result in disempowerment of women and loss of their self-confidence.

Semima and Priyanka attend to people who visit the center or call on the helpline number seeking information or help. A vast majority of women approach them for seeking information on legal aid, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and career guidance. Semima recalls helping a man to get an ID for Persons with Disabilities for his daughter. She also gets calls asking about compensations/entitlements, punishments stipulated under various laws. Priyanka receives visitors asking her about training programs at the center, about government schemes and scholarship programmes for girls. Women also approach them to report incidences of eve-teasing, stalking, domestic violence, alcoholism, and polygamy. Once these cases are reported at the center, they ensure timely response by contacting the relevant authorities and support providers who can take up these cases. They ensure both prevention of and response to violence by helping women with information as well as judicial and social security services.

Semima Khatoon, Sonitpur, Assam

To be able to provide the correct information to the visitors and callers, Semima and Priyanka keep themselves updated with the latest news and legal provisions. “I have gained immense knowledge from working at the Empowerment Center. The information I share with the women also empowers me” reflects Semima. She maintains case log, visitor and call logs and promotes the services of the Empowerment Center at various events that she attends or organizes. Her day starts with reading the local newspaper and documenting cases of violence published in local news every day. This gives her a fair idea of the prevalence of different kinds of violence against women and girls in her district and new schemes that are launched. This, in turn, helps her give feedback to the Pragya team and local mentors, on the priority issues for village level campaigns. 

A diploma holder in Computers Application, Semima also teaches women to use the computer and helps them with application forms for higher education or job opportunities. Priyanka, like a skilled librarian, knows all the resources in the Center including which book is in which rack. She finds it easy to immediately take the relevant books/pamphlets out when people ask for them. Priyanka takes regular note of the problems reported by the women who visit the center. She finds that most of the problems are related to water access, shortage of food and violence in the domestic sphere. She feels that the Empowerment Center also provides women a safe space to take a break and use the toilet, in between their long journeys through the town or day-long struggle with paperwork and follow-ups at the government offices.

Priyanka sharing information with a visitor
at Empowerment Centre, Dungarpur, Rajasthan 

Semima and Priyanka have developed rapport, linkage, and contacts with local law enforcers and NGOs, from whom they seek advice and also refer the cases. “These linkages are essential to tackle the cases of child marriage, dowry-related harassment reported to the Center. I hope to see a gender-equal society and I know this would happen gradually. At least, for now, the women from the villages have a center, which they can call theirs, and feel free to step in for any of their queries,” says Priyanka. Today their peers value their opinion and have respect for them for the knowledge they have gained through their work experience. They are considered role models in their village for being the people who have not given up on their aspirations and for working passionately for a cause close to their heart.