Rehabilitation work for flood hit Himalayan villages

From the onset of its relief operations for the flood affected Himalayan districts in June 2013, Pragya staff has been involved in carrying out area specific need assessments, which helped in formulation of effective rehabilitation strategies with inputs from key stakeholders. Pragya is in the midst of implementing its rehabilitation plan in the four affected districts viz. Rudraprayag, Pithoragarh, Chamoli and Uttarkashi. The interventions are spread across various sectors to reinstate people most affected by the floods. Click here for more on Pragya's work related to flood rehabilitation in Uttarakhand.

Regular health camps & psycho-social counselling sessions are being conducted in flood-affected villages by competent & qualified personnel. Pre-fabricated toilets (in order to ensure quicker installations) are being set up for households that have suffered severe damage to their houses. Covered water storage tanks with filtration units are being provided to the communities for ensuring safe potable water. A cadre of youth volunteers has been created in the flood affected districts as a Helpline to spread awareness and assist people to avail newly introduced schemes and provisions for flood-affected people/communities in the state, facilitating them with necessary paper work and procedures. Pragya is also working to ensure livelihood security for the households that are severely affected in terms of livelihoods due to the flashfloods in Uttarakhand. Households are being provided material support and technical assistance for setting up suitable low-cost greenhouses, along with vegetable seeds & saplings, farm tools etc., for undertaking cultivation of short-gestation, high-value vegetable crops for sale. Pragya is in process of initiating an in-depth research for customised livelihood solutions for the flood affected families.

Call for papers on Gender, Governance and Agriculture

Abstracts are invited for a special issue of International Journal of Agricultural Resources, Governance and Ecology. Last date for submission of abstracts is: 28th February 2014. Guest Editor for this issue: Gargi Banerji, Pragya. Once shortlisted, the full papers would be due by 30th April 2014. (View the full announcement)

Cultivation packages for Kenyan farmers

As part of its initiative to conserve and ensure the sustainable utilisation of the medicinal & aromatic plants of East Africa, Pragya Kenya has developed training manuals for cultivation of 6 prioritised medicinal plants and necessary post harvest procedures. Training manual and awareness pamphlets have also been developed in Swaihili language for grassroots conservation planning workshops.

DEISPI for improving students’ performance

Pragya is piloting DEISPI, a tool to improve learning levels, instructional quality, school infrastructure & management, and educational policy planning.

It generates performance scores for participating schools, teachers, students and target districts based on pre-set performance thresholds and also prescribes remedial actions as required. Teachers, students, school committees recently attended sessions in Uttarkashi as part of the pilot phase across Himalayan district.

Solar dryers for Himalayan farmers

The farmers of Themgaram and the neighbouring cluster of villages were helped to set up a Solar Dryer as a shared facility to dry their farm produce. These structures are portable and easy to assemble and dismantle. Similar structures are being set up by Pragya across several other Himalayan districts. These sites would also have weather resistant food storage facilities as a comprehensive measure to ensure food security for remote high altitude villages.

BARC approved filtration technology for flood-affected villages

Addressing the concerns for WASH in post-disaster scenario, Pragya is carrying out significant work in Uttarakhand, India for communities that have suffered damage to their water supply and storage systems or are currently experiencing water stress or those that are identified to be dependent on contaminated/unsafe water sources for drinking purposes. Pragya is installing BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) approved technology for filtration units comprising activated carbon and 0.01 micron membrane filter that can remove micro-biological impurities to ensure safe water for these communities. The membrane life is 3-5 years with 300 ltr/day output at 10 psi pressure.


(Photographs of Pragya's work in Immediate Relief Phase)

Innovative health surveillance system for women and infants

As a part of Pragya’s initiative to maternal and neonatal child health (read more), Women’s Care Groups (WCG) have been formed in Himalayan villages. A health & nutrition surveillance program for girls and women has been instituted through these groups. Each group uses the program to watch out for health & nutrition risk signs among the girls and women in the village, take necessary precautions or refer for timely clinical care, provide dietary guidance where required, and liaise with government facilities to access necessary supplements, for example, folic acid supplements for pregnant women.

The groups are equipped with necessary instruments, such as Aneamia detection kits (non-invasive) for haemoglobin monitoring, and trained in the surveillance system; the procedure enables a comparison against norms and ranges for BMI, blood sugar, BP, Hemoglobin, etc., set to high-altitude conditions, for adolescent girls and women. They also collect data on food intake and nutritional levels, with a focus on specific high-altitude deficiencies such as iron, vitamin A, and determine cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM).