Gram Vikas
Gram Vikas, literally meaning ‘village development’ is a non-governmental organization working with rural and tribal communities in India.
Gram Vikas partners with rural communities to address their critical needs of potable water and adequate sanitation, in a manner that is sustainable, socially inclusive, gender equitable and empowering. These partnerships help rural and tribal communities learn how to solve their own development needs through democratic and inclusive self-governing institutions.
Gram Vikas: The Formation
Gram Vikas’ founders first came to Odisha in 1971 as Student Volunteers with Chennai-based Young Student’s Movement for Development to help cyclone victims. Seeing the acute poverty and underdevelopment in Odisha, few of them decided to stay and work as development workers, after relief work was over. Initially they worked in the field of irrigation and agriculture subsequently, they moved to Ganjam district to work with the tribal population. In 1979, Gram Vikas was formed, with an initial focus on health, education, and livelihood and renewable energy activities in tribal communities.
The transition to Water + Sanitation
Over the years, the focus shifted from renewable energy to water and sanitation. This came from a belief that lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities is the root cause of impoverishment in India. Open toilets and bathing in public water bodies has severe affects on the health of the villagers. It in turn causes loss of productive days and has a deep economic impact. The water and sanitation programme has thus become our entry point, alongside which we implement an array of development initiatives.
Facilitators of a people’s movement
Since 2004, Gram Vikas has formulated a holistic developmental programme called Movement and Action Network for the Transformation of Rural Areas (MANTRA). MANTRA mobilizes communities to come together by transcending social barriers to plan, build and manage water and sanitation systems through an innovative set of integrated social, institutional and financial processes. Using water and sanitation as an entry point, we implement a whole range of development initiatives under the umbrella of MANTRA. .
We continue to remain committed to our vision of a just and equitable society. By developing the capacity of communities to organise themselves, Gram Vikas is the facilitator of a community-led movement, where each villager is empowered to act as a concerned stakeholder in his or her development.
Core values of MANTRA
100% inclusion: MANTRA is unique in the sense that it involves 100% of all families in a habitation to be included under the programme.
Cost Sharing: On average, each family contributes 60% of the cost of sanitation infrastructure, and 30% of the cost of establishing a piped water supply system.
The belief is that development processes can be sustained only if collective efforts are leveraged in a manner so as to generate collective as well as individual gains, as well as a sense of collective ownership.
Social and Gender equity: A Village Executive Committee, Comprising 50% women, and representing all castes and economic classes proportionally are elected to oversee the implementation of the programme. This body becomes the platform for community decision making.
Sustainability: All development processes implemented by MANTRA are based on sound environmental values that have built-in institutional and financial mechanisms to ensure that infrastructure is well maintained.
What we do
Alongside Water and Sanitation, MANTRA programmes target health, education, livelihood, food security, self-governing people’s institutions and livelihood-enabling infrastructure.
Our sectors of intervention include:
Education: We have pre-schools and primary schools, residential schools for Adivasi children, and project based education resource centres.
Livelihood and Food Security: We aim to diversify people’s livelihood options based on locally available natural and human resources through skill and capacity building, the formation of self-help groups for micro-credit and micro-enterprises and market linkages.
Natural Resource Management: Land, water and forests are the three most important resources for people living in rural areas. We support communities in undertaking sustainable management of natural resources through a variety of interventions in promoting community forestry and horticulture, land development and water conservation.
Infrastructure: We facilitate communities to build disaster-resistant housing, sanitation and water supply systems, and community infrastructure including schools, grain banks, roads, drainage, and alternative energy production.
Health: We work with government Primary Health Centres, providing preventive and curative health services combining modern and traditional knowledge and practices.
