Right to livelihood.

All the development efforts after 1960 were directed to the development of agriculture through so called green revolution. It was a huge event with a huge number of hidden known and unknown side effects. The farmers with small and marginal holdings did not gain from the coined revolution and they remained as poor as earlier. The benefit of so called agricultural development did not percolate to the large numbers of agricultural labourers either. The overall situation was that a visible disparity between the rich and the poor emerged. The livelihood scenario in RCHSS working area was the same as other part of the country.

As a consequence of past experience, RCHSS put its thrust on capacity building and empowerment of the community for their own entitlement, development and sustainability. It established linkages with the govt. institutions, CBOs and involved the village collective which had control over the community.

This shift in strategy favoured and organisation saw people more interested in earning their livelihood with self-respect rather than provided. The community began to help RCHSS in planning and decision making process in ensuring food security, income generation etc, thus owning the programme and responsibilities.To know RCHSS route direction please browse  http://rajadighingo.blogspot.in/

Right to Children

Above 30 % of population is children, living in RCHSS programme implementation area.

 Regarding the status of the above child population health is the first concern needs to consider. Although the health infrastructure in place but not accordingly in certain spheres due to lack of motivation has much scope of improvement.

 Nutrition is another major point needs to be counted. Intrigated Child Development Scheme has a very good network in almost all big and small hamlets; several centres are operating in settlement village. RCHSS is constantly facilitating through women groups to shift the focus of these centres from “feeding Centre” to “centre for nutrition education”

 The government is fully committed to the goal of elementary  “education for all” up to 14 years of age through implementation of  right to education act,2009 Though the school enrolment and retention data of one year after enacting the act not supporting the aspiration of the policy makers of the country. As well as the shortage of manpower and necessary infrastructure involved in the EFA move is a point of serious concern. To provide quality and inclusive education to all we have to plan more effectively.

 According to the Third National Family Health Survey, every second girl is married in childhood in West Bengal. Of all teenage girls 15-19 years in the state, one-third are mothers. RCHSS facilitating an effort to enhance the awareness of communities against child marriage to strengthen the pilot initiative by the local government in working districts which has the highest number of child marriages in the state.

 Child trafficking is one of the most serious human rights issues facing India and neighbouring country today. In efforts to combat this growing problem society’s counter-human trafficking programs in Indo-Nepal border focus on five main areas: prevention, protection, improvement of the legal environment, improved coordination among authorities and service providers, and increased access to information towards “safe migration”.

 India has the largest population segments that are living in crude poverty. In these families each and every member needs to do something for everyday bread. Poverty compels families to utilize all their resources .Families often send their young child to work to supplement the family income. The traditional system included the provision of child labourer. Therefore, reasons of the existence of child labour are not only poverty and also social and economical background us posses. Especially the social exclusion is so evident which compels the communities to continue with that kind of discrimination and exploitation. RCHSS is with the support from government functionaries, departments and experienced partners constantly trying to reduce the unholy practice of child labour from its area of operations through advocacy and social awareness.

To know RCHSS route direction please browse  http://rajadighingo.blogspot.in/

The Journey of the Community

The journey started with little groups of people in the year of 1988, mostly comprising of tribal and Indo-mongoloid women and marginalized farmers. These people gathered courage to fight all adversaries and organise themselves and likeminded people as to elevate their socio-economic condition and secure food and shelter at the family level. During the second half of the twentieth century, traditional village life and land management have been destabilized causing the decay of the village as a community and a declined productive capacity of most of our land. The causes of these are many, chief among them modern agricultural technology fostered by so called green revolution, absence of proper governance. Simultaneously liberalised economy accelerated the same leading towards marginalisation and hardship for rural poor. As most of the people are cultivators, so Rajadighi Community Health Service Society known as RCHSS started from re-greening the denuded earth by planting trees and erosion checking floras. Also the team started to plant mango, Seesum tress and some grasses including vetiver in and around high Barind tract involving the school students and some community people interested in social development. RCHSS re-greened forty villages and nurtured nurseries to be distributed among the local communities. RCHSS by then started a programme on family welfare called “Kurumutu” in tribal language which means effort and lasted for one year but the enthusiasm of the community did not stop and they initiated a new project on family welfare supported by government of West Bengal. In the year 1992 RCHSS launched the programme on disaster management with the technical support from OXFAM and CRS whose prime objective was to provide relief measures to the flood victims as well as enhance preparedness.

Way Back A Dane, Dr. Else Hoilund’s voluntary work in the area from 1948-1979 is the main inspiration  behind RCHSS mission. Rajadighi Community Health Service society emerged after the closure of Rajadighi Christian Hospital in 1988, which was established by Dr. Hoilund in early 50’s. The inspiration revitalized a local school teacher Mr. Shibesh Das and his students in mid 80’s and on wards with their environmental programmes.

As days and months passed, RCHSS realized that relief measures were not the ultimate solution to the sorrow of the community. In order to alleviate the sorrow of the community they should be trained to identify their potential and capability. So a shift in working strategy for social development was introduced with the consultation of the managing committee and the stakeholders. In front of RCHSS there were several issues like high infant mortality and morbidity, poor health and nutritional status of children especially among the tribal villages, high crude birth rate, occurrence of flood, drought and consequences of climate change almost every year and throwing the life of people out of gear. Increasing gap between the haves and have not’s.

All these issues churned the mind and at first RCHSS were perplexed as to the start point of the solution. With passion and support from the people, Governments and partners the community started various activities utilizing the local human resources including support to women self help groups beyond the line of financial benifit. To know RCHSS route direction please browse  http://rajadighingo.blogspot.in/