The
community based organisations and their engagement
1) NAVCHETNA TRUST: it is a women’s registered
organisation encompassing various Mahila Mandals located in the slums and poor
localities in Surat. It is an umbrella organisation consisting of various slum
Mahila Mandals.
Mahila
Mandals (MM) [mahila = women, mandal/s = Association/s]
A Mahila Mandal is a membership
organisation, made of all the women of a slum who volunteers to be part of it.
These voluntary members are the ordinary members of the Mahila Mandal who
together elect the members of the Executive Committee.
Composition of Mahila Mandals:
Any lady from a particular slum
may join that mahila mandal (slum women’s association). To create the feeling
of belongingness and accountability towards the group a nominal amount of Rs
15/- is collected from the women as the annual membership fee.
The Executive Committee The mahila mandal is run by an executive committee made
up of eleven members. Of these, six members i.e. the President, Vice-President,
two secretaries and two treasurers are elected by all the
members of the MM; while five members are chosen by the various neighbourhoods
of the slum so that each location is duly represented in the eleven member
committee. The election for the selection of executive committee is held every
three years. There are now 24 Mahila Mandals.
The purpose of emergence of a Mahila Mandals
The women in the slums bear brunt
of their gender as well economic situation. Poverty in the city makes
communities very vulnerable but more so women, children and the aging and sick.
Lack of infrastructure facilities such as decent house, toilet and bathroom
make women all the more vulnerable.
Unemployment is high in the slums
and it leads to families in debt trap and many other vices especially men who
have not resilience to bad company and vices.
Many women in the slums are
expected to carry on the household chores, earn for the family, bring up
children and take care of the sick. Long experience of the organisation has
taught us that women are in many ways pillars of social, economic life in the
slum. They are the agent of change in society if their energy and potentials
are well cultivated.
The emergence of MM is outcome of
this faith in women. One of the major objectives of Navsarjan was to promote
community-based women’s organisations and capacitate them through various
trainings to take up the community development as well as take up issues
pertaining Rights and Entitlements of the marginalised especially women and
children of these slums. Promoting and practicing leadership and advocacy
skills have been part of the capacity building agenda of the organisation and
CBOs.
The MMs in the various slums are
effective and are responsive to the needs of individual as well community.
NAVSARJAN has helped them to federate under an umbrella community based
organisation call ‘NAVCHETNA TRUST and take up number of programmes to benefit
the women.
The active 26 MMs in 37 slums are
instrumental in taking up social, economic, educational and political issues to
some extent and try to resolve them. The Mahila Mandals with the help of
NAVSARJAN carries out various activities like Balwadis (kindergartens), tuition
classes, tailoring classes, money saving groups, campaign for food security
(right to food), School Dropouts and working children’s program, monitoring of
school management committees and Vigilance committees. These activities are
supervised by the members of Mandal’s Executive Committee.