STARS Foundation

Advocacy Training for Community Based Organisations

Pragya, based in the Himalayan region, works towards holistic, sustainable development for vulnerable and neglected communities by carrying out education, healthcare, energy, sustainable livelihoods and human rights projects.

One of Pragya’s key approaches is that of community-driven advocacy. Their chosen change agents for improving the status of education and health in the target districts are the members of the Network for Citizens’ Resources for Welfare (NetCrew) and the Village Education Committees (VEC). The NetCrew consists of 12 to 18 members of the target communities, with women’s representation ranging from between 45-50%.

These community bodies operate at the district level, and interact periodically with different state agencies to advocate for improvements in their communities. The VECs, on the other hand, are village level entities that look into day-to-day activities and help monitor and improve the last-mile service requirements of each village.

Since receiving the Education Impact Award in 2010, Pragya has used part of the Award funding to conduct training programs on monitoring and advocacy to the NetCrew, across all 12 districts. Two rounds of quarterly meetings have been organised in each district, facilitated by the NetCrew members with help and guidance from Pragya. Within these meetings, area-specific issues that require intervention have been identified, and Pragya has supported the NetCrew members to set out the plans for the required advocacy.

Various district-level NetCrew members have since followed through on these plans, meeting the government representatives and speaking to them about the issues identified. Some of the early achievements of their advocacy efforts include:

• The posting of a full time teacher by the Border Roads Organisation in one of Pragya’s migrant workers’ camps. This teacher now teaches migrant workers’ children within the crèche and school.
• The extension of the district administration vaccination programme, so as to include migrant workers’ children, with immunisations conducted by district hospital doctors. This institutionalisation of the health camps has been a huge achievement for the stakeholders, and will have long term health improvements on the children involved.

The NetCrew team are also currently in talks with the education department to reopen two schools in remote areas of Tawang district. These schools have been closed for five years. Success in this effort would boost the confidence levels of the Community Based Organisations greatly, and allow for sharing of good practice to help the advocacy efforts of other districts.