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E-SandeshamAugust, 2010
The Ofcial E-Newsletter of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty
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The Ofcial E-Newsletter of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty
EPICEradicating Poverty, Inspiring Community
In thisIssue...
From the CEOs desk 3
SERP -- An Introduction 5
Health and Nutrition 6
Education 8
Social Security 10
Food Security 12
Gender 13
Persons withDisabilities 15
PoP Strategy 16
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Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) is an autonomous society of
the Department of Rural Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh.
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From the CEOs desk...
Poverty Eradication is an important
milestone and Society for Elimina-
tion of Rural Poverty has taken that
arduous journey 10 years ago bring-
ing in a new paradigm of develop-
ment that emphasized on
Building Community Based Or-
ganizations (CBOs) of the pooras an essential prerequisite for
poverty alleviation.
Empowerment of the poor as
the means to poverty eradica-
tion and
Establishing SERP as the sensi-
tive support mechanism to cata-
lyse the process of social mobi-
lisation.
That small step of social mobiliza-
tion of a few rural poor women into
an SHG has now grown into a revo-
lution of sorts that is transform-
ing village after village in all parts
of this vast country. The myth thatsocial mobilization does not work
beyond north of Vindhyas has been
shattered with rural poor women
in Bihar and UP coming together
to take control of their lives. SERP
in its own humble way has played a
part in nurturing the CBOs in these
states. The CBOs of AP and SERP
arepoisedtoplayasignicantrole
in strengthening the CBOs of the
poor in the most backward states of
India including the North-East un-
analyze the development issues and
action plans. We intend to reach
out to the world sharing our work
to enhance knowledge on poverty
eradication literature and receive
valuable feedback from fellow devel-
opment professionals.
SERP categorizes its work areas
broadly into Human Development
Value Chain support, Livelihood
support, and Resources support.
In this issue we are focusing on our
work towards improving the hu-man development value chain talk-
ingbrieyaboutourmajoractivities
in operation to improve the human
development indicators. We also put
forth our current strategy of bring-
ing in the most marginalized poor-
est of the poor into our development
paradigm of empowering them tocome out of deep clutches of ex-
treme poverty. The forthcoming is-
sues will focus on familiarizing our
reader with the scope of our work in
the livelihoods sector.
Continuous learning is an integral
part of our work and I hope this
newsletter will be a handy source
foreld learningand practicalap-
proach towards addressing the so-
cial evil called poverty, which is an
affront to human dignity. On the eve
of Independence Day along with our
celebrations, let us pool in knowl-
edge and experiences to help the
poor to help themselves
Jai Hind
der the recently launched National
Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM)
of the Ministry of Rural Develop-
ment, GOI. All the States under
NRLM will be establishing sensitive
support mechanisms and bring on
board like-minded NGOs to begin
this exciting journey.
It is in this context it was felt nec-
essary that better coordination and
knowledge sharing among all the
states would go a long way in en-
suring that each state need not go
through the arduous learning curve.
Hence, it gives me immense pleas-
ure to bring out the rst issue ofSERP newsletter as an honest at-
tempt to share our learning with the
development fraternity in the coun-
try.
At the time when India celebrates
its 63rd Independence Day, and
grapples with the question of rich-
poor divide, which is widening at
an alarming rate, it becomes cru-
cial to not just talk but demonstrate
the virtues of Inclusive develop-
ment. With just 5 years to go for the
achievement of the MDGs the suc-
cesses of community driven human
and livelihoods development progr
mmes in states like Kerala, TN, Bi-
har and AP seems to provide the
light at the end of the tunnel. This
monthlynewsletterwillreectand
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It always seems impossible until its done. -- Nelson Mandela
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Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty-- An Introduction
Poverty Alleviation has
been one of the primary
focus area for develop-
ment agencies. Both State
and non-State actors have given it
upmost priority in policy. The ef-
forts towards eradicating poverty
and uplifting living standards for
the populace have been an on-going
activity since the beginning of 20th
century. Successive Governments
realised that poverty eradication is
a must for development to happen.
However gradually a realisation set
in that the State has not been very
efcientinmanagingbothGovern-
ance and development programs
and non-state players came into
existence but they had their own
limitations vis--vis resources and
external dependence on donors.
Society for Elimination for Rural
Poverty (SERP) was conceived asa unique organisation. SERP came
into existence on the strong commi-
tment of both Andhra Pradesh State
government and World Bank to
carry out their development agenda.
Registered as a Society under the
Societies (Telangana) Act, SERP is a
perfect marriage of the strengths of
State and non-State
development efforts. With ample
support in terms of resources-both
nancial and quality manpower
along with sufcient autonomy,
SERP has emerged as an important
entity in the poverty eradication ef-
forts in AP.
Poverty is an affront to human dignity, and a cost to the economyand the polity. Poverty creates vulnerability, dependence andhelplessness. It deprives society of the productive energies of a
substantial segment of its population, contributing to instabilityand social unrest.
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nancial inclusion.TodayAPhas
one of the largest organised SHG
network in the world with more than
1 crore of women actively participat-
ing. AP model has been an inspiring
story for the SHG movement. Under
the aegis of SERP, the SHG-Bank
linkage has been a stupendous suc-
cess and has resulted in mobilisingmore than Twenty ve thousand
crores of credit towards these com-
munity based organisations, most of
them being Self Help Groups.
Over the last 10 years SERP has
evolved into a multipurpose agency
addressing almost all facets of
development. Starting from
The core philosophy of SERP is that each poor individual has a strong desireand innate capability to come out of poverty and there exist, among the poor,many individuals with a strong voluntary spirit of helping others.
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SERP has been able to both evolve
new ideas and effectively scale up.
We have had adequate balance be-
tween being a learning organisation
and an effective implementing agen-
cy for various programs. The most
important one being Indira Kranthi
Patham (IKP). IKP is a community
demand driven rural poverty alle-
viation project aiming to cover all
rural poor households in the state.
The biggest contribution has beenthe push it gave to SHG network and
The SERP model has demonstrated
that a proper mix of Government of-
cials,professionalconsultantsand
community resource persons can
bring in harmony in development
programs. The scale of activities
reached is a testimony of its effec-
tiveness in addressing various de-
velopmental issues.
Focusing on all inclusiveness for
beneciaries SERP has identied
the remaining gaps and with aggres-
sively adopting a POP strategy hopes
to bring in the marginalised poorest
of the poor into mainstream society
and uplifting their living standards
fulllingitsmandateoferadicatingpoverty along with its roots.
Institution building as its primary
focus, it has initiated several income
generating activities covering -both
agricultural and non-agricultural
sectors. There are several health
and education programs being run
along with many land reforms.
SERP has taken a holistic approach
around its SHG network and eventaken up several long term plans ad-
dressing inter-generational poverty.
The focus is empowerment of youth
by providing access to training and
creating jobs. The social develop-
ment programs cover all major de-
mographics, with programs ranging
from infant care to insurance for
the elderly.
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Malnutrition is one of the major bar-
riers in overcoming poverty. Mal-
nutrition in childhood is known to
have long-term effects on the work
capacity and intellectual perfor-
mance of adults. Women who were
malnourished as children are more
likely to give birth to low birth-
weight children and thus there is
an intergenerational effect of child
malnutrition.
Wage loss, loans and curative health
expenditure due to illnesses be-
comes heavy burden on poor house-
holds. The Health and Nutrition
Unit of SERP aims to empower poor
rural women within community-
based organizations to realize their
health services entitlement, im-
prove their nutrition status during
reproductive age and in turn over-
come poverty by reducing their ex-
penditure on health.
One of the highlights of health inter-
ventions is the community managedNutrition cum Day Care Centers, or
NDCCs. These NDCCs are owned
and managed by the communities
they serve making them accountable
and responsive towards the needs of
beneciaries.
Services provided to women and
children enrolled in these NDCCs
include health education, antenatal
care, immunizations, growth moni-
toring, distribution of commonly
used medicines like oral rehydration
powder, and distribution of supple-
mentary nutrition powder. NDCCs
are seen as an innovative way to
break the cycle of malnutrition. The
NDCCs take a holistic, life-cycle ap-
proach to improve the nutritional
status of the most vulnerable poor.
They focus on nutritional needs of
pregnant and lactating women so
that child malnutrition is prevented
as soon as pregnancy begins. They
also enroll children below 5 years
of age so that existing malnutrition
is reversed and the children would
grow up healthy. They are provided
two well-balanced meals each day,
served at the NDCC to ensure that
the meals are not shared with fam-
ily.
A few community members take
the lead to establish a Community
Kitchen Garden to produce vegeta-
bles to be used in the meals prepared
at the NDCC. They focus on nutri-
tional balance growing a variety of
vegetables rich in micronutrients.
There is particular focus on growing
green leafy vegetables, which are a
major source of iron helping to re-
duce anemia among the pregnant
and lactating women.
NDCC hosts a Nutrition and Health
Day in convergence with the public
health service providers two times a
month. The event is attended by the
Auxiliary Nurse Midwife from the
Health Department, the Anganwadi
Health and Nutrition-Lakshmi Durga, SPM
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consistingofveSHGwomen.
A common activity is identied at
VO level in order to allow the ben-
eciaries to generate income us-
ing the NDCC as the activity venue.
Currently, activities such as spice
packaging provide opportunities for
pregnant women to earn Rs. 25- 45
each day, which reduces the burden
of loan repayments during enrol-
ment at NDCCs. NDCCs have cre-
ated major impact like:
Mean weight gain of 9.0 kg for
pregnant women
85% of women received all 3
ANC check-ups at public health
facilities
Mean birth weight of 2.9 kg of
newborn
90% children received full im-munization per schedule
The successful implementation of
NDCCs has shown that the commu-
nity is responsible towards health
needs and is willing to participate
actively in well- designed initia-
tives addressing their needs. These
health and nutrition programmes
are playing a major role in human
development and reducing vulner-
ability of the poor.
The Goal of Health and Nutrition initiatives is to ensure that all
villages in the project mandals with special focus on POP families to
achieve Millennium Development Goals related to Child and Maternal
Health.
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worker from the Department of
Women Development and Child
Welfare, the Health Activist, and the
village Health Committee
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With a population of 170 million
children between ages 0-6 as per
the 2001 census, India accounts for
the largest child population in the
world. All-round child development
has been a vital part of Indias devel-
opmental agenda since Independ-
ence.
Early Childhood Education (ECE):
Education plays a very important
role in shaping up a childs pros-
pects. It involves physical, cogni-
tive, emotional, social, moral andvarious other aspects of develop-
ment. Ability in the longer run is
highly dependent on how the child
is nurtured. ECE is considered as a
signicantinputtocompensatefor
early environmental deprivations at
home by providing a stimulating en-
vironment to children. ECE centres
play an instrumental role in laying a
proper foundation for Primary Edu-
cation.
Children are the worldsmost valuable resource
of a country and its best
hope for the future
John F. Kennedy, Presi-
dent of United States ofAmerica
Education-Seshukumari Bhupatiraju, RPD
The ECE project of SERP is cur-
rently in 16 mandals across the state
and plans to expand to 23 new man-
dals during the year 2010-11. More
than 8000 children between the agegroup of 35 years are enrolled in
these centres. The instructors follow
An entire generation
of children; free from
the burden of poverty;born, educated (elemen-
tary through secondary,
higher secondary, higher
education) and employed
gainfully is the vision
of the education sectorwithin IKP.
the curriculum developed by various
agencies having rich experience in
ECE. The curriculum focuses on the
oral skills such as talking, singing,
reciting the rhymes. Alphabet and
numbers are introduced through
play way method.
Hallmark of these centres:
The teacher presents a Public Re-
port to the parents and the village
community once every month. Chil-
dren of the school demonstrate and
exhibit their learning attained dur-ing the preceding month during
this presentation. Monthly public
reporting is expected to strengthen
the accountability process and also
foster closer association with the
community. The salary is paid to the
instructor by the community only
afteritissatisedaboutthemonths
learning outcome achieved by the
teacher.
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Performance of Students admitted under the Corporate
Education scheme: 29 students have secured meritorious ranks in the IIT-
JEE exam conducted during April2010.
92% of the students from the 200810 batch achieved
rst class marks the public examinations held in
March2010. 76% of the students from the 200911 batch achieved
rst class marks in I Year intermediate examinations
held in March 2010.
Primary and Secondary Education:
SERP is supporting the Mandala
Mahila Samakhyas (MMS) of Chin-
toor, Kunavaram and V.R.Puram
mandals of Khammam district to
safeguard Child Rights and facili-
tate quality improvement in schools
in tandem with Gram Panchayats,
youth groups and teachers. Capaci-ties of the MMS, VO and the SHG
are built to systematically monitor
schools ensuring sensitivity to poor
students and improvement in qual-
ity of education.
31 Gram Panchayats in these man-
dals have been declared child labour
free. Education Sub-Committeemembers have been demanding
their rights and there are many case
studies where they have been able tomake the system answer their call.
1143 children working as Child La-
bour have been mainstreamed into
the schooling system.
Corporate Education for Weaker
Sections:
Higher education constitutes an in-
tegral part of the well being of any
population. Hence, good quality ed-
ucation at 10+2 (Intermediate) level
isnotsufcientandneedstobesup-
plemented with specialized coach-
ing for appearance at admission
tests of professional courses. The
case of good quality education be-
comes impossible for marginalizedand economically deprived popula-
tion due to lack of resources.
To address this gap, SERP has fa-cilitated the admission of 8,000
meritorious poor candidates during
the year 200809 and 200910 in
private / corporate junior colleges
of repute for two year intermedi-
ate course integrated with focused
coaching for IIT JEE / AIEEE /
EAMCET*. This is being seen as an
inter-generational poverty allevia-
tion strategy.
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*IIT JEE / AIEEE / EAMCET are entrance
tests for Engineering and Medical colleges.
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The Proper method of safeguarding old age isclearly through some planof insurancefor everywage earner attempt to
save enough by himself to provide for his old age isneedlessly costly. The intel-ligent course is for him tocombine with other wageearners to accumulate acommon fund out of whichold-age annuities may be
paid to those who live longenough to need it HenrySeager, 1910
Social SecurityInsurance / Abhaya Hastham
-- Chinnatataiah, RPD
With poverty eradication in the 22
rural districts of Andhra Pradesh as
the sole agenda, Society for Elimi-
nation of Rural Poverty (SERP) has
been working with the poor to en-
lighten their lives. Each functional
area ofSERP caters tospecic as-
pects that cause the beneciaries
to exist below the poverty line. Ef-
forts have been constantly made
to empower the poor in every way
possible; Education, Employment,
Health, Nutrition, Self Sustenance
etc. Experience of SERP in the vari-
ous anti-poverty programmes and
promotion of Self Help groups in
the last decade tends to highlight the
fact that the poorbenet fromthe
Income generating activities only as
long as they are capable of partici-
pating actively in the programmes.
Inability to take part is generally
caused by deteriorating health and
physical strength. The reasons areseveral including sickness, mater-
nity, employment injury, old age,
death and the need for long-term
medical care. Once the families are
deprived of their bread-winner due
to this, they have to face the struggle
for survival under severe stress.
Keeping in view, the vulnerabilities
of poor and the need for an initiative
that ensures nancial security,
SERP has come up with requisite
insurance interventions namely, Dr.
Y.S.R. Abhaya Hastham and Aam
Aadmi Bima Yojana (AABY).
Dr. Y.S.R Abhaya Hastham is a co-
contributory pension scheme with
the primary objective of providing
income security and dignity to the
SHG women who are 60 years and
above. As per the scheme, every
SHG member would have to con-
tribute Re.1/- per day and Govern-
ment of Andhra Pradesh would
also contribute Re.1/- per day for
each contributing member. Being
purely voluntary, Abhaya Hastham
was able to attract 39.43 lakh SHGmembers during the year 2009-10
which is approximately 50% of all
White Ration Card holders. Out of
these 3.50 lakh SHG women who
are above 60 years of age are recei-
ving an amount of Rs.500/- per
month on the 1st of every month.
Moreover, all the registered mem-
bers receiveSchemeCerticatesas
well as Individual Financial state-
ments that help the members keep
track of their contribution, Govern-
ments co-contribution and the ac-
crued interest after deducting the
members and governments con-
tribution of premium under Micro-
insurance.
Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana (AABY)
is a Group Insurance scheme by
the Central and State governments
administered by the Life Insurance
Corporation of India. Targeted at
providing benets to the landless
agricultural labourer households,
the scheme caters to earning mem-
bers of rural landless families with
agricultural labour as the primary
livelihood. With equal contribution
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of Rs.100/- per annum each from
Central and State Government, the
members are provided life and dis-
ability cover. The coverage includes
a monetary sum of Rs.30000/- to
the family in case of natural death,
Rs.37500/- in case of partial disabil-
ity due to accident and Rs.75000/-
for death and permanent disability
due to accident. Along with this, the
members are entitled to apply for
an add-on scholarship for their chil-
dren who study in the classes IX
XII.
With a well-managed web-based
database system (www.aaby.ap.gov.
in), AABY has achieved account-
ability, transparency as well as ef-
fectiveness in its implementation.
A centralized network consisting of
a State Call centre and District level
Call Centres (Bima Service centres)
withqualiedprofessional and in-
frastructure such as Computers, In-
ternet, Scanners and printers is re-
sponsible for the continuous service
delivery throughout the year.
Another important node for the suc-
cessful functioning of AABY is theconcept of Bima Mitras. In order to
provide quick and quality insurance
services to the community and en-
sure people participation, Bima
TargetIndicatorsfor 2015-
16
With a well-managed
web-based database sys-
tem (www.aaby.ap.gov.in),
AABY has achieved ac-
countability, transparencyas well as effectiveness in
its implementation.
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that all the eligible poor in the state
are encouraged to access these in-
surance schemes. In addition digi-
tization of all data and issuance of
smart cards carrying member data
will bring in transparency and ease
of access for the uneducated.
These initiatives have created sub-
stantial social capital reducing the
vulnerability of the poorand mak-
ing the community own the pro-
grammes. The implementation of
these schemes has widened the
scope of insurance coverage and de-
picted that with some help from the
Government,insurancebenetscanbe extended to the poor in a viable
manner.
Mitras are identied and trained
to report cases of death to the Call
centers and assist the family in dis-
tress with the claims process by co-
ordinating the activities.
The future endeavor is to ensure
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Bima Mitras is a unique initiative
where an appointed commmunity
person provides immediate assistanceat the time of distress and later helps
with all claim related procedures.
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Food insecurity is a big con-
cern for the poor. Uncertain
work availability and in-
come, poor monsoon season,
oodsanddroughtscantrig-
ger acute food shortages for a
poor household.
During the lean Agricultural
season, many of the rural
poor have barely one meal a
FoodSecurity
-- KP Rao, SPA
day. The Public Distribution sys-
tem (PDS) has its limitations and
even at best can cover approxi-
mately one-third of a family food
requirements, leaving the margin-
alized poor depending on the open
market for the rest of its needs.
Understanding the importance
of assuring quality food-items at
a reasonable price to the poor,
food supply on easy credit wasconceived as a method to ensure
food security. The initiative ad-
dresses both hunger and nutrition
deciencybybringinginbalanced
food in the supply chain.
The Food Security Credit is a di-
rect intervention to tackle the
hunger gap in rural areas. Village
Organizations (VOs) start off by
estimating the balance require-
ment of SHG members, in terms
of rice and other essential com-
modities. This is followed by nego-
tiations and buying better quality
of commodities at bulk from the
open market.These commodities
are then sold to their members at
a price lower than the retail out-
lets.
Apart from the cut-rate prices, the
SHG members can also purchase
groceries on credit. The amount
can be paid to SHGs and VOs in
easy and convenient installments
based on the pattern of their earn-
ings.Thebenetsofthisinterven
tion are multiple; Firstly it assures
food security, Secondly the VOs
realizebenetsofcollectiveaction
and microenterprises. Though not
a substantial employment gen-
era tor, it still provides potential
for local commerce. It has also
reduced the menace of hoarders,
middlemen and money-lenders to
a great extent.
Under this initiative, 11,57,877
families in 1,22,984 SHGs in 8,921
VOs were provided food security
by March 2010. The performance
of most of these VOs has been sat-
isfactoryandhasresultedina-
nancially viable initiative reducing
food shortages and tackling rising
prices of food.
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The Food Security Credit
is a direct interventionto tackle the hunger gap
in rural areas.
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Gender-- Jamuna P, SPM
selected and trained on universali-
zation of social agenda in 2008-09.
These Gender CRPs started work-
ing in 120 mandals of nine districts
where female infanticides and
trafcking were the main issues.
In addition to these, 6 mandals in
Adilabad were taken for implemen-
tation.
As a part of CRP training, 840 pro-
spective ICRPs were selected and
General objectives of the Gender Programme
To achieve intra family equity among SHG members families
To ensure that basic rights of all SHG women are not violated
To build a safe environment for women in their own surround-ings
To enhance the womens capacities in decision making at dif-
ferent levels, their control over assets and their free mobility
Reduction in domestic violence and child labour; No child mar-
riages and 100% education of children among SHG families.
376 of them were sent for exposure
visit to DDS and call centers at San-
ga Reddy.
To bring in better coverage of Gen-
der CRP strategy, it has been ex-
tended to NPM* cluster of villages.
In the rst phase NPM villages
in 36 mandals were covered and
farmers were given inputs on the
social agenda.
Giving due importance to check
Women Empowerment can go a
long way in making equitable de-
velopment a reality. The ability of
women to have access and control
over assets, incomes and various
other services available at village
and individual level has been the
basic outline of SERPs Gender
strategy. The Gender Program
helps women to increase their un-derstanding of intra-family equity
issues, decision making levels,
free mobility, and the necessity of
building a safe environment.
To address the violence against
women in the private and public
spheres, female infanticide, child
marriages, girl education, preven-
tion of HIV-AIDS, equal wages,
humantrafckingandalcoholcon-
sumption, a model social agenda
has been evolved.
The Gender strategy started off
in 208 mandals in the districts of
Krishna, Guntur, West Godavari
and Prakasam with the establish-
ment of Social Action Committees
(SACs) at VO and MS level. The gen-
der awareness empowered women
to resolve family disputes and do-
mestic violence cases through im-
proved negotiation skills and the
strength of SHGs. To extend the
gender strategy to other districts,
640 gender CRPs were
**Hover over
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Salient Pointsof Activity
Progress DuringFY 2009-10
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CRP Training
Adolescent GirlsGroups
Child Marriages
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the menace of child marriages in
Chitoor district, 15 mandals were
covered with the stop child mar-
riages campaign. Rallies were
conducted in every village and
Panchayats were made to spreadawareness about the law. Gender
CRPs counseled parents and girls
to stay away from child marriages.
46 child marriages were stopped
in villages and related issues were
discussed with the village heads
and community.Identiedmarried
Children were sent to school.
Special focus has been given to ad-
dress trafcking issues. Girl chil-
dren were trained and village level
watch committees were formed
to stop trafcking. The excessive
liqour consumption in Warangal
and Khammam has led to several
deaths turning young women towidows and making them prone to
be deceivedbytrafckers.Topre-
vent this, steps have been taken to
identify such women and link them
to the existing schemes. Apart from
this, a Workshop with 100 women
whoweretrafckedwasconducted
in Anantapur district. In Guntur
district, all VOSACs and Mandal
SACs have been working against
trafcking in coordination with
ICDS* and local NGOs.
To curb the meance of abandon-
ment of girl children, mandal SACs
have been working in indentied
mandals in Nalgonda. Round the
clock monitoring of the cradle sys-
tem and parent counseling is being
done apart from the several discus-
sions by SPMU and Gramya re-
source centers with the SHG wom-
en.
In order to facilitate proper imple-
mentation 5630 VOs have identi-
ed gender point persons in all
SHGs and made them responsible
for implementing the gender agen-
da. Gender Forums have also been
formed that maintain VO Gender
books in which all activities related
to gender in their village are writ-
ten.
kin Disposal Bins were constructed
in coordination with Panchayats
with the cooperation of men in the
community.
The Gender based initiatives have
had an encouraging acceptance
from thebeneciaries resulting in
an amount of Rs. 69.74 lakhs col-
lected as gender fund from the SHG
members. This fund is being used
to sustain their Family counseling
centers and to create a sense of in-
volvement among the members in
gender related activities.
Realising the importance of
personal safety and hygiene,
5878 adolescent girl groups
were formed and 74040 girls
were trained with related
modules. 300 Sanitary nap-
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NPM Non Pesticide Management
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when it comes to showcasing their
talents. All they need is a conduciveand sensitive environment to realize
their potential.
Aimed at addressing the needs of
differently-abled people, SERP has
initiated a project to train physically
challenged persons to make them
job-ready and ensure inclusive em-
ployment for them. In addition to
enhancing livelihood opportunities
with proper training, SERP strives
to ensure optimum utilization of
residual abilities by PwDs. Several
programmes to improve the quality
of life for PwDs and their families
have been initiated.
As an organization SERP is sensi-
tized towards needs of PwDs and
factors their concerns in Policy ma-
Persons withDisability (PwDs)
-- Sudhakar Reddy, RPD
king and line activities. In its role
of implementing agency, SERP has
improved capacities of PwDs to ac-
cess and avail various entitlements
and services offered by the govern-
ment.
The disability interventions are be-
ing implemented in 128 Project
mandals in the State. The prime
Objective of the Project is to evolve
a model of institutional relationship
between Community Based Organi-zations (CBOs) of Persons with Dis-
abilities and various Government
and Non-government stakeholders.
These can be used as resource man-
dals to replicate the same through-
out the State.
Since Differently-abled people need
support at several levels, SERP has
taken a holistic approach in under-
taking several interventions cen-
teredaroundrstlythereSocialmo -
bilization and building institutional
support. Secondly several livelihood
support programs are planned for
them supplemented with Commu-
nity based Assessment, Treatmentand Rehabilitation services. The
nature of interventions warrants
that there is adequate convergence
with line departments particularly
Health and Education departments.
There has been extensive coverage
of these schemes. As of June, 2010
around 24,505 SHGs of PwDs hav-
ing 223081 members have been
formed. The livelihood support have
resulted in building a capital base of
Rs 158 crore. The assessment, treat-
ment and rehabilitation services
cover 95% of the SHG members.
Lastly in order to bring in better
convergence and transparency,
SERP has introduced Software for
Assessment of Disability for Access
Rehabilitation and Empowerment
(SADAREM). This involves the as-
sessment of Persons with Disabili-
ties (both new as well as existing)and recording the percentage of dis-
ability. The assessment will be done
phase wise and initially will cover
persons getting disabled pensions,
followed by Widow and Weavers
pensions and those who do not re-
ceive any pension at all.
Under social security pensions
granted by the Government, over
8.38 lakhs PwDs will be covered un-
derrstphase.Furtherthedata
People with disabilities need due
recognition and active participation
in mainstream society. It needs to
be inculcated that they are entitled
to a normal and respectable life.
Disabled people or rather differ nt-
ly-abled people, are second to none
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generated through SADAREM will
be useful to know various needs of
PwDs for providing rehabilitation
services to them simultaneously.
SERP is also hopeful of establishingbest practices to assess and extend
requisite support to PwDs in a sen-
sitive manner.
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The last mile of a marathon is oftenthe most challenging and crucial
distance to be covered for a success-
fulnish.Similarlyintheprocessof
eradicating poverty it is elemental
to reach out to those at the bottom
most of the pyramid. In an effort to
be true to our vision as an organi-
sation therehas been a signicant
effort to identify the most vulner-
able groups, the poorest sections
whose needs need to be specially
understood and addressed. Under
the prevailing socio-economic con-
ditions, these people have remained
neglected.
Since its inception, Indira Kran-thi Pratham (IKP) has been put-
ting continuous and diligent effort
to achieve its goal of eliminating
poverty in all its forms through
strengthening of community based
organizations at grass roots.
The programme can be termed
successful as more than one crorewomen have got organized into over
9 lakh groups during the last ten
yearsandarederivingbenetsfrom
various programmes.
SERP, while implementing IKP has
created an eco-system where multi-
ple opportunities have been made
available for the rural households toaccess and come out of poverty.
Evaluating our evolution over the
PoP Strategy-- Senthil Rajan, YP
last decade, we have realised thatthe poorest of the poor were unable
tobenettothedesiredextentfrom
the Self Help and Common Interest
approach and lacked the minimum
wherewithal to access all the income
generating support programs being
initiated by various developmental
agencies including SERP.
Though Institutions of the Poor
have been built and strengthened,
a closer observation of their perfor-
mance depicts that their outreach to
the Poorest of the Poor households
still needs to be improved and it re-
quires a concentrated and focused
attention on suchhouseholds.
The poorest of the poor (PoP) fami-
lies have poor productive assets or
no assets at all and the community
based organisations failed to ad-
dress their issues leaving them in
the lurch of abject poverty. The most
unity Managed Sustainable Ag-
riculture), one of the livelihood
programmes of SERP provided a
breakthrough by addressing poverty
through converting the small and
unproductive lands into sustainable
and viable productive assets. This
initiative has proven successful with
hundreds of landless farmers who,
provided with a meagre acre of
land on lease have been able to gen-
erate better earnings than before.
Taking the lead given by CMSA, theidea of PoP Strategy evolved with
converging different livelihood pro-
grammes along with the various hu-
man development components im-
plemented by SERP. It also involved
looking beyond the black box i.e.,
SHGs to focus on the PoP household
and tracking the progress made by
each household in all key aspects.
Thus became the objective of the
PoP strategy that Every poorest of
poor family in the state should earn
an income of Rs.1,00,000 per an-
num
vulnerable predominantly be-long to the Scheduled Castes
and Tribes compounding the
challenge of providing ben-
etstothePoPfamilies.These
families are either depend-
ent on the primary sector or
working as menial labour, and
hence heavily dependent on
the vagaries of nature.
In this context, CMSA (Comm-
Where the poor participate as
subjects and not as objects of
the development process, it is
possible to generate growth,
human development and equity,
not as mutually exclusive trade-offs but as complementary
elements in the same process.
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and a signicant improvement in
human development indicators with
3 years of intensive handholding
support.
For the current nancial year, the
PoP strategy is being implemented
in around 3200 PoP Gram Panchay-
ats in 337 mandals where CMSA
programme is functional. The start-
ingpointistheidenticationofPoP
households in the selected panchay-
ats.Foridentication purpose, the
support of EGS CRPs has been tak-
en. Till June 2010, around 5.4 lakh
SC&SThouseholdswereidentied
from 3100 panchayats.
To provide the required handhold-
ing support to these identied
households, a community activist
(PoP CA) has been selected from
one among them. For every 100 PoP
households or a remote habitation
having at least 20 PoP households,
a PoP CA was selected. The selected
PoP CAs will play a pivotal role in
the implementation of PoP strategy
at village level.
At mandal level, one Project staff(PoP CC) has been kept in charge
exclusively for the implementa-
tion of PoP strategy. The necessary
handholding for the PoP CAs will
be provided by the PoP CCs and the
progress made by them will be mon-
itored on a day-to-day basis through
a Decision support system.
The PoP strategy has holistic ap-
proach and cuts across various
programmes of SERP being imple-
men-ted. It tracks each of these pro-
grammes, its implementation and
benetsforaPOPhousehold.
This necessitated having a plat-
form wherein all the components
would be discussed and planned
for effective convergence to take
place at SPMU level resulting in the
emergence of SPMU PoP cell in the
month of April 2010. The cell has
representation from all the compo-
nents of SERP with the Additional
CEO as its Head.
Each PoP cell member acts as a
bridge between the PoP cell and the
parent functionary department
communicating all the decisions
and discussions that have happened
The cell members update them-
selves on other components too inorder to have an overall perspective
about the strategy. In addition, each
cell member will be responsible for
a district so as to provide the hand-
holding support to the PoP CCs and
the district PoP cell. The major re-
sponsibility of the PoP cell involves
monitoring the implementation of
PoP strategy in the districts and im-
parting the training to the PoP staff
in-charge as required.
In order to track every PoP
household,a detailed multi-dimen-
sional baseline survey of PoP house-
holds is being carried out for a bet-
ter understanding of the aspects to
be addressed in the PoP strategy.
This collected baseline will be up-
dated periodically through PoP CA
which will be the basis for rollingout
the Decision Support System.
SERP aspires to play a major role
in facilitating the attainment of the
Millennium Development Goal of
halving the number of people living
in poverty by 2015. At the same time
it will ensure that the most desti-
tutegroupbenetsfromallpoverty
eradication efforts to the maximum.
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The objective of the PoP
strategy is that Every poorest
of poor family in the state
should earn an income of
Rs.1,00,000 per annum and asignificant improvement in
human development indicators
with 3 years ofintensive hand
holding support.
EGS Employment Guarantee Scheme
SPMU State Project Management Unit
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Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty,HUDA Hermitage Complex, 4th oor, HillFort Road, Hyderabad -- 500004.
Ph: +91-40-2329 8981/76/802329 8665/92, 2329 8461/67Fax: +91-40-2321 1848
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