Lokshakti Samajsevi Sanstha

Learning

This had been a small intervention with its ramifications in wider space. Some learning from this intervention is:

Believe in the fact and then work towards making the community capable: This intervention depicts that the community is often capable of doing advocacy and putting pressure on the administration and local self governance if they understand properly what their entitlement is and how to articulate them at appropriate forum. Here, in this case the verbal complaints did not yield any result. Even written complaint to Sarpanch did not evoke a positive response. However, when the matter was taken up at higher level, it evoked immediate response.

One should knock other doors if some doors do not open: People have come to understand that if some work is not being done at certain level, then it should be taken up at higher (appellate) level. Needless to mention, when the community gets organised they may require some handholding support at initial stage, but once they achieve something their confidence level goes up and they take up other issues suo moto.

Giving them is not the answer always, stand with them may work better: This also gives a learning that people in crisis realise the problem better and that is the best opportunity to mobilise and organise them. Once they are organised, they tend to become self reliant, then the job of the NGO becomes easier and a withdrawal strategy can be drawn accordingly.