BACKGROUND

• Yavatmal district occupies a prominent place in Maharashtra’s central Indian tribal belt comprising of five Talukas (Ghatanji, Maregaon, Ralegaon, Kelapur and Zari-Jamni) and 321 villages that have been declared as Schedule V area.  
• Out of the 47 scheduled tribes notified in Maharashtra, 5 of them, namely Kolam, Gond, Andh, Pradhan and Pardhi inhabit this region. Among these Kolam belongs to the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal group. 
• This community is characterized by a very low level of literacy, high infant mortality, declining or stagnant population, poverty, and very low-level agricultural technology.   
• In this region, forest produce and agriculture are the major sources for the sustainable livelihood of the community.  However, the tribal forest dwellers do not have the rights to conserve and harvest the forest produce. 

THE PROBLEM

• Lack of Community Ownership of the Forests, either due to lack of awareness or otherwise, is resulting in loss of sustainable livelihood and dignity, for these tribal communities

SOLUTION

The NGO, GSMT is one of the few organizations that has an end-to-end approach for tribal upliftment. This is achieved through a sustained process of 

1. Creating awareness on rights to forest ownership
2. Ensuring they realize what is RIGHTFULLY theirs 
3. Building capability in the Community for strong local governance
4. Ensuring sustainable livelihoods for them so they move them Poverty to Prosperity

FACT

• 560 of the 1600 villages in Yavatmal district eligible under the Community Forest Rights Act (CFR) have received the CFR titles. This has been possible only because of the diligent efforts of organizations such as GSMT

My colleagues and I from Intellect Design Arena Pvt Ltd, Mumbai are running a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to transform the lives of these tribal folk. This is done, VILLAGE by VILLAGE. The cost of impacting a village is approximately INR 60000 per annum. This NGO  will work with these villages for 3 years. Read the story below to see how villages have seen a 5X increase in revenue. This has impacted the tribals by moving them from Poverty to Prosperity. Together lets transform tribals and their villages. 

This initiative empowers individuals, panchayat members, and key leaders at the village level to accelerate their Self Government process for their sustainable livelihood and ecological security through the management of natural resources in 50 villages of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra. This crowdfunding campaign is done in partnership with Gramin Samassya Mukti Trust (GSMT) and Mission Samriddhi.

HELP ME RAISE 60000 INR. This will help the NGO work at impacting an entire village for 12 months. THIS ON AN AVERAGE WILL IMPACT THE LIVES OF 70 FAMILIES.

CASE STUDY

HOW GSMT WORKS

GSMT first and foremost strives to raise the awareness of the community to demand their Rights. This is followed by strengthening the capability of Gramsabha and Gram Panchayats for local self-governance. They have been provided handholding support to:

• Understand the importance and benefits of constitutionally mandated Acts such as the CFR Act, 73rd Amendment, PESA (Panchayat Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996, Biodiversity Conservation Act 2002 and MGNREGA.
• Prepare participatory conservation and management plan at village level as well as comprehensive GPDP to ensure sustainable livelihood and ecological security
• Mobilize resources through effective convergence of various schemes of Government (Central and State) Line Departments as well as 14th Finance Commission funds as well as State Finance Commission funds.
• Business planning workshops for youth to create local entrepreneurs
• Exposure to best practices in Tendu, Mahua, Gum, Honey to enhance livelihood incomes
• Implement plan effectively
• Community monitoring of executed work
• Issue-based advocacy and lobbying with  influencing authorities
• Facilitate Gramsabha Federation at the Block level
• Manage Finances and  Reporting
• Human resource management in the villages for project execution

AT THE END OF THE DAY GSMT RESTORES THE TRIBAL DIGNITY THROUGH COMMUNITY FOREST RIGHTS

This initiative of GSMT will impact 3710 families across 50 villages over three years.

OUTCOMES

GSMT has led this initiative in multiple villages and has experienced great success. Some of the outcomes are listed below that are bringing about change in prosperity levels. This is also changing behavior and attitudes at the grassroots level and driving social change.

While the above are sample project outcomes, here is a comprehensive list of the Measures of Success

• Number of villages having Community forest rights, Ownership on Non-Timber Forest Produce (NTFP), Water bodies and Grazing land
• Number of villages having Conservation and management plans prepared for 5 years and self-executed.
• Number of villages having 3 trained local thematic experts (Barefoot Technicians/Volunteers) to execute a management plan
• Number of families who have received the IFR titles and have access to government schemes to make their land productive
• Quantum of investments made through departments such as Forest, Tribal, Agriculture, irrigation, animal husbandry, fisheries, Rural development and other line departments for financial assistance towards Plantation, Natural regeneration, SWC work, marketing of NTFP, livestock development and Infrastructure development.
• Number of person-day work completed by MGNREGA job cardholders. 
• Number of households benefitting from individual benefit schemes for NR based livelihoods
• Number of jobs completed under Diversion based irrigation, Recharge pits, low-cost wells, de-silting of tanks for irrigation, canal deepening and de-silting.
• Number of households that planted bamboo and horticulture plants
• Number of NTFP produce collected, processed and marketed as Mahua Flower, Mahua seed, Ten-du, Gum, Honey, Bamboo   
• No of Goatery and Poultry units developed
• No of Fishery units initiated on farm ponds and irrigation tanks (Individual or community level)
• Amount of seed capital utilized for business development

ABOUT ME & THIS CAMPAIGN

My name is PUNKAJ SHANKAR and I am a Sr VP for HR at Intellect Design Arena Ltd at Mumbai. 

My colleagues and I are running a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to empower panchayat members and key leaders in tribal areas across Maharashtra. This is done with the NGO - GSMT which educates panchayats and individuals on how they can leverage forest produce to create more wealth for themselves.

This is done at the village level and takes ~3 years typically. It results in the GDP of a village going up by 3-5 times. This means the tribal families there have access to more income and this moves them out from poverty to prosperity. The aim is to accelerate their Self Government process for their sustainable livelihood and ecological security through the management of natural resources in 25 tribal Gram Panchayats of Yavatmal district of Maharashtra.

My campaign aims to impact 70 families or more in a village in Maharashtra. Please support and fund my campaign as we can together impact many villages.

As an Individual, I am trying to raise INR 60000 or more to impact on an average of 70 families in a village for a year. The more we raise the longer we can impact this village, for once a village is impacted this becomes sustainable for life.  

PICTURES TELL A STORY :

The below pictures show the different verticals/businesses that are done at the village level.

OUR PARTNERS

GraminSamassyaMukti Trust (GSMT) is a registered, non-profit, voluntary organization established in the year 1991 and actively working in the field of sustainable rural development. It has been established with the specific objective to solve the livelihood, health and educational issues which are greatly interlinked. The organization is working with the most ignored (socially and economically) and oppressed communities and taking them towards sustainable development with a special emphasis on women empowerment.

Mission Samriddhi is a social impact enterprise dedicated to holistic human development in India through the design and development of projects that are sustainable and capable of scale to positively impact the larger population.

LOCATION - MAP

The image below shows the YAVATMAL district area. This is a part of Vidarbha and is drought-prone. It is relatively a very backward district in India.

TAX BENEFITS

Funding for this campaign is eligible for tax breaks as GSMT is a registered trust & you can avail of benefits under section 80G of the IT act. Foreign funding is accepted too.

FEEDBACK/CAMPAIGN UPDATES FOR YOU

To ensure that there is complete transparency I shall get a report (this takes 6 months usually after the funds are raised & transferred) about who has benefited from the funding. The details will then be posted on the UPDATES section of my campaign. As soon as I post an update, the platform will send an SMS and EMAIL alert to all the funders - i.e. to you. Click on the link on the email and you can read about who benefited. That's transparent right.