Ensuring outreach of healthcare, improved health and nutrition security, equal access to facilities and basic amenities without discrimination, improvement in the decision making powers of women, Quality education and Child Friendly Panchayats are the key drivers for social development
Promoting nutrition gardens has been an important intervention to enhance household health and nutrition in all our clusters and to create anaemia-free villages.
Village Health and Sanitation Committees (VHSNC) are being empowered and efforts are also being made to empower the School Management Committees (SMC) to increase their participation in management of schools.
Ullas Libraries - Through child friendly books and a structured framework and monitoring process, the library programs bring the joy of reading to the classroom and help improve reading in native and English language. The program, called GROW BY Reading, starts by color coding all the books in the library using six colors, Green to Yellow (GROW BY- Green Red Orange White Blue Yellow). 500 books would be provided to each library. Teachers and students are trained to manage the library.
Ullas Libraries operate both from School and Community spaces provided by Gram panchayat. Community Libraries are coming out as an exceptional place for not only catering to the requirements of children but also caters to the requirements of youths and community members. Several youth are using libraries for their preparation of competitive examinations. The community as a whole is coming together through the libraries.
Currently these libraries are in 9 districts across 5 states covering 10,600 children in 56 schools
Ullas Science kit program focuses on developing the scientific temperament, spirit of enquiry and creativity through experiential learning. All experiments in the kit are mapped to concepts being covered in state syllabus for 4th to 10th grade. More than 150+ experiments can be done using the kit. It contains many videos for most of the concepts being taught in each chapter. They focus not just on the experiment, but more importantly understand the concepts behind them. They help children, not just question why, but also question why not. A concept map explains the underlying concepts behind every experiment. Teacher training is organised to capacitate them to use science kit with students.
6500 school children from 39 schools in 5 districts can now access the science kits, fostering logical, rational and scientific thinking. These numbers will continue to grow !
India Education Collective (IEC) is working through its approach in Decentralisation of Education Governance (DEG), Teacher Collective (TC), and interventions with an assessment to address the existing problems in the Primary schools. IEC works with equal participation of the Panchayats and the communities thereby strengthening the local governance in the villages. This approach aligns with Mission Samriddhi's approach to strengthening local self-governance and bringing about change through a cluster of villages as a unit. This project is being implemented in the Maregoan Block, Yavatmal district of Maharashtra through 4 partners – India Education Collective, Mission Samriddhi, Gramin Samasya Mukti Trust (GSMT), and Gyan Prakash Foundation (GPF). It will impact 5000 students in 104 schools covering 57 Gram Panchayats in 1st year scaling up to 350,000 students across 1200 Gram Panchayats by end of 3rd year.
Mission Samriddhi is working along with the Ullas Trust (www.ullastrust.org ) in implementing the “Can do” workshops in Mission Samriddhi-supported clusters in Maharashtra. The Ullas Trust was set up in 1997 by the employees of Polaris to ignite & shape the young minds of students from corporations, Government, and Government-aided schools across the country. The Trust focuses its energies on students from economically challenged backgrounds going through the most vulnerable stage in their journey – adolescence! This would translate into students from Class (Grade) 9th to 12th. Ullas Trust strongly believes that during this period, any positive intervention creates a huge impact in nurturing their dreams and aspirations. Ullas Trust has created integrated and holistic programs to encourage the 'Can Do' spirit in young students.
Anaemia has been identified by WHO as a major public health issue, which interestingly is not a disease but a condition emerging from poverty, food insecurity, gender bias and social discrimination. It is also a known fact that anaemia in pregnant women is one of the main causes of the high maternal and infant mortality rate.
In 2018, Mission Samriddhi, with a clear goal of reducing anaemia in women, initiated a project in Wardha district, Maharashtra to create organic nutrition gardens to supplement women’s nutritional needs by making vegetables accessible throughout the year. Series of training were organized on optimizing the use of one’s land, water conservation, companion planting, making natural pesticides & fertilizers, seed conservation and preservation. Encouraged by the success of this pilot project, Mission Samriddhi, in collaboration with the Maharashtra State Rural Livelihoods Mission scaled up the program, benefiting about 10000 households across the Wardha district.
Mission Samriddhi has now taken the programme to other states such as Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat .
Empowering women by Increasing their participation in development is at the core of all our interventions.
Building the capacity and confidence of Elected Women PRI members, Increasing Women’s Participation in Gram Sabha, Future women leader Programme, Promoting women Farmers and farmer groups, Supporting Single women for social and legal entitlement, Bringing focus to women health and nutrition, Exposure to financial literacy / digital literacy are the key areas of intervention leading to the empowerment of women in our clusters.
