Our Activities
Save Environment Campaign
SEBA NGO has started a Save Environment Campaign to prevent people from cutting trees and engaging them into agriculture. Community members are unaware of different government acts which have been developed for their benefit. SEBA will hire resource persons who are experts on the Forest Rights Act and NTFP policies for these workshops to raise awareness within the community regarding their rights to access NTFPs. The forest department currently restricts the tribal community members from collecting some of the NTFP which they have rights to under the provisions of the Forest Rights Act. People need to be sensitized on their rights and the provisions of the Forest Rights Act.
Through this activity, the community will establish rapport with the forest officials as these officials will be invited to attend different workshops, conferences, and seminars. The community members in each of the 10 villages will come together to learn about their rights to access to various NTFP for food and as a source of income. This initiative is a combination of income-generation campaign and environment-saving campaign which will encourage youth to be employed and will keep the environment safe.
Community Development Program
Our organization arranges a Community Development Program to generate awareness about the problems in the community. Each village has established a community banking system that can collect community savings and disburse loans to community members, thereby decreasing the amount of money owed to outside lenders. 9 community banks are functioning in the 10 villages from where the people of communities can lend money to fulfill their needs. Each community bank is functional where the members meet regularly, deposits are made and loans are disbursed. The number keeps changing because the community is not
economically balanced. Both Landless and Farmers’ Association members are part of the community bank. Thus, the status in the village is different and the need of money differs. 295 families are participating in the community banks out of which 68 are landless and 227 are Farmers’ Association members. We also organize village-level meetings that will bring villages together with representatives from government departments for peer to peer learning and sharing.
Agricultural Development
The agriculture status of the rural areas in Chhattisgarh is still underdeveloped as farmers don’t know about scientific farming. SEBA decided to motivate 60 selected farmers to train on organic inputs preparation. Apart from 60 selected farmers, 26 members of the Farmers’ Association attended the training in which the varieties of green manure crops that fixes nitrogen in the soil. The importance of using indigenous seeds was shared with the community and farmers started using indigenous seeds by SEBA members. At the end of 12 months in the 10 target villages, 315 community members are using indigenous seeds which includes the 70 landless families out of which 38 are female
and 32 are male. Out of 60 selected farmers, 11 females and 49 male farmers are producing 3 types of crops which include rice, millets, and pulses in the Kharif agriculture program. The farmers also developed 66 acres of wastelands.
Animal Welfare
Animal Welfare programs are arranged by our organization every year where we provide scientific knowledge about animal breeding. 34 farmers have received support for cattle shed modifications to cement the floor of the cattle shed to enable the cattle urine to be collected for use in liquid manure preparation, root treatment, etc. previously only 30 farmers were selected with the understanding that the cow urine collected will be shared with the other selected farmers. But due to the contribution of the selected farmers 4 more cattle sheds were modified. The roof of the shed was to be done by the farmers on their own. Cow urine was used for making organic manures as most of the components required for soil fertility such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and urea are present in the cow urine.
Women Empowerment
We try to empower women through various workshops, provide vocational training for women and adolescent girls. Women are showing a great interest in income generation groups arranged by SEBA in the co-operation of the local administrator. There are VDC and SHG groups arranged in the society which are hugely filled by homemakers and students. In the VDC, there are 3 leadership positions: President, Secretary, and Treasurer and in the 10 target villages, there are a total of 30 positions. Out of which 3 president positions, 3 secretary positions, and 4 treasurers are filled by women. There is a significant improvement because the rules in the VDCs are to change leadership every one or two years. The second reason is that there is increased participation of
women in VDCs as every SHGs have 2 members each in the VDCs. Different CBOs are using the community assessment document for different purposes and the remaining three are assisted by SEBA in using the community assessment documents
Income Generation Programs
The Organization is making a continuous and serious effort to develop human resources by increasing income generation options. SEBA capacitated the staff through a capacity building training which was conducted in Jagdalpur from 24th to 27th January 2017 with 9 staff of SEBA. All the staff was trained in needs assessment and monitoring the indicators to implement the project plans properly. The staff learned how the objectives, outcomes, outputs, and activity are linked. It was explained that keeping the project goal in mind and completing the activities at the appropriate time can help us to achieve good results. The producer organization of Keshapur started with the government to
support income generation programs to establish economically viable income generation ventures. The number of government welfare schemes that are implemented per year in the 10 targeted villages are the water pipeline, sanitation (toilet making), Ujjwala Yojana (Cylinders distribution for the rural communities), handicapped pension, widow pension, old age pension, PDS, Attal Awas Yojna. Among these, few are implemented and the rest are under process. But the running programs are providing enough money to the villagers which have made initiatives of SEBA successful.