Prayatn Sanstha hosted an exposure visit of Prajna Counselling Centre, Mangalore, a partner organization of KKS (Karl Kübel Stiftung), Germany, who financially supports Prayatn also for implementing the project ‘Moving Ahead’ at Dholpur. The exposure visit was planned for two days including meetings at the office level and Field visits, with a broader objective to enhance the understanding of the grass-root level working strategies of Prayatn and Community Based Organisation’s impact on the development of the community.
The trip began with the introduction of the visiting organization team with host organization team. Subsequently, Mr. Yogesh Jain, Director of Prayatn introduced the organization and briefed on the formation and strengthening of CBOs (Community Based Organizations) and their federations. Subsequently, Mr. William Samuel, Project Coordinator and Mrs Reshma, Consultant, from Prajna briefed their organization and structure of their project, funded by KKS at Mangalore along with the expectations from the exposure visit. They then had an experiencial interaction with the members of Kaila Devi Apna Bachat Ghar Cooperative Society, a women’s co-operative society developed and facilitated by Prayatn, and learnt about their operational systems and working methods.
Mr. RamKhiladi Poswal, Deputy Director – Operations, and Ms. Rajani Jain, Dholpur Branch-in-charge of Prayatn, Mr. Khuloos Khan and Mr. Fazru Khan, Assistant Project Officers and Mr. Midhun Kurien, Documentation Officer, along with local Community Organizers and other staff3 facilitated local field visits. Four villages – Mohali Ka Pura and Narpura from where Prayatn has phased out and Ranpura and Jindapura where intervention is on – were visited in this process and interations were held with CBOs like CPC (Child protection Committee), BM (Bal Manch), and SHG (Self Help Group). The interactions helped the visitors in understanding the issues that were prevailing in the community including those related with women and children and how the process of development and strengthening of CBOs adopted by Prayatn brought sustainable change in their life. Learning about each others’ culture was also strengthened in this process as both the local community, as well as, the visitors presented and enjoyed songs and dances in their respective languages.
On the final day an interaction has been arranged with the District-level government officials in which Assistant Administrator Officer from District Legal Services Authority, Programme Officer from Education department, Assistant Director from Child Rights Department, and Police Personnel from Anti- Human Trafficking Unit briefed how they, together with Prayatn, are making joint efforts to make the district Child Labour free and Child friendly.
Towards the end of the visit, all the 8 members of the Prajna team summed-up what they learnt in this process and expressed happiness and satisfaction from the visit.
