Caritas India
Global Programme India is a community-led partnership model hosted by Caritas India with the support of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Government of Germany and Caritas Germany.
By focusing on three development themes at large: Poverty reduction, Nutrition and Food Security and Promoting social inclusion, the programme aims at improving the life situation of the particularly marginalized population.
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Patna Jesuit Society along with Caritas India is implementing the programme in the Patna district in two blocks (Danapur and Phulwarisharif) covering 15 villages in the state of Bihar contributing to targets of the Sustainable Development Goals 1 (No poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and SDG10 (Reduced Inequalities). The project covers 10 panchayats, 6448 households and 21,000 approx. in population.
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Project Aspiration – The excluded communities who are vulnerable to disaster, malnutrition and food insecurity enjoy an enhanced quality of life.
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Project Objective – Increased resilience of the marginalized community, Enhanced Food security, Improved Social inclusion and Strengthened Civil Society learning.
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Major Interventions
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Awareness campaigns to improve food security at the community level were held to make people aware about various schemes and facilities provided by the state for their welfare.
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Social inclusion is another major concern of the BMZ global program for which capacity building of community members was conducted at various levels of the project.
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Public campaigns on international events like world breastfeeding day to create awareness about the benefits of breastfeeding among the women of marginalized communities.
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To ensure food security and make them more independent and resilient to disaster: Seeds of different vegetables that can be easily grown in their backyard were distributed among the marginalized community members. Kitchen gardening is being promoted in the community and training was given to some of the community members from each village of the project area.
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Community education centres (CEC) are being established in the 15 villages to support the children deprived of education during lockdown, include dropout students into the mainstream education and to increase enrolment in the schools. Focus is to provide primary education to first-generation learners and catering them to join the school for further studies.
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Capacity building programmes for the existing Community-based organization (CBOs) like SMC and VHSND were conducted in these communities at the district level to create awareness about their roles and responsibilities.