On September 11, 2019, during a day-long mega enumeration camp organised by Sahaya, 1222 community beneficiaries were successfully enumerated. In addition, through a Single Window, an initiative facilitated by CFAR and supported by the District Administration and Pune Municipal Corporation, 421 applications for key government schemes and entitlements such as Aadhar Card, Sanjay Gandhi Pension Scheme among others were submitted. “Every citizen has a right to basic entitlement such as ration, voter and aadhar card” – Sub District Officer Mrs. Trupti Kolate

 The need for such a mammoth exercise became necessary post-heavy rains in August this year when severe floods hit many parts of Maharashtra. Agricultural lands were destroyed; settlements were submerged resulting in a high death toll. The living nightmare for many of those who survived was the loss of official documents which are requisite to access benefits under Government welfare schemes.

In a prompt and in a concerted manner, CFAR responded to this crisis in urban poor settlements of Shanti Nagar, Indira Nagar, Katar Wadi, Phule Nagar and Bharat, Pune, through its Sahaya Single Window by appealing to the government to help those in distress. Loss of documents such as ration card, voter card, Aadhar card and need for schemes like Sanjay Gandhi Niradha Yojana (SGNY) and Urban Poor Aarogyadayee Yojana (UPAY) were areas of concern that were brought to the notice of authorities.

To deal with the feeling of helplessness, Help -desks members and community messengers held one day awareness drives across the 5 affected settlements and managed to educate and mobilize around 1400 households about different key social security scheme and their entitlements.

A major achievement for Sahaya was Deputy Mayor issuing a letter to the District Collector to organize mega social security schemes and entitlements enumeration camps. This call to action ensured government departments were actively involved, for better outreach and effectiveness of our camps.

For identifying the real distressed beneficiaries, Sahaya also forged a close coordination  between the affected community and service providers, held continuous follow ups with the officials of Pune Municipal Corporation and the District Collector while updating them about the flood victim’s needs.

With further instruction from the District Collector, on 11 September Sahaya held the ‘first ever’  enrolment camp on key social security schemes and entitlements, as recalled by Dr. Ramakant Sath, President of Anna Bhau Sathe Mandal. “We lost all key documents like ration card, bank pass book, and birth certificate during the flood. This camp was really help full for us, we applied for ration card, PAN card and Income certificate.” – Nilangi Nougire, 53 year old Shanti Nagar community beneficiary

In the process, Sahaya also identified a large number of community beneficiaries who due to discrepancy with the required supportive documents, could not enroll for basic universal documents like Aadhar card and Ration card.

To tackle this issue, Sahaya along with civil society organizations such as Maharashtra Domestic Workers Union, Maharashtra Construction Workers Union, Aashrya, Kagad Kach Patra Kashtkari Panchyat, Yardi and Streewani plan on conducting a follow up meeting with the District Collector to emphasise the issue of exclusion in Aadhar card enrollment and updation. The request to start fulltime Aadhar Seva Kendra nearby urban poor settlement and increase machinery in existing centers of post offices, bank and PMC Ward offices is also being mooted and followed up.

Ms. Battulla, 50 years, Buddappa Nagar

“I am a house wife. I run a small business out of my home, while my husband works for the LPG Gas Company.  We have three children – two sons and a daughter. I have been a member of my SHG for the last 13 years. After becoming a member of the Gender Forum I am able to support the community, in the settlement, to maintain good sanitation.

“Earlier, when we had problems we were only talking to PH Workers or complaining to our Corporator when there was a problem with street lights and water supply because we thought he was responsible for providing us with such services. But now we know who to approach and we are able to talk to senior officials by submitting petitions, as per the procedure. Recently, we initiated the process of providing IHHLs to the Shikari community. As of now three IHHLs have been sanctioned. A letter was also sent regarding street lights and they were fixed in two days. Now we have organized a door to door campaign in the settlement on solid waste management. I am happy to see the change in the settlement”.

Gender Forum Members and Community participating in a meeting on sanitation and health on March 8, 2018

In Anantapur, CFAR is partnering with the Centre for Study, Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), under the Inter-sectionality-Informed Gender Mainstreaming Framework (IIGMF) project in water, sanitation and hygiene (WSH). CSTEP is a non-profit organization which aims at science and technology enabled policy options for inclusive and equitable economic growth.

Under this project seven Gender Forums (GFs) have been constituted in seven settlements with approximately 25 core groups and 35 facilitators, who have been drawn from the community. As of March 31, 2018 GFs have collected 603 sanitation related complaints and resolved 575 problems with the support of ULB and Gender Resource Centre (GRC) across the seven settlements. The complaints are mainly filed through Pura Seva App and written petitions but some deal directly with the ULB and ground team.

GF members organized six (6) slum level meetings between January 14, 2018 and February 22, 2018 and a door-to-door campaign on solid waste management, at Navodaya Colony, on February 25, 2018. They also organized for the first time a meeting that brought together women, girls, Transgender, elderly and persons with disability, at Azad Nagar, on March 8, 2018 on the occasion of International Women’s Day to explore the relationship between different aspects and identities within gender and how sanitation was impacting them. One of the issues that was discussed by the community and health officials was that of Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM).

For the last one year Community Management Committee (CMC), Mahila Pragati Manch (MPM) and Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) and Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) have partnered to strengthen community engagement in bettering urban sanitation in clusters and poorer settlements of Delhi.

Affirming this, Mr.S.K.Mahajan, Senior Engineer, DUSIB, said when we met him,  “Given the commitment and zeal of the community, we need to make an effort to match it and work together to solve all the problems collectively’’. Mr Atique Ahmad, Additional Commissioner, EDMC, stated, ’’Sanitation is not a stand alone issue which can be solved by any one stakeholder. This is an issue in which each one has to do their bit -community, officials, workers, NGOs, government and citizens’’.

This partnership got further strengthened through the week-long Swachhta hi Sewa Pakhwada, from September 15 through October 2, 2017, announced by the government. During this fortnight a series of consciousness raising initiatives-Swachhata rallies, sanitation drives, knowledge camps and nukkad nataks were conducted across nine settlements to motivate community to take collective initiatives to improve and manage sanitation services from the household to the city level.

On October 2, 2017, a joint ceremony was hosted at Janta Jeewan Camp, Okhla to commemorate the culmination of the Pakhwada, attended by 275 CMC and forum members across thirty settlements, including women, men and young people.

The event started with a rally across the settlement in which slogans of ‘’Pehle mal niptaan ka iradaa, phir shauchalaya banane ka vaada’’, ‘’Mal niptaan zaruri hai, beemari se doori hai’’, ‘’Geele se tum khaad bana lo, sukhe se paise kama lo’’, ‘’Waste kudedaan mein, na naali na maidaan mein’’ were raised.

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