Community Ownership and Development - Towards Sustainable Livelihoods!

On the 13 th March 2018, 500 women gathered at Manori to celebrate International Women’s Day. The theme for the evening was “ Ekot yeun sagli chala karuya san sohalyamni kharch kami” which means ‘Let’s come together as one and work towards reducing unnecessary expenses’. The celebration was planned and executed by the community animators under the guidance of CSA & Centre for Community Organization (CCO). A group was formed for various activities like welcome dance, tea & snacks, stage management, finance team etc. After the lighting of the lamp where the lamp symbolizes light, the opening song and a skit based on the theme was performed by the core committee members. The chief guest spoke briefly on the theme and created awareness on how to curb unnecessary expenditures. The audience enjoyed the traditional East Indian and koli dance performed by the women. There were music, dancing and snacks served for all. It was observed how each core committee member took owne...

On 27 th Oct 2017 a meeting on action plan was held at Uttan Church. Seventeen members from the subcommittee and core committee participated to discuss on the issue of extra expenses incurred during festivals and celebrations. The occasions highlighted were Festivals like village feast, parish feast, and Christmas. They decided to have a common social gathering to celebrate these festivals at a village. Since it would be difficult to stabilize this initiative from the start, it was decided that few festivals like the parish feast or village feast can be started through each village and later taken up to a common level gathering. Mr. Jude, CC member who has applied this strategy in his zone, gave the example of Mothagoan a village nearby which has a common celebration for the last 3 years. There has been a good response from the villagers for the same and has resulted in a lot of savings. Mr. Dayanand Patil, CSA staff guided on how to go forward with the issue and convince th...