In the changing challenging context of development sector Caritas India called the social development partners of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand to draw the development perspective of these states.

Organised on July 21, 2017 at Puri, the strategic meeting discussed the needs for revisiting the development perspectives and explore ways to meaningfully address the issues by Caritas India and her partners.

The discussion at the meeting dwelt on development thought and action, Diakonia, Tribal identity and ecosystems, People Led Empowerment -Empowering Animation, volunteerism and local resource mobilization in the regions.

Fr. Frederick D’Souza, Executive Director, Caritas India insisted all the local partners to address and support tribals for their development. Through participatory discussion he explained the trend of development approaches: “Charity’, ‘Institutional intervention’ and ‘Justice” with the partners.

Sharing about Charity or charitable act of kindness, Fr. Frederick said, it is rooted in the church’s Vision and Mission from its inception to support the poor, downtrodden and needy which is mostly based on donation of good and finance. However, Institutional efforts aims towards building the capacities of community institutions who are in turn engaged in the capacity building of the people.

Sustainability of any development intervention depends on the people, their needs, their approach to address and resolve the needs and devising ways for the sustainability. Justice being the epitome, envisions to bring societal change for any development intervention.

He reiterated that Justice is what ensures human dignity in the society, hence communities should be empowered to the extent where they are dynamically engaged with different stakeholders in maintaining justice and uphold human values that dignify human existence.

Fr Paul Moonjely, Deputy Director, Caritas India explained Diakonia (Jesus’s love to the world). He shared that Christian love is rooted in Christ who came to the world and gave his life for the humanity.  He built capacities of the people, he solved their problems, healed them and showed them the ways to resolve their own issues. He said, our work must be exemplary to the world so a self-reflection of our social development initiative must be looked at in the light of Diakonia.

Three-dimensional analysis on the issue of tribal Identity were discussed to reflect on their problems and possible ways to address the issues. Fr. Paul remarked that the church community specially the partners of Caritas should embark upon a new thinking process on development approach with tribals and critically analyze the outcomes. As the resources for development work is drastically reduced due to number of reasons it becomes imperative that we look at local resource mobilization.

The recommendation was made urging the partners to consider Local Resource mobilization as a very important component of Development process with the community. There should be a sense of accountability by the larger community to the issue of social concerns. Setting new example from Caritas India the encouraging results of Ashakiranam (Cancer Campaign in South India) where communities have shown proactively contributing attitude and hence this process in a way is substantiating a giving community.

He added, “Local resources is not limited to only the Monitory aspects but it extends beyond finance. In the context of Tribal communities, if we reflect, we find that they are a communitarian society which is more equitable. They contribute in kind,  labour  and material component. The end line is that as facilitators, as leaders of the community development we should be innovative in looking at different aspects of Local Resource mobilizations and opportunities in the community where one is operating.”

It was urged that partners should look at Volunteerism as one of the possibility that will be a game changer. It is a movement for image building in the challenging times and leaders of the community have the duty and the obligation to share our vision in the best possible manner that reflects in our action and Ministry to the people we serve, so, that our mission of caring for the Creation is also served.