Covid-19 crisis aggravated the woes of the unorganized sector, where the informal workers bore the brunt of economic shock the hardest with 13% drop in earnings in the country. Caritas India with the support of Misereor is taking steps towards reviving the income of marginalized communities and eliminating systemic inequalities through its Fund for Work initiatives. One of the most preferred methodologies for quick recovery in the humanitarian sector is Fund for Work (FfW) interventions are targeted towards the rehabilitation of community assets through providing short-term employment to vulnerable households and unskilled/semi-skilled workers on labour-intensive projects. It has become increasingly common in food-insecure, disaster-affected, or post-conflict environments.

To enhance the knowledge and capacity of implementing partners on this emerging concept, a two-day training program was conducted on 5th-6th January 2023 at Sewa Kendra, Kurji where 14 individuals participated from across partners from Bihar namely- Bettiah, Bhagalpur, Buxar, Muzaffarpur and Patna. Mr. Abhishek Kumar, State Program Officer, Bihar also participated in the training.

The session focused on building an understanding of key concepts of FfW through its 3 phases (i) planning (ii) implementation (iii) reporting. The planning phase revolves around the identification of community-level activities based on the needs of the population, engagement with local stakeholders such as panchayat, selection of workers, and fixation of payment as per local wages. Implementation and reporting centres around payment processes, monitoring by field staff, reporting formats and documentation. A partner-level budget was fixed for as well for developing a cost plan of activities in their respective areas.

Followed by a quick recap of the performance of the partners on the second day, the Field coordinators also presented their progress and activities planned so far. A quick session on strengthening risk communication for future health emergencies was also taken. Drawing lessons from the pandemic, the session briefed about upcoming variants of the Covid-19 pandemic and the increasing risk of such pandemics, evolving government guidelines, communication tools and mechanisms, and stakeholder engagement.

Bihar partners together planned to focus their FfW interventions on certain sectors such as Physical infrastructure strengthening, Education, Health and Nutrition and livelihood generation. Some of the activities planned are road repair, deepening of ponds, nutrition/ kitchen gardens, community compost pits, a community learning centre for providing educational support to children from marginalized families, repairing of community handpumps, and SHGs creation and small-scale enterprise formation through candle making, surf making, etc. The session concluded with an action plan for all partners for the next quarter.