Caritas India partners in Maharashtra have decided to intensify the campaign that they had started as part of the ongoing Jeevan programme for promoting women leadership agriculture and community decision-making. Jeevan programme, implemented by eleven partners has been endeavouring to create empowering spaces for women and help them win an identity as active farmers. The programme also works to increase women participation in grassroots-level governance processes and thus help them gain access to the benefits of development and welfare schemes of the government. Two clusters of Caritas India partners had met in Nagpur and Mumbai to deliberate on the ways to help communities, particularly women increase their livelihood and agriculture possibilities.

Addressing the first cluster meeting of five partners held in Nagpur Archbishop Elias Gonsalves appreciated the efforts of the partners and said that women need to be empowered for establishing a society that is founded on community welfare. “Civil society organisations need to walk with communities as co-travellers. Being is more than doing. What communities require from civil society organisations is the accompaniment support and assurance that they have a companion in challenging times. Hence, we should reduce the distance that exists between civil society organisations and communities”. Archbishop Elias also exhorted the participants to be empathetic with communities and listen to them patiently. “Communities are looking for trustworthy organisations that can help them address the development and welfare needs. In this context, women need special support because historically women have been marginalised in all walks of life. We should work intensively to empower them socially and economically”, the prelate added.

Addressing the review-cum-planning meeting, Fr. (Dr.) Jolly Puthenpura highlighted the key lessons that Caritas India and its partners have picked up from the Jeevan programme. “Jeevan-EA has yielded not only sustainable results on the ground but has given vital lessons to all partners on the effectiveness of community work that is guided by the principles of people-led development. Women belonging to disadvantaged backgrounds must be assisted to become active decision-makers in all social domains”, Fr. Jolly said. In his address, he also underlined the need of empowering women by organising them into strong community-based organisations.

During the two review-cum-planning meetings Maharashtra partners presented the results of the work that they had accomplished in the last six months and shared their plans for the next six months. Some of the important results that the partners had shared in the sector of good governance include increasing ownership and women’s participation in Gram Sabha, education of communities on their rights and entitlement, increasing representation of Dalits and Adivasis in Gram Sabha and increasing the number of applications being submitted to the government by communities. They also informed how communities are now actively following up on their applications and pressurising the administration to fulfil the needs of communities. Partners presented stories of increasing ownership and participation of women in local development and how they have started practising sustainable agriculture as a measure of freeing themselves from the dependency on market.

Partners also shared their key successes in their efforts to promote sustainable agriculture. They informed that more women have actively led agriculture and they have achieved food and nutrition security with new ways of farming which they learned from one another.

There have also been visible changes in the farming practices of communities with a greater preference for food crops over cash crops and communities are practising mixed cropping instead of mono-cropping. Several traditional crop varieties, especially millets, have been revived and their cultivation areas have also witnessed a steady increase over the years.

Dr. Saju MK, Zone Programme Lead, facilitated the two-cluster review-cum-reflection meetings and helped the teams with a theoretical and practical understanding of women-led farming and its advantages in terms of food and nutrition security and climate resilience.

The first review of Jeevan for the Nagpur cluster of partners was held on 14 and 15 November whereas the Mumbai cluster partner review was held on 17 and 18 November.

While setting result targets for the next six months, Jeevan partners decided to help farming communities start their own local markets for selling their produce. The Jeevan programme, supported by Misereor, is implemented in 175 villages of Maharashtra to promote women’s leadership in agriculture and grassroots-level decision-making systems.