Caritas India partners in Maharashtra converged to consolidate the strategic lessons from the Jeevan-Empowering Animation programme that was implemented for providing impetus to people’s movements. Findings from the evaluation were also shared during the reflection exercise which was attended by directors of all elven Maharashtra partners.

Addressing the reflection meeting organized in Sarvodaya Mumbai, Fr. Paul Moonjely, Executive Director Caritas India, expressed satisfaction on the effectiveness of the Jeevan-Empowering Animation (EA) in fostering grassroots level movements in the areas of good governance, sustainable agriculture and tribal identity. “Adivasi life system and Adivasi culture have been weakening in the globalized world order. Adivasi communities are also facing identity loss because of the rapid cultural mainstreaming. Jeevan has contributed significantly to increasing the self-esteem of Adivasi communities by creating platforms at multiple levels for their cultural expressions”, Fr. Paul said.

Jeevan programme helped communities to translate their empowerment into local development and increased realization of welfare services offered by government institutions. This way, Jeevan has assisted communities to increase their quality of life by adopting a path that is truly empowering, Fr. Paul added. Jeevan-EA programme, supported by Misereor, was being implemented by 11 partners in 178 villages in 9 Maharashtra districts for the last six years.

Fr. Paul in his address said that the learning from Jeevan should be strategic because the project has given several insights on empowering communities and channelling the assertiveness of communities to local community development and socio-economic advancement of families. “In the new world where group solidarity is fast crumbling, the initiative to strengthen cultural unity is of great significance. One of the hallmarks of the Jeevan programme has been its success in strengthening cultural unity and in providing greater respect to the tribal culture”, Fr. Paul said. He congratulated the implementation partners for achieving creditable success in initiating several grassroots level movements that brought greater transparency in the functioning of public systems.

Fr. Joby Kurian, Director of the regional forum and Karunya Trust appreciated the collective success of the Jeevan-EA programme and said that Jeevan-EA was a landmark programme for Maharashtra because of the important learning it has yielded. “The most impressive aspect of the Jeevan-EA programme was its strategy of working with communities. It sought to empower communities and identify locally suitable and empowering solutions without relying on external actors. Jeevan-EA indeed helped communities take control of the local development”, Fr. Joby said. He also highlighted the awakening role that Jeevan-EA has played in the lives of the Adivasi community, especially Adivasi women.

In the last three years, Jeevan-EA had helped more than 10,000 households to claim access to the benefits of development and welfare schemes of the government and helped more than 8,000 families to strengthen their agriculture. With the help of Jeevan-EA communities had filed more than 11,000 applications seeking benefits of government schemes and programmes.

Mr. Sunil Simon, Director of GreenPro Natura Consultants, who was the principal evaluator shared his findings in the reflection meeting and said that Jeevan-EA had exceeded targets in most of the functional programme areas. “In all communities where the evaluation was conducted, empowerment realized at the community level was evident. There is greater confidence among the communities and the cohesion among the community has also strengthened”, Mr. Sunil said. The desire and confidence of communities to stand on their feet have helped them achieve benefits in the areas of agriculture and governance, he added.

Partners, during the reflection programme, identified the major strengths of the Jeevan-EA programme and expressed their commitment to adopt the empowering strategy in other ongoing programmes. Three books on the achievements and innovations of Jeevan-EA were also released during the 3-day event.