Sanjivani: A new alliance to achieve food security and nutrition for Gujarat

State of Gujarat is gifted ‘Sanjivani’, A Food & Nutrition Security Programme to secure food & nutrition security for small and marginal farmers and landless farm dependent households. It will promote diversification and maximization of food crops and realization of rights and entitlements.

The program was launched on 14, July 2018 in the presence of Archbishop Thomas Mawan of Gandinagar, Arch Bishop emeritus Stanislaus Fernandes of Baroda, Bishop Jose Chittooparambil  of Rajkot and Bishop Retna Swamy of Ahmedabad along with Fr. Paul, Executive Director, Caritas India, Fr. Jolly, Assistant Executive Director, Caritas India, Fr. George Vattamattam, Director, Western Region Social Forum and Dr. Saju. MK, Zonal Manager West Zone.

The new programme by Caritas India will address the hunger and malnutrition issues among children, adolescent, expectant and lactating mothers in 20 villages from 4 districts of Gujarat by 4 partners.

The main vehicle of this programme is the People Led Empowerment approach which will bring a good number of community actions for achieving food and nutrition security. It is expected to increase food diversity with sustainable agriculture practices for more than 2500 households and ensure access to food & nutritional security schemes to 2000 households.

Daily wage and agriculture are the main sources of livelihood for the target population of this programme. Most of them are marginal farmers with 1 or 2 acres of land, solely dependent on rainwater for cultivation.

Bishop CC Jose during the launch said, “I am also happy that Caritas India has brought a new concept of cluster project where all 4 dioceses work on the same issue and bring better results”.

Appreciating the effort to address the issue of food and nutrition, Arch Bishop Stanislaus said that while addressing issues of nutrition one should also take note of drinking water as Gujarat being the highly industrialized state most of the drinking water sources are getting polluted. 

Arch Bishop Thomas Macwan said that very few Gujaratis join Indian Army due to lack of physical fitness, It is  important to have both mental and physical fitness. We have a good opportunity, let’s make it a model that could be replicated in other parts of the country.

Executive Director of Caritas India, Fr. Paul said Sanjivani, aims to give life to others. He further stated that the new programe on food and nutrition security will diversify and maximize crop production through sustainable agriculture practices to ensure food security and healthy life to the marginalized targeted communities.

Emphasizing on strengthening partnership with partners and Caritas India, Fr. Jolly Puthenpura, Assistant Executive Director of Caritas India , it is important for effective and efficient implementation of the program.  The approach of give and take should be promoted where communities starts giving for their own development.

During the course of the program, it will identify sustainable local solutions based on communities’ knowledge and resources. It will revive cultivation of local crops and change the crop preference from cash to food crops. Several other initiatives like kitchen garden, service seeking behaviour and functionalizing public distribution systems will also be taken.