Taking forward the decision made with the Diocesan Directors in October 2019, diocesan coordinators were identified from the fifty selected dioceses to adopt Key Strategy Pillars (KSPs) as an approach in all the interventions and initiatives. In order to familiarise them with the KSPs, an orientation was organised at HO on 18-19 February. Thirty participants were present, including the Regional Forum Coordinator, covering twenty-three diocese and nine forums. The two-day orientation was facilitated by Mr Khilesh.

The participants were oriented on the four KSPs along with the indicators and guidelines to adopt and achieve the end goal. The relevance of the KSPs was given through the theory of change i.e. KSPs should be regarded as the development intervention approaches. All the pillars are essential in all our thematic areas to reach out to the focussed group and bring a transformation. KSPs are approaches to work in each of the thematic areas with the focussed groups. They are inter-dependent and the KSPs and the programme go together.

The role and responsibility of each of the actors were spelled out and agreed upon. They were divided into groups for discussions on mapping out the indicators that were easy to achieve and those that require support from the forum and CI.

Actions that seemed to be low-hanging fruits were community-led – mutual help organisation, identifying and mobilising community leaders at district level, interacting and listening to the community, initiating open kitchen or basic needs bank, creating linkages and networking with the duty bearers at district level, organising environment campaigns at district level, reducing consumption use based on the findings of waste audit, reducing conventional / fossil fuel-based energy consumption based on findings of energy audit, etc.

The participants raised their concern and sought support to build community-led – Right based organization, initiate people’s movement at district & state level, capacity building and exposure on the macro-economic entity and networking and linkages, capacitating and engaging community leaders at state and national level, etc.

The diocesan coordinators and regional forum coordinators have decided that they would sit with their respective directors and plan out the way forward as per the indicators and would report on a quarterly basis accordingly. Also, it has been decided that now the focus should be more on outcome and impact-based reporting rather than activity-based reporting. So, accordingly, the reporting formats would be drafted and shared.

Overall, there was a positive vibe among the participants and time and again it was highlighted by them that the ‘How’ part i.e. how to implement KSPs have been made clear to them in this orientation. They seemed more confident and energised by the end of the orientation. So, one could expect a momentum now and see the ideas getting transformed into actions on the field.