COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

This program launched by AID Patna is known as community development program as we at AID Patna wanted to work for overall development of any community that is deprived of its basic needs- education, health & hygiene, drinking water availability, public toilets, bathroom for ladies etc.
We identified a small community situated at Ashiana more, Bailey road Patna. The inhabitants of the community are mainly sweepers at B.V.College and B.I.T. Patna. Some of them are engaged in other activities for their livelihood. Looking at the condition they live in one can sense the extent of problems(every problem listed above) that they face. They have lived there for more than 50 yrs at that place but nothing has changed their fate. Their lack of education devoid them of opportunities provided by state & central govt. like- ration card(hardly anyone in the community is benefited), caste certificate (they are not able to procure their caste certificates which would allow their children to avail govt. scholarship for backword castes, sc and st)and the list keeps on increasing each time we visit the community. The community has almost all the problems listed above that we wanted to address.
We got good response from student volunteers as they wanted to do something for them. So we conducted an informal community survey where we discussed community problems and conveyed them of our motive of educating the children in that community. We got overwhelming response from the community. They were happy to know that we will be arranging for the education of their children. After the first informal survey we were aware of their problems and in a condition to devise plans for our future course of action. To have a better understanding of the conditions prevailing there and to become fully aware of the status of education in the community we conducted a family survey followed by Pratham education survey(designed by PRATHAM).
After scrutinizing the survey reports, we will post it in the upcoming posts. Our visit till date has been only on sundays. Our endeavor is to improve the state of education in the community and instill in them a vision towards life and happiness, as we feel that these are the things that can change their future for a long period of time. Rather than bringing about a radical change in their life in short period of time, we want to have a slow and steady change that can last for larger period in their life.
Our methodology and plans for community development will be elaborated in the next post. Hope i have reflected the overview of the community development program in an appropriate manner. Looking forward for your valuable comments and suggestions.

SANGHARSH SEVA NIRMAN

The three words which could explain any chapter of AID(esp. the patna one) are-

SANGHARSH- The word literally meaning struggle in hindi is not one any of us use in daily life cos its a very strong word, emotional too maybe. People would have heard it being repeated a couple of dozen times in hindi movies though.

If we talk about struggle within our own chapter, people won't hesitate to say that we have not had to struggle much about things mainly because all of us got along well. But if we think of the fact that college going students in a residential college can be so active in a volunteer organization says a lot that we have in fact struggled to stay together, struggled in many ways to organize ourselves, struggled in some ways to implement our projects.

I believe that without struggle we could not actually really pride ourselves in the fact that we have made something worthwhile and beautiful. I just wish that when i search for "sangharsh" i do not keep on getting images of some akshay kumar movie, rather i see something that humanitises the word.



SEVA- Now this is something i think our chapter is very good at, cos i don remember many instances where the number of people volunteering have not made us actually ask them to volunteer for something else, this in its very symbolism is "seva" for me. Though volunteering is only the prelude to seva, but for me , when i see so many hands up for volunteers... thats a job well done.

Even when i go and see the AID group working to get the job done, or see the children smiling at the little ruckus we create... the satisfaction of being part of this "seva sansthan" is unimaginable.



NIRMAN- Well we have "created" such a lively group haven't we??...so there is my "NIRMAN". We built trust & relationships to people who really need it. But this is just the start, part of a very beautiful painting but the first strokes, very excited about the final work though. Come to LH-1 today and there'll be a presentation and a small meeting.


WE ARE THE BRICKS,
WE ARE THE BLOCKS,

may the SANGHARSH, SEVA, AND NIRMAN keep teaching us so many things

AND IT BEGAN...

This is how the whole AID group came together for the first time, from different colleges and different fields to try something that'll turn out real well...


Something interesting happened. It started with a meeting somewhere in sp verma road called by Ashish ranjan sir. And a half a hour trip, 2 bottles of water and almost as much sweat later....i got to this corporation bank building hid away in a bylane in sp verma road. First i was skeptical about what it would be all about but was delighted to know that i was invited(though no invitations are required whatsoever) to be part of a social responsibility circle(or something similar). I was pretty impressed by the fact that the conference room was full of people. People i don know and a few of the seniors who were very welcoming. That meant that i could meet alot of other people who i didnt know before. Socialising opportunity 101.

Some of the people turned out to be from other nearby colleges like CNLU, arts and crafts college and a few media based colleges. This, i know because all the people who attended were asked to introduce themselves to the group. During all of what happened next, people were streaming in and the number of people had swelled such as to occupy all the seats in the conference room.

The meeting started with a brief introduction to AID and then people were asked to share their own experiences with social work. After a few presentations and a round of chai we discussed what we thought would help the community here.

The meeting can be attended by everyone and it is not restricted in any way. Anyone who has a wish to serve a helping hand and also leanr a few skills along the way like the website maintenance and video editing jobs, which in the long run will help alot. So all ya guys are invited if you are interested...every thing is non-formal and is not like a class-room environment but a open discussion. We decieded that we could have like a meeting every month on a sunday and most of the jobs are done online through emails.

So everyone will be more than glad to have you guys in it cos the whole group realises that every single person has a valuable talent.

AID Patna's endeavor

Our first approach is towards a sweepers community which is a small locality near Asiyana more patna.We have decided to launch a library program for the children of the community so that they can  learn basic 3 R's(Reading,wRiting and aRithmatic). A team comprising Prashant Yaadav and other AID volunteers have taken the responsibility, so i would request him to post a detail of their activities.