Peoples’ Right to Land and Livelihood

The overall strategy is grassroots organisation building for empowering excluded communities to realise their entitlement rights to land and livelihood through non-violent community action backed-up and complemented by District and State level advocacy, and simultaneously initiate linkages between village CBUs and financial institutions [including government schemes] for income generation.

The primary strategic building blocks of the organisation are issue centred Community Based Units [CBU] at the level of every village within the project. [Bhu Adihkar Samity (land rights); Ajivika Shuraksha Samity (livelihood security); Mahila Samity – MHG (gender & health rights)].
The CBU in each village are then federated into a larger group of Gram Ekais bringing together all excluded communities representing all thematic issues.
The Gram Ekais are then federated at the next level as Panchayat Ekais which are in turn federated into Block Committees that will operate from Ajivika Sahayta Kendra (ASK - Livelihood Assistance Centres).
The PGVS workers do not directly address or represent the issues concerned at any level but are trained to facilitate and enable the formation of community units around these issues and empowering them (build their capacity and confidence) to deal with them directly.
The strategic process of community organisation building starts with formation of community based units [like Ekais, SHG etc.] composed solely of people from excluded groups/communities and then work towards fostering community leadership.
Well prepared memorandums that articulate the needs and demands of the group are prepared with the participation of the community units backed up by properly documented applications and claims form the basis of interaction with officials.
A Baseline survey conducted at the beginning of the project will help in documentation to strengthen advocacy and also serve as a bench mark for measuring future progress.
EP-PGVS is a partner of a larger networks and forums at the District, Regional and State level that provide the platform for wider learning and sharing of experience. Joint mobilisation and advocacy activities are undertaken occasionally on certain key issues of land & livelihood.
Beside meetings and community interaction, village wall writing, posters, pamphlets, fliers and press notes are used to inform about and communicate news of peoples’ mass action campaigns, voluntary work camps etc. for the benefit of public and administration at the district and grassroots levels.
PGVS will also launch a website in English and a bi-monthly E Newsletter in Hindi as part of its documentation and advocacy outputs.

Strategic Objectives & Purpose

Having achieved a large measure of success over the past eight years in uniting different people from varied castes and community into a four-tiered peoples’ organisations around basic issues of land and livelihood its purpose now would be to further build up the organisation horizontally in numbers and enhance the leadership quality within the vertical structure.

To achieve this it will work towards consolidation of the peoples’ organisation at the grassroots, District and State levels on one hand while reaching out and including adjoining villages to increase its individual and household membership.

The project will directly address the problem of acute landless, homelessness and livelihood insecurity amongst excluded communities that is the root of their poverty, through this peoples’ organisation structure. It will address the issue of women’s joint right to their husband’s land and property as well as the rights of all eligible widowed, single and women headed families. It will address the issue of right to government livelihood and social security schemes and programmes, especially for women. It will work at eradicating their sense of hopelessness and helplessness through their own community organisational strength and confidence to address administration, governance and vested caste-class interest groups.

Organisational

Setting up of a Land Reforms Task Force for implementation of the D. Bandyopadhyay Commission Report by 2012.
0.04 acres of homestead land for the landless-homeless. And regularised joint ownership deeds [Basgit Parcha] for homestead land they have occupied for generations.
Occupancy and mutation of …. acres Bhoodan land of which they are recorded beneficiaries.
Increase livelihood opportunities for 80 per cent households and reduce migration by 40 per cent.
90 per cent households in the programme villages will have access and benefits of all social security and poverty alleviation schemes of the government.

The purpose of the project is to empower marginal and excluded communities and build their capacity to understand and analyse their problems and raise these issues of discrimination, land entitlement and health services through non-violent peoples’ action and advocacy and compel government and administration to address these issues effectively in favour of the poor.