Our Work

Background

Diminishing scope of livelihood in villages has always forced rural population to migrate to cities. Further settling in cities for rural people has dual advantages, it helps escaping social exclusion and also identity based conflicts. Almost two-thirds of statutory towns in India have ‘slums’ where a total of 13.75 million households live and 36 per cent of households in informal settlements do not have basic facilities of electricity, tap water, and sanitation within house premises. As per Census 2011, over 27 per cent of urban residents live in rental accommodation. Majority of low income residents do not enjoy security of tenure over their land and housing. Though there are a number of Government Schemes for urban poor, they hardly reach them due to lack of awareness. Slum dwellers do not have documents to prove their eligibility, they also lack know how of the official procedures and are incapable of influencing the bureaucracy. On the other hand they remain reticent and shy away from using the grievance redress system set by the Government. CSNR’s far-reaching intervention could include the marginalized in the mainstream welfare schemes. Growing assertion among the otherwise silent communities for rights and entitlements clearly indicates empowerment.

Intervention

• Community based Resource centres known as Social Facilitation Centres (SFC) are providing counselling, guidance, accompaniment and advocacy supports to the slum dwellers so that they are able access services and their benefits.
• Capacities of the community members are augmented through training and awareness so that they are able to lead their own advocacy processes.
• Social facilitation centres in the slums established under the targeted intervention program is constantly motivating communities to meet, share, participate and seek information.
• CSNR has been promoting inclusion of marginalised people by building bridges with the mainstream programmes and connecting people through proactive community participation.
• CSNR is spearheading awareness generation through workshops & campaigns on rights and entitlements.
• Community Institutions (Social Facilitation Centres) are leading advocacy actions for accessing development and justice and creating a positive environment for the urban poor and marginalized people to access various government schemes, entitlements and constitutional rights.
• Right to social security in case of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other socio-economic situation beyond control and special care and attention to motherhood & childhood are addressed simultaneously.

What has been done so far?

• Services have been rendered to 1828 helpless and marginalized people who have visited the Social facilitation centres with their problems.
• 1637 applications were submitted representing the interest of 3920 persons from the slums, who were made aware of their rights related to different schemes and entitlements directly through activities such as community meetings, awareness-education-communication materials, trainings, exposure visits.
• Matters of 1320 applications were successfully disposed which in turn benefitted 2516 individuals.

Accomplishment

• 154 eligible children were denied school admissions. Applications under Right to Education Act (RTE) were filed with appropriate authorities/duty-bearers after CSNR intervened. 29 school children were able to get admission in Primary and High school who were earlier denied of admission due to the lack of Aadhar cards.
• Complaints have been filed at Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) to supply the basic requirements (Right to Life) for the new-settler comprising 110 families evicted from another slum at Bhubaneswar. 968 applications have been submitted in different offices for transfer of benefits to all the new settlers.
• 196 applications relating to PDS claim (Supplies under Food Security Schemes) were submitted, out of which claim of 56 applications were settled. All the 56 PDS card holders are getting their entitlement regularly. Out of them, 30 families were denied PDS ration as their UIDAI card were not revised. Due to timely intervention of CSNR, all the 30 families could get their UIDAI card updated and now they are getting their monthly food entitlements regularly.
• Case Studies of more than 20 families who were denied of rights to housing and land were collected, analysed and a consolidated report was developed. Outcome of the report was used to identify state of vulnerability of the families, and the reason behind their exclusion.
• 150 applications were submitted in ward office for housing scheme under PMAY (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana). Under Right to Information (RTI) Act, complete information of two slum dwellers who had applied for PMAY scheme was sought, this revealed happenings of harassment, demolition of their huts, cheating and misguidance.
• 125 applications related to labour card and domestic worker card (unorganized labour) has been submitted.75 cases related to labour card and domestic worker card (unorganized labour) have been resolved.
• 3 Social Facilitation Centres and 8 Sub-centres have been established at 11 slums.
• During the COVID, 14 community volunteers (11 from different slums of Bhubaneswar and 3 from Koraput and Jajpur districts of Odisha) were recruited to provide education to children who are deprived of classroom teaching.. More than 700 children from most vulnerable families who are from class 1 to class 10 were able to obtain education they were deprived of, as their parents did not have smart phones for online classes. The volunteers also made parents of the children aware about the need of education.
• During COVID, slum-dwellers lost jobs in hordes. Most of them who were working as domestic helps were not allowed to work in the same places again after COVID. Joblessness has severely affected their livelihoods, food security was at risk. CSNR organized livelihood promotional trainings for women such as making of face-mask making, phenyl, dish-wash. 24 women from Pandakudia and 17 women from Shikharchandi Nagar are now gainfully engaged in making and selling face-mask, phenyl and dish wash.
• Mobile Library has been set up with different kinds of books such as reference books and story books. Children are now taking these books from the community organizers and are returning them after reading.The volunteers and community organizers are taking good care of this library.
• CSNR collaborated with State Covid response institutions, SRC, Government of Odisha, civil societies to mitigate plight of tribal migrant workers at our focus district. District administration was regularly apprised through whattsap,twiter, social media on the status of quarantine centers. CSNR also engaged youths volunteers to look after the need of people.
• Organized discussion and awareness on national education policy 2020 at state and district level training program.

Current Engagement

• Dissemination of information on different government schemes and entitlements among the slum dwellers through social facilitation centres.
• Building initiatives to create awareness among slum dwellers by conducting workshops and community level meetings.
• Capacity building of social facilitation centres are taking place in order to meet the growing requirement of people who now have started depending on it.
• Media campaigns are regular and issue based.
• Advocacy for improving accessibility to entitlements, rights and social justice through dialogue, petitions and interfaces continue to validate the assertion made by people.

Ways Ahead

• To continue dissemination of information on different government schemes and entitlements among the slum dwellers and through social facilitation centres for creating awareness through workshops and community level meetings.
• To resume the process of capacity building of social facilitation centres.
• To advocate for improving accessibility to entitlements, rights and social justice through dialogue, petitions, interfaces and media advocacy.
• To formulate plan and strategies for regular intervention.