Learninig From the Neighbours

A seven member team of Inter-Agency Group partners from West Bengal, India, led by Fr. Sarto of ABCD visited Cox Bazar and Chittagong districts of Bangladesh for a cross-learning program on Community Based Disaster Preparedness (CBDP) program in the country. The team visited the disaster prone country between 18 – 23 March 2009, in collaboration with Caritas Bangladesh which hosted the visit of the team.

 

Caritas Bangladesh works in all the six regions of the country on various developmental works and disaster mitigation and preparedness measures with support from various national and international agencies and governments, with an annual budget of over two million dollars. “The way the lay people have built and manage the Caritas Bangladesh with minimum support from the Church is a great pride of lay leadership”, commented Fr. Reginald Fernandez, a member of the team and Director of Seva Kendra, Kolkata.

 

In Pekua and Chakaria the team attended two programs each on School level preparedness and on community level preparedness, besides various interactions with the people, government officials, and meetings with local, regional and national staff of Caritas Bangladesh. The disaster preparedness program has been a great gender leveler in my community, said Mrs. Hamima Begum. “I have passed through the days when people would through stones and cow-dung at me for going to work, or shouting expletives at me saying that I have become a Christian. Today, the community has accepted me. People respect me. And I continue to live as a good Muslim, because of Caritas”, she said.

 

The Disaster Preparedness programs have both soft skills and hardware support from Caritas and from the Government, which is quite different from the CBDP programs in India. Caritas and Government have supported several multi-storey cyclone shelters which are also being used as schools. Villagers in Bara Beaula commented that the best part of Caritas shelters are just this : the multi-usability of the cyclone shelter vis-à-vis the government built shelters.

 

Caritas Bangladesh is the fifth largest non-governmental organization in Bangladesh, and it can boast of the most diverse types of activities handled by any NGO with over 64 different projects in the running.

 

“My own very outlook on Bangladesh has changed after the visit”, said Mr. Job Thekkedath, a member of the team and Development Consultant to Caritas India, on how the people of Bangladesh have worked together to eradicate poverty and build resilience to disasters in many parts of the country. Fr. Soosaiappan of  Palli Unnayan Samity of Baruipur pointed out how the coping mechanisms differ between the people of the Sundarbans in India and in the coastlands of Bangladesh with regard to cyclone and flood management. “It is truly a joint effort with all stakeholders participating in it here”, he said.

 

“One of the most positive innovative approaches I found in the CBDP program in Bangladesh is the way Caritas and community have developed the methodology for following-up Plan of Action in a country where local governance systems (Panchayati Raj systems) are weak. Here the local Ward Disaster Management Committee meets quarterly and follows up the plan with government, Caritas and other NGOs working in the area, who may be of help to fine-tune and achieve the plan.” Observed Fr. Puthumai A. Nazarene who had trained the national and regional staff of Caritas Bangladesh in 2006 on CBDP.

 

While speaking to the team, Archbishop Paulinus Costa of Dhaka mentioned that it is good that the Caritas is managed by the lay persons as it creates ample space between religion and developmental action. “Although the key is with the Church, it is the whole lot of lay persons of all regions who manage and sustain the development of poor in this country with high level of coordination with the Government which continues to closely monitor the activities of NGOs,” the septuagenarian Archbishop quipped. 

RPP Downloadable Materials

All materials relating to the Regional Perspective Plan, held at Raiganj from 16 - 17, March 2009 are available for download at this site from the Public Library, at the folder "RPP 2009".

Bengal Plans for 2020

Lay social Activitists, priests, religious and Bishops of Bengal jointly spent time to reflect on the socio- economic, political situation of the region and formulated a Vision for the Church in West Bengal under the theme "Church in 2020", on March 16-17, 2009 at Raiganj. "A sustainable and just Society where Gospel Values of Love, Truth, Equality and Peace are nurtured and lived at all levels" is the vision for the region of West Bengal and Sikkim.

More than 100 participants from all over West Bengal and Sikkim had long sessions at Raiganj, about 400 kms north of Calcutta to plan for Church in 2020.

Detailed social analysis of the region was done by Mr. Roshan Rai, a social activist from Darjeeling. He highlighted the concerns of environmental issues, political domination and land alienation. Mr. Lukose, P.J. From Caritas India Delhi helped the participants to make SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. The participants from all the eight dioceses of west Bengal had open discussion on the shortcomings in the church and the domination of clergy and religious. Looking into the weaknesses and how we could transform the same into strengths is our strategy, said Mr. Lukose.

The youth exhorted the participants to plan for the church which is participatory, cordial and reconciling one.

They developed the mission as : "To build a vibrant and Eco friendly society by promoting human dignity through collaboration, empowerment and Rights Based Approach for the poor and the marginalized in West Bengal and Sikkim."

Archbishop Lucas Sirkar of Calcutta, Ms. Kasturi Sengupta, State Representative of Catholic Relief Services, Ms. Maria Fernandes, an educationist and Coordinator of Kakatiya University from Calcutta, Fr. Jyothi, SJ from Jesuit Social Action Forum Calcutta and Mr. Prabir Mallick a staff from Catholic Charities of Krishnagar shared their vision for Church in 2020.

It was a joy to hear them share their experiences and longings for the Church. The interaction of the participants made the programme very success. The Bengal Regional Forum orgnanised the programme along with Raiganj Social Service Society known as Social Welfare Institute.

Mr. Eugene Gonslaves, President of the Catholic Association of Bengal, Bishop Stephen Lepcha of Darjeeling, Loreto Sister Sabrina Edwards of Darjeeling, Bishop Clement Trikey of Jalpaiguri and Dr. Prabir Chatterjee, Consultant to UNICEF shared the longings of the poor rural people, tribals, youth and women. They provoked the audience to think loudly how they could work for the welfare of the marginalized.

The Church has a vision of Christ. He wants us to be liberators, said Bishop Salvadore Lobo of Baruipur who is the chairperson of the Bengal Developmental apostolate. The formulation of the Perspective plan for Church in 2020 is a good family experience, said Bishop Lobo while concluding the session. Very often our residences are not proportionate to the dwellings of the people with whom we live and work, he reminded all.

Fr. Gerry Machado from Asansol invited the bishops, priests and religious present to use their property, resources and skills for the welfare of the vulnerable population.

Mr. Sanjay Rozario, regional Manger of Caritas India , Fr. Sarto, the Director of the Regional Forum, and Fr. Puthumai Nazarene Director of Social Welfare Institute, Raiganj facilitated the sessions to help the participants to identify the strategic choices and focus groups who need our special interventions for their self empowerment.

The participation of the diocesan directors of Social works and their staff made the sharing a fruitful and enriching one. The Staff of Association of Bengal Collaborators for Development (ABCD) and the Staff of Social Welfare Institute took all pains to ensure that the meetings and deliberations went on well.

Raiganj Church Desecrated

5 March, 2009, Raiganj

Some unidentified miscreants broke open the St. Joseph’s Cathedral at Chotparua, near Raiganj, 400 kms north of Kolkata in India on the night of 4 Mar, Wednesday. They broke open the Tabernacle and have taken away the Holy Communion along with the ciborium, desecrating the Church.

The miscreants have also taken away several other ciborium, chalices, monstrance, and flower vases. “It is a terrible tragedy to the Christian Community here that exactly after two months of the robbery in St. Xavier’s School in Raiganj this incident has taken place.”, said Puthumai A. Nazarene of Social Welfare Institute, Raiganj. 

The front gate of the Church had been broken open by the thieves to get access to the church and then they had opened every room, almirah and cup-board to take away the sacred articles. The church authorities believe that it is a theft which has turned into a sacrilege because of the nature of the theft. The Christians believe in the true presence of Jesus in the Holy Communion. A police inquiry has been initiated.

The Color Moves On

Social Welfare Institute will miss the smiles and the energetic, experienced skills of Ms. Barnali Roy, who has left the organization with effective from 01 March 2009, due to personal reasons. She joined SWI in August 2005 as Project Coordinator of the Community Managed Disaster Preparedness project supported by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Kumarganj Block of South Dinajpur district. Later, she took care of the project on Pediatric Intervention for Reduction in HIV / AIDS, funded by CRS and Clinton Foundation. At the time of departure, she was Documentation Officer with additional responsibility for promotion of Micro-Insurance. SWI warmly thanks Ms. Barnali for her commitment and zeal. May she be blessed abundantly !

Visits to South Dinajpur

On Monday. 16 Feb, Puthumai, Ms. Chelsea of Seattle University, Ms. Rekha Soren, Mr. John Hembrom and few other staff of Social Welfare Institute went to Kumarganj in South Dinajpur district 100 kms east of Raiganj to attend what is called a "GPDMC", which is actually a Rural Local Government body's Disaster Management Committee, that are being strengthened through the efforts of Social Welfare Institute with support from Catholic Relief Services. There were about 70 men and women being trained in the role of the Disaster Management Committees at the local level and how they can coordinate Community Based Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation measures in the villages. Ms. Chelsea also got an opportunity to interact with few women in the villages who have practically nothing in their families other than couple of livestock--goats or pigs--that have been given by SWI as part of economic development.  On 17 Feb, Mr. Sanjay Rozario, the Zonal Manager of Caritas India visited two villages near Kumarganj along with Fr. Herman Kindo and Puthumai A. Nazarene to review the Micro-Finance Program supported by Caritas India. He also took time to interact with the Staff overseeing the program and with the village women. 

Employment Scheme and Corruption in Bank Accounts

A team conducting Social Audit in Jharkhand has found that the Banks and local middle men are hand in glove with eachother using the illiteracy of the poor and inaccessibility of the Government officials to enjoy fruits of hard labour of the poor under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in five panchayats of Karon block, 45 kms from Deoghar. The District Adminsitration has initiated action against the Deoghar-Jamtara Central Cooperative Bank, for corruption and malpractices.

The recent drive by the government to introduce the NREGA wage payments through banks and post offices (PO) has to be understood against this backdrop. This policy was put forward as a necessary step to tackle corruption because it separates payment agencies from the implementing agencies. This was prioritised to such an extent that a Ministry of Rural Development circular (dated January 21st, 2008) instructed: "Opening of bank and post office accounts of all the NREGA beneficiaries must be done before April 1st, 2008", that is within a period of two months. The number of new bank accounts opened during this period became a yardstick for measuring the success of this initiative. It was hailed as a commendable effort, a reflection of a dynamic new India. However, somewhat inconveniently, a recent social audit in Deoghar and news from other states, like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa, revealed that this new policy was not faring as well as the ministry had expected. In fact, they indicated that instead of stamping out corruption, the policy was in danger of becoming a new breeding ground for corruption. This leaves us to wonder what went wrong with the policy which was passed off as another success story by our policy makers?

There are two distinct patterns of irregularities involving bank payments. In Karon, there are many laborers who claimed to have worked for various NREGA projects but were paid in cash while the official records showed that all wages had been paid through bank accounts. Bank ledgers also confirmed the official line, but revealed a curious pattern of transaction. It is not difficult to believe that a labourer would withdraw the entire sum deposited in his account a day before, but why should one withdraw Rs 100 on the 3rd and Rs 200 on the 4th, while exactly the same amounts were deposited on 1st and 2nd respectively? The reason became clear when the audit team spoke to the account holders — it appeared that they had not worked in the projects for which their accounts were debited, they had never signed any withdrawal slips and never been to the bank after opening an account. Little wonder their passbooks were completely blank and the relevant information was not recorded on their job cards. The jigsaw puzzle was now in place — contractors pay the labourers Rs 50-70 per day in cash, well below the stipulated minimum wage rate (Rs 86.40 per day), but the cheques are drawn (often with inflated number of working days) in favour of those, whose accounts are entirely operated by the contractors and bank officials. Sometime these 'phantom' labourers also become unsuspecting accomplices of the contractors, for a small sum of money they let the contractors operate their accounts. There was clear evidence of other irregularities as well, contractors or bank officials hoarding labourers passbooks, banks charging an extra fee for opening NREGA accounts (it is supposed to be free in banks and to cost Rs 60 in post offices). It is evident that in Jharkhand, or at least in Karon, a cartel of contractors and bank officials (in Badiya Panchayat, it was found that the contractor is none other than the son of the local postmaster) has defeated the very purpose of separation of responsibilities. Introduction of bank payment has only added a new claimant of kickbacks from the NREGA funds.

Even in places where banks are not directly involved, a new layer of bureaucratic/ administrative procedures has made the labourers increasingly dependent on the middlemen. Bank payments are regularly delayed: We found that in Jharkhand, a two -month delay in clearing a cheque is quite normal, although the NREGA Operational Guidelines stipulate that payments have to be made within fifteen days. In some cases, labourers and the cheque-issuing authority have accounts in different banks, leading to an obvious hold-up. However all the bank officials  were unanimous in pointing to the shortage of staff as the main culprit (just to give an idea, the average number of employees per office in the State Bank of India has decreased by almost 25 per cent in the last five years). Ignoring these ground realities, the NREGA guidelines advised banks to undertake special awareness activities to familiarise workers with banking procedures — this at a time when they were finding it difficult to cope up with even their regular work. In such a scenario, it should not come as a surprise that some middlemen took full advantage of this situation.

One wonders why bank payment was introduced in such a hurry, without proper planning, proper safeguards and proper guidelines. This is particularly perplexing because the system of bank payments was not introduced in a vacuum — it was replacing the existing practice of cash payments. Moreover, even a quick look at the NREGA guidelines on bank payments will reveal a complete lack of safeguards, unlike those involving cash payments: In case of the latter, muster rolls to be read aloud, wages have to be paid in public, etc. Why did our planners in the Ministry of Rural Development start chanting the magic mantra of separation of responsibilities while completely ignoring the logic of checks and safeguards? For us casual observers it could be a mystery-drama but we should not forget that the victims here are rural labourers, for most of whom the NREGA is a vital lifeline. As for the planners, let's give them their due credit: This is the age of showbiz, why should policies be any different?

(With inputs from other friends.)

 

Looking Beyond

The lost weeks have been quite eventful, with the interim audit, the Governing Body meeting on the 15 Jan, and number of trips to Delhi, Kolkata, and a pleasure trip to Hazaarduari (Place of Thousand Gates) with Chelsea, and knocking at my University to check on the update on my marksheet as the University has failed to update my marksheet etc. It has also been quite a different experience for me to deal with things as I have tranfered financial responsibilities to Fr. Herman, and so that leaves a lot of space for me, and a bit of time to get hold on pending things. But I have not sat down to work much, as I begin to feel how much my body needs some rest. So, I am letting my body and mind relax, to let them understand that I do care for them.

Trainings in Sphere Standards

Under one of its new activities of the year, Sphere India has undergone an agreement with Concern Worldwide and Save the Children. The purpose of this understanding is to conduct 4 trainings on “Sphere Minimum Standards and Humanitarian Laws” in each state (West Bengal, Assam, Orissa & Bihar).Each training would be a 4 days residential training. The intended participantsof these trainings are government functionaries, non-government professionalsand humanitarian practitioners in the state that are involved in disaster response and other phases of DRR. The expected number of participants in these trainings is 25.

Sphere India proposesto transfer the complete training budget to West Bengal State IAG. The West Bengal State IAG shall plan the training as per the convenience and suggestions of West Bengal IAG members.

 

Initial discussions in the state IAG will take place for planning the trainings, taking into consideration the following points :

• * Finalize training dates (4 days in March or April 2009) in consultation with the IAG members
• * Identify and book venue (please suggest venue details to Sphere India, New Delhi to get it booked in advance to avoid last hour problems)
• * Ensure participation from relevant Govt. depts.
• * Initiate participants registration (A quality profile of participants would be appreciated. We also encourage women participation.)
• * Discuss and finalize training schedule and contextualized training materials
• * Any other important thing that the IAG may feel necessary at this time...
• WATCH OUT THIS SPACE FOR MORE INFORMATION.... You may download the tentative Training Schedule by clicking here.

Cases of HIV Infections Increasing

This morning, 28 Jan 2009, when I visited the home of the Missionaries of Charity the Sisters who follow the order of Mother Teresa were narrating about the pathetic condition of a little girl, aged about 6, who has been abandoned by her parents as both of them have died of AIDS, leaving her and her parents alive. And the girl is sick with severe malnutrition, and is now admitted at the sister's place. She, luckily, is not infected by the deadly virus. The sisters were telling me that she wants to go back to her home soon. When I enquired about the reason, you just cannot imagine the reply of the girl. "I have to take care of my grand parents!". She is clearly heading towards unsafe survival strategies. She can, as she grows up, end up as a victim of human trafficking and sex-trade. I can feel that. I am not sure if I will be able to help her; and I am not even sure if I will ever meet her again.  It raises fundamental questions about human intentions to help one another. To be with the poor. It also makes me reflect on the present situation of the three districts and I serve along with Social Welfare Institute.

The cases of HIV positives in the North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda districts is increasing at an alarming rate. Last year North Dinajpur district was declared as the district with highest number of HIV cases for any district in India. One of the rural government bodies (Panchayat - a cluster of villages with about a population of 30,000) in South Dinajpur, named Chokbrighu alone has over 100 HIV infected cases !