YOUTH SPEARHEAD VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT

Anto Thomas
MAHARASTHRA, NOVEMBER 20, 2010: Bosco Samajik Vikas Sanstha, Valvande (BSVS) initiated a process for developing perspective plan for the tribal and rural villages across Thane district in Maharashtra. Initially, it is planned to develop perspective plan for ten villages in Jawahr and Mokhada Talukas and later all the villages will be facilitated to develop their perspective plans. In view of that, BSVS started developing the capacities of the tribal youth from the selected villages. From each village, ten to fifteen youth will be selected and trained in village Perspective Development Plan. BSVS facilitators from the selected villages also would be trained along with the village youth. These trained youth, facilitators and BSVS staff would motivate and facilitate the villagers in developing their own perspective plan.

In view of the above, BSVS has started conducting workshops for the village youth and facilitators in perspective development. In each workshop, youth from five villages and their facilitators will be the participants. First such workshop was organized in Valvande from November 16 to November 18, 2010. Duration of the workshop was for three days. Mr. Sebastian Francis from Sadan, Pune and BSVS team members was the resource persons for the workshop. Thirty eight youth from Koshimshet, Bharwarpada and Sambarpada attended the workshop. Social analysis, Classification of issues, Comparative analysis, Response analysis, Context analysis, Identification of strategic issues and Preparation of action plan etc were the topics covered in detail during the workshop.

Youth are highly impressed and motivated on the workshop. They are convinced about the importance of having a perspective plan for their own villages and confident in facilitating the process for developing it. Kashinath Nande from Koshimshet said “I learned about village concept and perspective development. I learnt different methods in developing perspective plan and it is encouraging to do so’. Ravi Bhasra from Bharwarpada expressed that “I learnt about classification of issues and comparative analysis, and I am highly impressed about this method and I got a new vision through this workshop”.