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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

CREATING MODEL VILLAGES

Gujarat, January 2014: DEEP Don Bosco organized a one day seminar on 16th January’2014 for Sarpanchs (village leaders) in collaboration with the Thasra Taluka Panchayat. The purpose of this programme was to carry out a systematic development plan for all the villages of Thasra Taluka through Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). This seminar was attended by all the Sarpanchs of Thasra Taluka, Talatis including the staff of Mission Mangalam and leaders of the Self Help Groups.

The programme also benefitted from the presence of Mr. Bipin Sadhu Taluka Development Officer (TDO) and other dignitaries like Fr. Mayank Parmar, Director of DRISTI, Sr. Rita, Director of Pushpanjali, Sr. Vandana, Sr. Ann Rose, Superior of St. Ann of Luzern and Mr. Melvin Pangya, Development Coordinator, Bosco Samajik Vikas Sanstha, Walvanda. The programme was inaugurated with the lighting of the lamp by guest of the honour and the dignitaries. Fr. Issac Arackaparambil, Rector and Director of Don Bosco Dakor heartily welcomed the guest and the participants.  He also thanked everyone for their precious time and encouraged the participants to take forward the initiatives of DEEP Don Bosco.

Fr. Mayank spoke about the Model Village (Adarsh Gaam) and concluded his speech by motivating the participants to contribute to the development of their own village. After that Sarpanch of Vajewal and Shimlaj shared their experiences of the exposure visit organized by DEEP Don Bosco in the villages of Ahmedanagar, Maharashtra especially the visit to the model villages Hivre Bazar and Ralegaon Siddi. The chief guest Mr. Bipin Sadhu addressed the participants and appreciated the initiative taken by DEEP Don Bosco to conduct PRA and help the Sarpanchs to do the best for the development of their own village.  He said that he and his staff would be there to support this initiative.

To work towards creating model villages, Mr. Melvin Pangya gave an introduction about PRA as an important method, tool and technique which helps to assess condition, various aspects of the village. He also shared his experience of the PRA undertaken in the Walvanda village and how it has helped the villagers to know about various resources available and the problems of the village. The programme concluded with the vote of thanks by DEEP Coordinator, Vijay Parmar and the National Anthem.

Friday, October 18, 2013

GUJARAT DEVELOPMENT WORK REVIEW

by Manish Parmar

BARODA-GUJARAT, OCTOBER 17, 2013: The Don Bosco Development Centres of Gujarat came together on 11th and 12th October, 2013 at Narukot to review the development work going on in the region.  Fr George Miranda, Development Office In-charge for Gujarat, inaugurated the programme and thanked everyone for their participation. The review was held for the period from January 2013 to June2013.

The objective of this program was to share and learn from each other’s experiences, as well as to refresh knowledge and bring in new approaches in the development work. On the first day of the meeting, all the centres presented a report of the activities held in their respective areas and their achievements till the end of June 2013. There were questions and discussions on various methodologies and techniques used in the field to tackle issues and problems.

The second day was dedicated to training on Governance and was facilitated by Mr Vikram Thakor and Mr Satish Macwan from the Foundation for Ecological Security, Anand. Mr Thakor started the session by explaining the role and responsibility of a citizen within the system of democracy in India. He then went on to explain various governance models and their pros and cons, as well as approaches to deal with various governance issues at the village level.

The programme concluded with a vote of thanks to all the centres for their participation and to the Narukot centre for hosting the meeting
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