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Livelihood

Live Projects

Rural Livelihood & Microfinance

 

Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action (Srijan)

Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh: $438,500 over 3 years

To enhance livelihoods through women’s dairy collectives, improve market linkages, and provide microfinance, impacting 2,700 families.  The program focuses on Dalit women from landless and small farmer communities in drought prone areas with frequent distress seasonal migration.

SRIJAN will promote self-reliant women’s collectives specifically by:

• providing a remunerative milk market to the producers at their doorstep;
• improving animal rearing practices;
• minimizing the cost of milk production through utilization of existing natural resources.       

 

Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN)

Orissa: $225,875 over 3 years

To strengthen self-help groups and develop small business around forst products such as plates made of dried leaves, impacting 2,500 mostly tribal families. The project also strengthens existing livelihoods sources like goat rearing by providing inputs and access to better housing, veterinary support, breed improvement, credit and agricultural support.

 

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) Consortium

Orissa: $143,792 over 3 years

To promote natural resource based livelihoods and SHGs among 10,334 families in two migration prone districts. The grant is implemented through a consortium of eight NGOs led by Vikalpa, a local NGO working in livelihoods and education. The consortium will demonstrate and document best practices for successful use of NREGS funds in order to ensure 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to adults and to create assets that contribute to long-term livelihood security.

Specifically, the grant will:

• build Panchayati Raj Institutions’ (PRIs) capacities to enroll all eligible jobseekers (residing as well as migrating  from targeted areas), prepare livelihood enhancing micro-plans and monitor progress of implementation;
• develop sustainable agriculture based on low external inputs while accessing markets that are higher up the value chain;
• facilitate collective buying and selling of non-timber forest produce, milk, fisheries etc –especially those in which small farmers and landless are engaged;
• facilitate SHGs - particularly of seasonal migrants – that can access mainstream bank credit.

 

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) Consortium

Rajasthan: $121,523 over 3 years

To promote natural resource based livelihoods and SHGs among 2,358 small and landless farming families in order to reduce distress migration. The grant is implemented through a consortium of five NGOs led by Samai Pragati Sahayog (SPS), a resource NGO that provides technical training to build earthen structures for water conservation resulting in improved agriculture and animal husbandry. The consortium will demonstrate and document best practices for successful use of NREGS funds in order to ensure 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to adults and to create assets that contribute to long-term livelihood security.

Specifically, the grant will:

• build Panchayati Raj Institutions’ (PRIs) capacities to enroll all eligible jobseekers (residing as well as migrating from Udaipur District), prepare livelihood enhancing micro-plans and monitor progress of implementation;
• develop sustainable agriculture based on low external inputs while accessing markets that are higher up the value chain;
• facilitate collective buying and selling of non-timber forest produce, milk, fisheries etc –especially those in which small farmers and landless are engaged;
• facilitate SHGs - particularly of seasonal migrants – that can access mainstream bank credit.