Delhi begins counting its Homeless

O n July 2, 2010, the process to provide comprehensive institu-tional safeguards to the Home-

less citizens in Delhi formally com-menced with Chief Minister Smt. Sheila Dikshit flagging off the Homeless Survey from her residence.

The Chief Minister filled up the first form of the Survey with the details of a physically challenged homeless woman present on the occasion. Health & WCD Minister Prof. Kiran Walia, Chief Secre-tary Shri Rakesh Mehta, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Repre-sentative in India Mr. Patrice Coeur – Bizot, Country Director UNDP Ms. Cait-lin Wiesen and other senior officers were present at the venue to set off this land-mark survey. Delhi has become the first state in the country to survey its Home-less and the exercise is scheduled to be

St Stephen’s Hospital, New Delhi is the Chief Coordinating Unit implementing it. The Survey is being conducted by 150 enumerator teams in 500 zones in the Capital city, mainly at night, to ensure that no one is left out and that the particulars of each person are recorded correctly.

Speaking on the occasion, Smt. Dikshit said that the Homeless Survey has been integrated with National Population Reg-ister and Census-2011 exercise. She la-mented the fact that in absence of a per-manent address the homeless had hitherto remained excluded from the Census but assured that with this enumeration they would find a place in the ongoing Census and benefit from a number of social wel-fare schemes of the government.

The first of its kind – the Homeless Survey in Delhi is part of the UNDP sup-ported project ‘Innovation Support for Social Protection’.

Mission Convergence Team

pants presented a Puppet Show on the theme of the Survey. Puppetry forms an integral part of the awareness pro-gramme.

Samajik Suvidha Sangam is the nodal agency for the Homeless Survey while

completed in the next two months. A month-long Roadshow by homeless physically challenged persons to sensi-tize the target population was also flagged off by the Chief Minister. Before setting off on the Roadshow, the partici-

On July 2, 2010, the Government of Delhi formally took cognizance of the need to enumerate its people living on streets in order to reach out to them and include them in the mainstream society

UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in India Mr. Patrice Coeur – Bizot speaking on the occasion. Seated on his left are Chief Minister Smt. Sheila Dikshit, Chief Secretary Mr. Rakesh Mehta, & Secretary Social Welfare Mr. Manoj Parida. On his right is Country Director UNDP Ms. Caitlin Wiesen. Also in the picture (extreme left standing): Ms. Rashmi Singh, Director, Mission Convergence

Taking to the Roads: Roadshow participants riding out of CM’s residence on the awareness drive (left); puppetry (right) forms an integral part of mass sensitization programme

GO!: Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit with Health & WCD Minister Prof Kiran Walia flagging off the Roadshow (left) and (right) filling up the first Survey Form at the launch

Pix: MN

GO

for Delhi’s H

omeless

J U L Y 2 0 1 0 MISSION CONVERGENCE NEWSLETTER * VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1I

e a c h i n g O u t

http://streeshakti-sss.org

Yielding Rich Dividends — Success Story of Saraswati Ghosh 3

Basket of Benefits: Focus SJSRY—Where creativity finds expression & employment 5 7

SSS inducts 150 Sathi, strengthens grassroots outreach

P A G E 2

Mission Round-up

Hardware Verification Field level verification for hardware delivered and installed by System Integrator at Gender Resource Centres was carried out and demonstration of Prototype of Gender Resource Centre module of system integration project has been finalized.

Resource Manual A compendium of guidelines/orders/code of conduct issued from time to time to the Gender Resource Cen-tres has been compiled in the form of a Resource Man-ual and is being provided to the GRC-SKs & MNGOs for their reference with regard to operation, administration, financial conduct, etc., desir-able in the functioning of the centres.

Bio-sustainable Canteen Waste A meeting was held with the Environment Department on July 2, 2010 to discuss the modalities involved in waste seg-regation/supply and utilization of the bio-gas generated from waste of the Delhi Secretariat Canteen.

NGO Selection Concludes NGO selection process for running the GRC-SK project in unserved areas was concluded after a rigorous process of selection by the Committee headed by Smt. Syeda Hameed, Member, Planning Commission.

Social Audit Team Training A two-day training programme was held on July 8 & 9, 2010, to train a team that would be conducting social audit. The training was conducted at GRC PRAYAS at Bawana. A team of about 10 members has been trained in both the qualitative and quantitative tools that are being used for the Pilot Social Audit.

Meet on Field Functionaries’ Role A meeting was organised under the Chairmanship of Princi-pal Secretary to the CM to discuss the roles and responsi-bilities of all field level functionaries working with the vari-ous departments of Government of Delhi. Formats for taking information from different Departments were pre-pared.

Workshop on LFA Workshop on finalization of an LFA for Mission Conver-gence was held at the PMU facilitated by Mr. J P Mishra, (Advisor) and Mr. Denny Hamilton, UNDP.

Survey Update Survey of vulnerable population is almost complete in North East and East district but is ongoing in North West. Survey has started in Central district on July 13, 2010. Map-ping and survey is going on in West and South district. About 50,000 forms have been digitized under data digitiza-tion process so far. Under Homeless survey, area mapping and survey is in progress in North West, North East, North, Central and New Delhi.

Training of Trainers Under the short term partnership with Institute of Secre-tariat Training and Management – Department of Personnel & Training (GOI), 13 days training was conducted with 341 participants including Project Coordinators, Self Help Group Mobilizers, Community Mobilizers, SJSRY team within the Mission and Community volunteers. Project design covered the TNA (Training Need Assessment), Pilot Run, Training of Trainers with 22 potential trainers and the final run of practical trainings as skill practice.

Training to Combat VAW On the request of Ministry of Women & Child Develop-ment, GoI, a nine-day training programme on Violence Against Women was held to train 85 Gender Resource Centre Coordinators.

Mission Convergence Team

M ission Convergence was formally launched on

August 14, 2008 as an innovative endeavour

of Government of NCT of Delhi to improve

the quality of life of its citizens especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged

sections of society in the state of Delhi. To reach the masses and spread its message

of serving the disadvantage sections of society and to network with other organisa-

tions, the official website of the Mission was launched by the Hon’ble Chief

Minister of Delhi on February 27, 2009.

Although the earlier website contained all relevant information about Mission

Convergence and time-to-time updates were carried out to keep it relevant and

fresh, but an increasing need was felt for a new portal to satisfy the new and grow-

ing demands of the Mission as also provide the platform for Convergence Applica-

tion being developed for System Integration.

Hence, the IT team held several brainstorming sessions for conceptualising and

designing a new web portal along with different players at the Mission and the re-

sult was a distinctly vibrant and interactive web portal — www.streeshakti-sss.org

— with dynamic web pages and many advanced features which were not incorpo-

rated in the earlier version. For example:

• Left menu panel for easy navigation

• Photo gallery of events

• Event Calendar of Mission & its partner organisations

• Streaming video playback for documentaries

• Use of Gmaps for locating MNGOs/DRCs/GRC-SKs with distance and

routing features

• Separate space for Newsletter, Success Stories, Case Studies, etc.

• Media Room

• Publications & Reports and many more

This newly developed web portal is designed in such a way that the CMS technol-

ogy (Content Management System) can be implemented on it without any trouble

and this makes it even easier to maintain the portal. This web portal will become

the first interface for knowledge sharing and to access the convergence application

for entitlement disbursement.

The new-look portal has also been provided a new domain address and an easily

identifiable logo — streeshakti — from which derives the domain

name.

Durgesh is Program Officer (MIS) at Mission Convergence. He can be contacted at progme.sss@gmail.com

Our New-look Web-

By Durgesh Kumar

http://streeshakti-sss.org

P A G E 3 V O I C E S O F T H E U N H E A R D : S T O R I E S F R O M G R A S S R O O T S

Yielding r ich dividends

Saraswati’s well stocked shop (left) has a faithful clientele (right)

S U C C E S S S T O R Y

After the interview I was told that a loan of Rs. 95,000 had been sanctioned from the State Bank of India , Chandni Chowk. The bank told us about the entire procedure on the repayment of loans and asked us to come with the quotation.

After that I went to Sadar Bazaar, Govind Puri, Chandani Chowk for quotations but I failed to get them. Then I approached to DRC and GRC. With their help I was able to get quota-tion from Sangam Vihar and Harsh Vihar and once I submitted it I received a cheque of Rs. 40,200 to start interior work. They also gave me information regarding repayment of the balance

money. Now I have received all balance amount and inaugurated my new cosmetic shop on 13 July 2010. Now I hope that my life will settle down and further education of my children will also get completed.

” Saraswati Ghosh

Girija is District Resource Centre

Coordinator (South). She can be contacted at drcsouth@gmail.com

“M y name is Saraswati Ghosh. I am 25

years old. There are five members in my family. My husband runs a Cosmetic Shop. I have three daughters – Shavarna (10), Shervani (6) and Diya (1). Because of my family’s poor economic condition there were problems regarding my children’s education. So my husband I decided to take a loan to expand our busi-ness. In the local market, the rate of interest on loans is very high; between 5% to 10%.

One day, I heard about Sakaar Outreach -Stri Kosh Suvidha Kendra. I went there and discussed my need for a loan. They told me about the Ladli and SJSRY schemes. I filled a form for the above schemes. After that I was called for an interview where they asked me questions regarding my work.

As told to Girija Kumari Sahu

Calling All GRCs & MNGOs! This page is devoted to Community Voices. All our partners are invited to contribute articles, write-ups, thoughts, quotes, etc. for

this page

Mission to take up safe water and sanitation issues in community

P rovision of safe potable water and sanitation solutions to the community is a matter of concern for many governments. The poor have little or no access to safe water and hygienic condi-

tions and voluntary organizations play a major role in strengthening such services at the grassroots.

Mission Convergence, sensitive to these issues is exploring various avenues in order to ensure basic amenities and services to the people. Under one such initiative, it will be working with voluntary organiza-tions to spread awareness on potential hazards of unsafe water and on the importance of cleanliness.

The Stree Shakti-Suvidha Kendras are being sensitized on the utility and the need of tying up with voluntary bodies to expand their scope of services to include such issues. The GRCs will be working towards sensitizing the community and making it more responsive to its gen-eral health and hygiene.

Camps in the catchment area of various GRCs will be organized beginning with GRC-Amba Foundation and will mainly focus on creating awareness on safe water solutions, waste management and personal hygiene. It will also help awaken the community to their rights to safe water and sanitation solutions.

The purpose of the camp is to look at all the contemporary issues involving domestic water, sanitation and hygiene through community involvement and experiences. To gain the full benefits of safe water and sanitation, communities also need to know about the links be-tween diseases and unsafe and unhygienic practices.

Suruchi Aggarwal is Volunteer Coordinator at Mission Convergence. She can be contacted at vol.suruchi.sss@gmail.com

A complaint was received from Ms Kiran Arora, Project Coordinator – CASP, a GRC-SK in Madanpur Khadar on March 22, 2010 against Ms Manju Upadhayay an official in CASP relating to differences during the

camp organized on March 20, 2010 in filling up of the forms for birth and caste certificate registration.

The case was taken up in the Grievance Cell where the committee heard her in person. The committee was of the view that the matter deserved serious interven-tion on behalf of the PMU-SSS. The case was escalated to the CASP head office in Pune. A team of the senior officials from CASP visited PMU-SSS to look into the matter in detail. The entire matter was taken up by the team who on their own con-ducted separate meetings with Ms Upadhayay and Ms Arora. The officials at PMU-SSS informed the CASP team that such behavior will not be accepted in the field office as GRC-SK is the extended hand of the Government of Delhi. “We are working for empowerment of women in the community and if the same is not de-picted through action then the same needs to be viewed seriously.”

Thereafter a meeting was held in the PMU-SSS with the Chief Functionary of CASP Dr. Ranjana Kaul on May 20, 2010. Both the complainant and the ag-grieved were given a hearing in front of the committee and the Mission Director. On hearing both the parties on the matter, it was felt that Ms. Arora has been per-forming her duties well and the camp she organized was under the direction of the DC office. Therefore, justice should be done to Ms Arora. Since both Ms Arora and Ms. Upadhayay were not willing to work together it was decided to place both of them in separate offices.

Now Ms Kiran Arora has been posted as Project Coordinator in CASP Plan at Sangam Vihar.

Rachna Gahilote Bisht

THE CASE OF CASP

Grievance Redressal

P A G E 4

SMART steps towards e-inclusion

T he Government of National Capital Territory (GNCTD) has taken the unique initiative of

reaching out to the urban poor and under-served sections of the city-State Delhi by initiating mission mode project called Mission Convergence.

For the needy citizen, who should have been the beneficiary of the Government’s welfare thinking, such a situation translated into hardship of running endlessly to various government Departments as there were no converging nodes close to the point of service delivery. The most vulnerable also lacked the capacity to engage with the Government and follow complex procedures to access entitlements.

Therefore, there was a pressing need to simplify government procedures, increase inter departmental coordination and information sharing, enhance effectiveness of service delivery at the grass root level, and increase citizen involvement. Government of Delhi (GNCTD) was of the view that it needs to reorient its strategic thinking with respect to implementation of social sector programs in order to improve the quality of life of its citizens especially the most vulnerable and disadvantaged sections of the city.

As we are aware that, there are over 45 welfare schemes being implemented by 9 different departments of the GNCTD. The Mission Convergence is focused on bringing this plethora of welfare schemes on a common platform and strengthening the implementation machinery at all levels of enrolment/service distribution using IT.

The concept of Mission aims at convergence of various departmental efforts for bringing about constructive change in the lives of the urban poor communities it intends to simplify mechanisms of government schemes, enhance and increase c i t i z en ’ s i nvo l ve men t . Mi s s ion Convergence attempts to tackle this through multi-pronged, a multi-disciplinary convergence of services covering welfare schemes of the following departments of the state of Delhi:

1. Health & Family Welfare Department 2. Education Department 3. Women & Child Development

Department. 4. Social Welfare 5. Food and Civil Supplies 6. Labor 7. Urban Development 8. Information Technology

9. SC&ST /OBC/Minority/ Backward Class Welfare Dept. and Corporation

10. Divisional Commissioners’ Office A System Integrator has been

identified for integration of the various Welfare Schemes of the government. All these efforts are the part of the “e-governance initiatives” of the government of NCT of Delhi being executed by Principal Consultant (IT) under the guidance of Misson Director, sss. The progress of the IT initiatives of the Mission Convergence is being monitored by chief secretary, GNCTD.

Sandeep is Principle Consultant IT at Mission Convergence. He can be contacted at prconsultant.it.sss@gmail.com

THE CONVERGENCE MECHANISM: Making access easy

Mission Convergence aims at bringing constructive changes in the lives of the urban poor community by simplifying mechanisms and making access easy . And in this process, Information Technology has a major role to play

By Sandeep Saxena

Mission Convergence joins hand with DLSA to reach legal aid to Delhi’s poor

O n April 23, 2010 Chief Minister Mrs Sheila Dikshit, an-nounced the partnership of Samjik Suvidha Sangam and Delhi Legal Services Authority with the objective of pro-

viding “access to justice for all” so that justice is not denied to citi-zens by reason of economic or other disabilities. The goal is to se-cure justice to the weaker sections of society, particularly the poor, vulnerable, downtrodden and socially backward women, children and disabled, etc.

Under the partnership DLSA will not only provide services of lawyer and counselor under its empanelled list to the NGOs but will also rate the performance of the lawyers and counselors al-ready empanelled with the NGOs. This is to attest their suitability or otherwise and the quality of work done by them so far in the

community and facilitate the decision regarding their retention or re-placement in view of their performance. In addition to it, the DLSA will hold free of cost Lok Adalat at the GRCs on need assessment basis to settle the disputes regarding entitlement validation, matrimonial dispute and development issues. DLSA will also provide free legal aid wherever appropriate for filing cases in the court. Publicity material to generate awareness in the community will also be provided by DLSA free of charge to the GRC-SKs.

Keeping up with the spirit of partnership DLSA has sent its law students to identify 1500 people in the community who are in dire need of free legal aid. In addition to this, 100 students visited the 60 GRC-SKs run by the Samajik Suvidha Sangam in June and interacted with 9500 people to assess the problems of the marginalized urban poor. The main issues which emerged from this investigation were of gender discrimination, women’s empowerment and need to spread legal awareness. Nearly 1500 people came forward for legal aid and 646 women complained of domes-tic violence by their husbands or in-laws. Services of lawyers were pro-vided in 17 GRC-SKs in the month of July.

Rachna is Specialist (Community Mobilisation) at Mission

Convergence. She can be contacted at commspl.sss@gmail.com

By Rachna Gahilote Bisht

Reaching Out to the Unreached

“ Personally I see myself as a citizen volunteer of

Mission. I am delighted by our effort and the amazing possibilities of outreach that the Mission

umbrella brings for potential volunteers like myself. I think we have made a good beginning which should inspire more GRCs into activating their volunteer

accounts.

”

Q U O T E

U N Q U O T E Poonam Srivastava

A Dedicated Volunteer

YES YOU CAN

VOLUNTEER TOO!

P A G E 5 B A S K E T O F B E N E F I T S : F O C U S R S B Y P A G E 5 B A S K E T O F B E N E F I T S : F O C U S S J S R Y

coordinate, monitor and guide the livelihoods promotion and conduct skill development training activi-ties.

With a target to identify and train 8000 beneficiaries in FY 2010-11, the SJSRY programme is poised to take immense leap into urban poverty alleviation in Delhi. Shweta is Project Officer (MIS) SJSRY at Mission Convergence. She can be contacted at proff.sjsry.sss@gmail.com Nisha is Programme Officer (Admn & Finance) at Mission Convergence. She can be contacted at projectofficer.sjsry.sss@gmail.com

I n April 2009, Mission Conver-gence became the implement-ing agency for the Swarna

Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojna (SJSRY). Selected by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty, the nodal department for the scheme, the Mission was on the right track of social development with focused programmes for urban poverty alle-viation.

As such, SJSRY, a centrally spon-sored scheme with the primary ob-jective of urban livelihood promo-tion and poverty alleviation, came as an added impetus to Mission Con-vergence programme .

With the nod of the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of NCT of Delhi, Mission Conver-gence took up the implementation challenges of SJSRY and within a span of a few months tangible re-sults were visible.

The SJSRY programme addresses the problem of urban poverty by providing gainful employment to the urban unemployed or underem-ployed poor. For this, the pro-gramme first engages the target population in skill development and training programmes, so as to enable them to access employment oppor-tunities available in the market or undertake self-employment.

Mission Convergence, with its vast and dedicated network of com-munity based organizations (CBOs), has been able to make a remarkable difference in both quantifiable and qualitative terms.

Its network of GRCs, DRCs and MNGOs are working in tandem with the Community Development Services (CDSs) of the SJSRY to

reach out to the urban poor. A market-driven approach has

been adopted by the Mission in the identification of skills keeping an eye on the demand. Thereafter link-ages with professional institutes of repute are being sought to bring in the desired level of finesse and quality to enable products and ser-vices get a fair competitive edge.

VLCC is one of the training insti-tutes selected by the Mission and is currently training 120 girls in beauty care and wellness.

Since the Mission came on board, the project reached out to 20,00,000 people in less than a year as com-pared to 14,00,000 who benefitted between December 1997 to April 2009. A similar leap has been ob-served in the number of loans sanc-tioned, where a total of 1032 loan

applications under USEP Compo-nent were forwarded to banks for sanctioning and disbursement of subsidies thereof. In group loans category under UWSP Component too several groups were supported by banks with community women benefitting from it.

A state level UPA Cell was insti-tuted last year to provide suitable policy directions on poverty and livelihood related issues, to facili-tate convergence of SJSRY with other programmes impacting urban poor and to liaise with State Level Banker’s Committee to ensure credit flow to urban poor micro-entrepreneurs and Self Help Groups. Proposals have been invited from Technical and Program Support Agencies and Training Service Pro-viding Agencies for SJSRY to plan,

Where c rea t iv i t y f inds expres s ion & employment

Crafted with love: Painstakingly created items by community beneficiaries under Mission programme

By Shweta Chugh &

Nisha Raneesh

P A G E 6

Journey to EMPOWERMENT

W omen are considered as weaker section in our society. Our socialization process makes them submissive in nature. Gen-

der discrimination, due to son preference is the root cause of patriarchal social system leading to unequal social status of women in soci-ety. The Government of Delhi has consciously framed women friendly policies, schemes, programmes and laws to promote gender equality and empowerment. Women Empowerment is one of the major compo-nents being implemented at the Gender Resource Centres through different ongoing activities focusing on basic sectors like — Education, Health, Liveli-hood and legal knowledge and rights awareness and maximizing community participation . However, there still exists the challenge to maximize access of women and girls to the services. In a view of the fact that the journey of a woman’s empowerment starts from individual to the family to the community to society and to Nation, individual and family are the major challenging areas to address the issues of women and girls. Community as a whole can play a vital role to hammer gender ine-qualities and bring about positive attitudinal and behavioral changes towards the issues of women and

girls which cannot be taught. Open dialogue with the community and organizing the community by maxi-mizing participation is one of the possible ways to

deal with the gender issues. Most of the time, economic empowerment becomes the priority to pro-

mote women’s empowerment. However, it has its own limitations. For example, if a woman’s family members do not allow her to go out of the four walls of her house, how can she come to attend the vocational train-

ing classes or go out to work? We see a lot of women who have the capability to be self dependent but they are not allowed to take any decision about themselves and even if they are economically empowered/self

reliant, they have no control over their earnings. The empowerment of women occurs in reality when women achieve in-creased control and par-ticipation in decision mak-ing that leads to their hav-ing better access to re-sources, and therefore, improved socio-economic status by which they achieve increased control over public decision mak-ing. Information, Aware-ness, Training, Opportuni-ties and Access to opportu-nities are the major tools to make women’s empow-erment a reality which Mission is determined to work on.

Women’s Empowerment is a journey from self to society, & from community to nation. Mission Convergence has a dedicated mechanism to help women from the most marginalized communities march onwards in this journey. Reaching Out will bring its readers regular updates on their progress...

STREE SHAKTI B y N a s e e m K h a n

P A R T N E R S H I P W I T H

I S T M – D O P T ( G O I ) :

Formation of Self Help Groups is a tool to promote Women Empowerment and Commu-nity Empowerment which is an important com-ponent in GRC-SK. Mission Convergence’s en-deavor is to give concrete, meaningful and uni-form direction to this progress with its huge net-work of GRC-SK in and around Delhi.

Mission Convergence entered in a short term partnership with the Institute of Secretariat Training and Management (ISTM) – Department of Personnel and Training” (DOPT) for the Pilot Project - Capacity Building for Poverty Allevia-tion programme under the DFID Project of GOI(AR). This pilot project covered two major issues — ‘SHG-Microfinance’ and ‘Water, Sanitation and Health’. It started with need assessment with the team of GRCs – SK and ended with modules on both the issues. Formal trainings started from May 3, 2010 and ended on July 3, 2010 (2 months) It was a package of 13 days training with 341 participants including Project Coordinators, SHG Mobilizers, Community Mobilizers, SJSRY team and Community Volunteers. Project design covered the TNA (Training Need Assessment), Pilot Run, TOT with 22 potential trainers and the final run of practical trainings as practice. Output of the Partnership:

• Module on SHG – Micro finance • Module on Water, Sanitation and

Health Outcome:

• Developed basic understanding on the

issues • Learning on Strategies to work on the

issues • Identification of 22 potential trainers • Training of Trainers (developed per-

spectives and learnt skills of training) • Practical training under the final run.

Future Plan: • Copies of modules to all the GRCs to

strengthen the component of women’s and community empowerment.

• Concrete, meaningful and uniform di-rection to the program

P A R T N E R S H I P W I T H N I P C C D A N D “ W E C A N ” C A M P A I G N

Violence against women is now accepted as a reality. GOI has also accepted its existence by ratifying the CEDAW and making the law “The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence, 2005”. Violence Against Women (VAW) is a major hurdle in the way of women’s empower-ment.

A partnership was established with “We Can” Campaign, initiated by Oxfam – Great Britain (G.B.) in six countries initially. Currently, the campaign is present in more than 18 countries and aims to bring positive changes in attitude and behavior and promoting equality in all relation-ships. The empowerment of women occurs in reality, when women achieve increased control and participation in decision making that leads to their better access to resources, and therefore, improved socio-economic status by which

women achieve increased control over public decision making.

This was the time when NIPCCD contacted us with the letter issued by the Minister of Women and Child Development (GOI) to conduct the training with all the GRCs on “Violence against Women”, which completely matched with our requirements as we were entering in the partner-ship with “We Can” Campaign.

A three-day training in three batches package was designed in consultation with NIPCCD for all the GRC Coordinators. Last session with each batch was on “Building Strategies to take the issue forward”. It is a meaningful move towards women’s empowerment to enhance community participation and community responsiveness which is the mandate of Mission Convergence. Outcome of Partnership:

• Project Coordinators of all GRCs are trained on the issue.

• They will train their own team first by using the training material provided by NIPCCD and “We Can” Campaign.

• The in turn will conduct the sessions with their own target groups

• Will register a cadre of minimum 400 active change makers to work as volun-teer with the GRC on the said issue.

• By October 10 onwards, a cadre of 34,000 (400 x 85GRCs = 34,000) active volunteers will be registered.

Naseem is Manager Programme at Mission Convergence. She can be

contacted at trgspl.sss@gmail.com

Waiting in Hope: The door to empowerment is now open!

P A G E 7 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E I I

150 lkFkh Community gets O U R

P H I L O S O P H Y

“I will give you a talisman.

Whenever you are in

doubt, or when the self

becomes too much with

you, apply the following

test. Recall the face of the

poorest and the weakest

man [woman] whom you

may have seen, and ask

yourself, if the step you

contemplate is going to be

of any use to him [her].

Will he [she] gain anything

by it? Will it restore him

[her] to a control over his

[her] own life and destiny?

In other words, will it lead

to swaraj [freedom] for

the hungry and spiritually

starving millions? Then you

will find your doubts and

your self melt away."

Mahatma Gandhi

grammes. The Community Organisers (CO) who are the main link between the urban poor community (represented through CDS) and the implementation machinery would be required to guide and assist the community in assessing its needs, developing vision and formulating community development action plans. Their role would also entail coordinating slums, households and livelihood surveys and maintaining the database of urban poor.

SJSRY Team

S S S I N D U C T S 1 5 0 - S T R O N G S A T H I C A D R E T O R E A C H O U T T O T H E V U L N E R A B L E

F or effective implementation of the SJSRY Scheme under Samajik Suvidha Sangam, Mission Convergence, it was decided to create 300 posts of Community Organizers to

strengthen the scheme at the district as well as the headquarter level.

Under this plan, in the first phase of recruitment, 150 Com-munity Organizers were appointed at the district/headquarter level. Due preference was given to women and other factors such as vulnerability, previous experience of working at the grassroots level for community empowerment, good communi-cation skills, gender sensitivity, basic reporting skills (both oral and written) etc., were taken into account.

The COs were given week-long training by the District Project Officers at the districts to make them understand the system, their role, the district and their area of operation/work.

At a formal induction programme organized at the headquar-ters on June 15, 2010, the Chief Minister, Smt. Sheila Dikshit formally announced their induction into the SJSRY field func-tionaries cadre and also introduced their new name i.e. ‘Sathi’. Chief Secretary Sh. Rakesh Mehta, Smt. Rashmi Singh, Mission Director and other senior officials of the Delhi Government were present on the occasion.

The Chief Minister interacted with the Sathi and answered their queries, emphasising that for the newly formed cadre to be effective in their roles, a proper training should be held to bring out clarity in their understanding regarding their responsibilities. She spoke about integrating field level workforce of all depart-ments to ensure better implementation of government run pro-

R E A C H I N G O U T T O T H E U N R E A C H E D

Clockwise from top left: Chief Minister introducing COs to their new name, inaugurating SJSRY handbook for Sathi, audience including officials; newly inducted Sathis airing their doubts to CM; and CM answering each one patiently

O U R V I S I O N

E M P O W E R I N G T H E M

A N D

Samajik Suvidha Sangam (Mission Convergence) Govt of NCT of Delhi Room No 403, IP Estate Delhi Secretariat, New Delhi

Phone: 23392408 Fax: 23392408 E-mail: samajik.suvidha.sangam@gmail.com Website: http://streeshakti-sss.org

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Email: spldc.sss@gmail.com

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V i n i t a S i n g h Reaching Out to the Unreached

Reaching Out to the Unreached

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Survey: A unique exercise

V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1 I

J U L Y 2 0 1 0 REACHING OUT MISSION CONVERGENCE

P A G E 8

of vulnerability- the place of residence. People living in notified slums, non-notified slums, resettlement colonies and homeless are identified as vulner-able were covered in a census measure.

Social-The second step involves looking at socially deprived groups, including women or children headed households, households and families having old peo-ple, differently-abled persons and those suffering from debilitating illness.

Occupational-The third type i.e., the occupationally vulnerable includes among others people earning their liveli-hood as rag pickers, construction work-ers, street vendors, casual domestic workers and cycle rickshaw drivers.

With the help of a large number of NGOs the SSS, hence, is conducting a door-to-door survey to identify all the potential vulnerable households/population in Delhi.

So far, survey has been completed in two phases, and the third phase of sur-vey is under progress. Phase 1 and Phase 2, covered approximately 9.24 lakhs households residing in notified and non-notified slums and resettlement colonies falling under ‘F’, ‘G’ and ‘H’ categoriza-tion of colonies of the Municipal Corpo-ration of Delhi (MCD). During the on-

M ission Convergence repre-sents a paradigm shift in Governance. The outcome

of a process of deep introspection on the part of the Government, the basket of initiatives undertaken by the Mission Convergence is a fine balance of demand side interventions and institutional re-forms. The guiding philosophy of the Mission is to “bring Government to the Citizen Doorstep”, specifically the poor and the vulnerable. The Mission today is a platform that re-engages with defini-tional issues, steers horizontal and verti-cal integration across schemes and De-partments, and most importantly, leads the process of forging responsible part-nerships with community bodies and civil society organizations. In doing so, it has combined the facility of thinking from the bottom-upwards and embrac-ing new technology platforms. Identifica-tion of poor and other vulnerable popu-lation in the city has been one of the initial and important activities of the Mission.

Mission has developed a set of non-income criteria to identify such commu-nities and bring them under the umbrella of social security programmes of the GNCTD.

Survey Criteria

Influenced by the ‘Kudumbashree model’ in Kerala, income proxy indica-tors for identifying poor based on their vulnerability have been developed.

Spatial-The first level is a spatial or geographical parameter for identification

By Dr. Deepa Ahluwalia going third phase of survey an additional of approximately 5 lakhs ‘potential vul-nerable’ households residing in other areas (scattered across the city) is under progress and will be completed soon.

To make the process of identification of vulnerable households a comprehen-sive exercise and include the Homeless-who are most needy and vulnerable among the urban poor. The mission has undertaken the mammoth exercise to identify all homeless covering entire Delhi. The survey for the homeless is also in progress simultaneously in all the nine districts and is likely to be com-pleted within two months.

The mandate of the third phase of survey, i.e., to cover all left –out slum areas/households so as to prepare a comprehensive register for the vulner-able. The processes in Phase III have been strengthened considerably in terms of better training, approach based on the learning from the previous two phases. The survey in first and second phase followed cluster wise house-to-house approach. Moreover, in the third phase of survey, three approaches, namely, door to door, camp based, GRC-SK extension counter based and mobile vans have been include for maximum coverage.

Presently the survey is in progress in all the nine districts of Delhi. The third phase is the final phase of survey and is aimed to cover all the uncovered and left out areas during the earlier phase under Mission Convergence Scheme. We expect, that this phase would lead to completion of the exercise with no left out areas/households and would facilitate in a complete central database of the vulnerable households of Delhi.

Deepa is Research Analyst & M & E Expert at Mission Convergence. She can be contacted at ra.mne.sss@gmail.com