Building a mass awareness Report on communication campaign Jan 10-31, 2006

Transcription

1 Andhra Pradesh Rural Em ployment Guarantee Scheme (APREGS) Pilot project in Parigi mandal, Ranga Reddy district Building a mass awareness Report on communication campaign Jan 10-31, 2006 As the date for the national launching of the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was fast approaching, the last three weeks of January have witnessed increased activity in the Parigi pilot with massive campaigning in the villages, review meetings by CRD, formats testing and corrections simultaneously going on. The major campaigning programme and Kala Jathas in selective villages and most of the enrollment process were completed in these three weeks while the job card software was also being installed, tested and finalized at the fag end of the month. Big leap in awareness building After the initial orientation programmes to the implementing institutions like Panchayati Raj, VOs and village meetings and gramasabhas, the awareness building has taken a big leap with an intensive communication campaign in the villages. Due to budget constraints, 35 villages were selected among the 54 villages under 24 grama panchayats in the mandal for the campaign. The communication campaign had a detailed model, which included; Street publicity by mike Door to door canvassing Distributing pamphlets Wall writings Cultural programme Kala Jatha. 1

2 A team of six people had spent an entire day in a village taking up all the activities one after the other culminating in Kala Jatha programme during the night. This campaign was well received in almost all the villages resulting in a tangible and perceptible change in the awareness levels. The awareness levels in the wake of this communication campaign were assessed by both the Directorate of the APREGS and WASSAN. Directorate review and assessment While the communication programme was going on, Mr Murali, Director of APREGS and Ms Padmavath, Joint Commissioner (Process Monitoring) conducted a review and assessment trip to Parigi. The review meeting was held in the MDO office in Parigi on 19 th January. The MDTs from the DWMA and all the village secretaries have attended the review meeting. The meeting had reviewed the work done so far and the issues being raised in the field both in the awareness building and enrollment process. Change in application format The application format for the enrollment was once again changed as the government wanted to know whether the wage seekers, particularly women, were members of the self help groups or not. Hence the new application had the provision to fill up their membership status. This is the application form which is being used in the entire state, according to the directorate. The village secretaries were asked to take the details while issuing the receipts to the job card applications. Mode of payment Mode of payment under the APREGS was a major concern and hence there was discussion on the issue at the review meeting. While the law envisages the payments through financial institutions like banks and post offices, the major hindrance is the lack of adequate number of banks and proper post offices in the area. Though there was some opposition from the village secretaries on payments through banks it was decided to go through the institutions unless it was not possible. The Director APREGS said that the government was negotiating with banks for mobile ATMs for the sake of payments. 2

3 Formation of women s groups As the equal pay between genders has been a bone of contention in APREGS since beginning the same issue gave rise to a discussion in the review meeting too. As there was a strong demand for the work among women with equal pay, there are apprehensions on equal pay. As the earth works are always done in measurement basis, the man who breaks the earth gets higher pay in comparison with women who take out and carry the soil and transport it. There was an interesting discussion on which work needs more energy and which burns more calories. It was also decided to look out for more creative ways to safeguard women s right to work and pay in the pilot project. Some of the suggestions were to innovate hand tools for women to make the work easier, forming women s groups and handing over the works to them, nursery raising which might include not only women but also the old and disabled. Fund for medical expenses There was also a concern on the readily available funds for medical expenses in case of any major injury at work place. Whether the programme officer (the MDO in this case) or the village secretaries should have the funds with them was the debate. Soft trouble! The computer and the software were also installed in Parigi MDO office on the same day, which was tasted by both the officials from the directorate and the district collector Mr Premchand and the joint collector. However the software was started showing bugs once the real operation of data feeding was started. The output in Telugu was horrible as the transcription software was used to feed the data in English and take the output in Telugu. The form did not accept the entries if the women were members of the self help groups. The bugs are now under rectification. 3

4 An illiterate reads a poster! Mr Murali wanted to know whether the ongoing campaign of Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was reaching the remote corners of the village. He did a quick inspection in two villages where he had interacted with women as well as the SC Colony which was at one corner of the village. It was found out that the awareness levels were very high on the scheme. Interestingly an illiterate explained how he understood from a poster that the scheme does not allow contractors and tractors in the work. He said that he could understand when he saw an X mark on the contractor and the tractor. Big village Vs small village This was followed by a detailed study in two other villages and a hamlet by WASSAN team on the awareness levels and pit falls in the communication campaign. Ibrahimpur was the first village, which has two hamlets. The main village Ibrahimpur has around 250 houses in which at all the small group meetings and grama sabhas a full day communication campaign was held. The entire village white washed for Sankranthi is bearing the slogans of APREGS. The Kala Jatha programme was also one of the best attended. WASSAN team interacted with different age groups, classes and genders. Though there were minute differences in the awareness levels, the team could not find a single person who did not hear about the programme. All of them including a 10-year child know at least a couple of salient features. This is a village known for migration for work to Hyderabad, Mumbai, Saudi, Muskat and Dubai. Around 100 youth were migrated for work to different places. If implemented properly this programme may check some of the migrations, which was already leading to a lot of social problems in the village. Cluster Level Livelihoods Resource Ibrahimpur Tanda, two kilometers away from the main village, demonstrates a striking contrast. This Tanda did not undergo any communication campaign except that they heard that some hul chal Center, WASSAN 4

5 was going on in the main village. However as the Sarpanch of the village hails from the same Tanda he could take the message to the hamlet on his personal interest. Though most of the enrollment process was completed in the main village it was not even initiated in Tanda. The second village Gadisingapur is a very big village compared to Ibrahimpur. The village has around 500 houses. Though the efforts were similar to that in Ibrahimpur the results were not equal. The village also had witnessed small group meets, grama sabha and day-long communication campaign. But the message still did not reach all the corners equally. It was mainly because of the size of the village. Hence it is understood that the efforts also should be scaled to the size of the village. Strategic inputs As the Parigi pilot project s main focus is not on implementation but field-testing, it was also decided to have input strategy and test it. Hence it was decided to have three categories of inputs namely high, medium and low level. The categorisation is applicable in the entire process of communication campaign, enrollment process and planning the shelf of works. The innovative ideas in planning the shelf of works would also be taken up in villages with high level initiatives. Voices from the field The campaign had opened up everything in front of the people. Now it is not possible for anybody to manipulate, said Buchaiah from Ibrahimpur. He earned eight quintal rice in FFW last year. We need to go out of the village if we need a hundred rupees. Hope this will put an end to that migration. We are three people ready to work, which will bring Rs 200 home per day. An eight thousand an year would meet the clothing needs of the entire family per year, said Hanumanthu from Ibrahimpur. Youth leaves the village for work to Bombay and comes back in June every year. If everything goes well they will comeback with around Rs 6 to 8 thousand. If something goes wrong they end up in more debt. If this scheme is implemented properly it will help our youth. People won t leave even if Rs 10,000 advance is given, said Thirumalaiah from Ibrahimpur. Nooru rojula pathakam vachindata. Sarpanch chepthunnadu. Kaani inka evaru tandaki rale, said Aslibhai from Ibrahimpur Tanda. 5

6 My son and daughter-in-law will do the earth work like bunding and I will take care of the children. All of us will be paid, said Ellamma, an aged woman of Gadisingapur. A day of communication campaign A day-long communication campaign is a mix of regular publicity material and cultural programme which was held in 35 villages and hamlets in the mandal. The day campaign is an effort of six to seven member team for 12 hours continuously in the village. The team reaches the villages between 10 and 11 in the morning and starts with wall writings and pasting the posters in the village. Then the team divides into three sub teams. While a team of two takes an auto with a mike and makes rounds in the village making the announcements and songs on APREGS, another team along with Dappus goes into the streets and organises street meetings. The third team knocks each door and hands over the leaflets on the salient features of the scheme. The leaflets were left at the door handle even when the doors were locked. Later Wassan team found that the villagers have preserved those leaflets as their valuable possessions. The evening attraction All the activity in the villages culminates in detailed Kala Jatha programme on the scheme. These Jathas are organised in the centre of the village either at gram panchayat office or at school. The Kala Jatha teams are highly creative. They begin the programme with songs specific to the village and gather the people. When the gathering reaches a few hundreds the subject is slowly introduced into the songs. The Jatha teams are equipped with around 10 songs, three dance songs, one drama, one palle suddulu and with humour bits. These were the scripts developed at the writers workshop on APREGS in CLRC, Parigi and these scripts cover all the features of the scheme in different angles. The songs and plays are planned and played on the stage in tune with the response and the mood of the village. Though the Kala Jatha programme is mostly a one way communication, it had a strong impact on the villages. When the villagers were asked how did they know about the scheme the top thing that came as an answer was Kala Jatha. 6