Girls participating in a PREM-designed workshop on Utilizing Media for Advocacy in Development

INNOVATION

PREM’s approach to development places a key role on innovation—creating, harnessing and implementing new ideas to meet the challenges facing marginalized communities in India today. PREM’s emphasis on innovation over the years has made a robust impact on the Adivasi, Dalit and Fisherfolk people and people’s organizations with whom it works.

It started with Functional Literacy in 1984. No NGO in Odisha had applied the innovative pedagogy of Paolo Freire’s “Popular Education” to the unorganized and illiterate masses in the state. PREM developed a functional literacy programme to get women, men and young people the basic tools they need to begin organizing themselves for sustainable development.

Children working together to create a positive future

Two Adivasi performers raise awareness on Eye Care through ISR

A village committee in Kandhamal does a participatory poverty assessment with PREM

A community cyclone shelter

Children looking to a positive future

A Plan Sponsor walks hand-in-hand with her sponsored child.

PREM was the first organization in Odisha to develop and implement the concept of People’s Organization in development work. While earlier development focused on service delivery, PREM’s innovation was on building and supporting community-based people’s organization and networking them to take control of their own development. From this concept, PREM has helped nurture hundreds of CBOs and unions in the agriculture and fishing industries among the poor. It has built networks such as Orissa Dalit Manch and Orissa Adivasi Manch, the first statewide advocacy networks for Dalits and Adivasis, respectively. The East Coast Fisher People’s Forum and the National Advocacy Council for the Development of Indigenous People’s are two of PREM’s innovations that have taken people’s organization to the national level.

PREM’s dynamic education program called Each One, Teach One, which was started in 1990, continued the Paolo Freire philosophy of popular education in 1000 tribal villages where literacy was less than 25% among men and only 8% among women. By mobilizing a large network of volunteers—college students and other educated community members—to support PREM’s campaign that literacy is the responsibility of all and work in these villages, within 100 days 86% of the people in these villages could write their names and 53% could read and write Oriya at a basic level.

One of PREM’s most celebrated innovations is the People’s Rural Health Promotion Scheme, in which 100,000 people in 500 villages of Adivasi, Dalit and Fisherfolk communities each invested INR 20 towards a comprehensive, three-tiered healthcare programme that created village pharmacies for medicine distribution, trained local people to treat common disease and ailments through accessible medicine and prevention, and facilitated village-level committees to monitor the health situation in their area and access aid where needed. Among many accolades PREM received for this programme, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) named it as one of the best, most innovative healthcare programmes in all of Asia. PREM was also invited by the Indian Ministry of Labour and Health in Delhi to make a presentation on this programme, which has been taken up as a model for the national health smart-card scheme of the Indian government.

PREM has been at the forefront of emerging ideas to address HIV/AIDS and Malaria. PREM has involved grassroots initiatives and especially empowered local youth groups to be the peer educators to their communities, utilizing cultural programs and activities—such as street plays, songs and dance performances—to facilitate awareness campaigns on these health threats. PREM’s Malaria Prevention & Control programme mobilized 76 partner CBOs in 8 districts of Odisha for awareness, training and access to resources for at-risk communities. The HIV/AIDS Prevention & Awareness targeted 1000 villages in 3 districts. Both were among the largest, most comprehensive campaigns among NGOs in Odisha.

PREM was the first NGO to engage in a programme livelihood development of rural Adivasi people by focusing on innovation in traditional horticultural methods. PREM’s campaign and trainings to move Adivasi famers Beyond Shifting Cultivation—through plantations, intercropping, introducing cashew and pineapple to new areas—was able to quadruple the per-acre production of traditional horticultural practices in tribal areas and improve the livelihood of the people. Click here to watch a video: Beyond Shifting Cultivation

PREM was the first NGO in Odisha to put a focus on English-Medium Education and computer literacy in its child-centred approached to development. PREM supports numerous hostels and more than 300 Adivasi and Dalit children who attend government KV schools and are getting a quality education that was previously not possible for children from their remote, poor communities.

PREM’s Universal Birth Registration programme that was started 2001 saw 5,400,000 children from 42,500 rural villages in 22 states of Odisha registered, the most comprehensive programme of its kind in the state. Now, not only is birth registration mainstreamed across all of PREM’s child-focused development work, but this UBR programme has been scaled up by the Indian government at the national level.

PREM has also been one of the few strong voices striving to Break Cultural Taboos and long-held social standards that discriminate against Dalits, Adivasis and other groups. For example, PREM instituted a campaign to encourage coconut plantations in Dalit villages—a worthwhile livelihood—which attacked the traditional view that Dalits could not grow or handle coconuts.

At PREM we want to expand the bounds of holistic development. We organized a workshop on Utilizing the Media for Development Work, where we trained 13 interested and well-educated Adivasi and Dalit youths from our hostels on how to use and access the media to highlight development issues in their remote areas (where there is usually no media coverage. Our innovation was tapping this potential of educated, motivated young people who want to be agents for positive change in their communities. They represent the power of the future generation to work for social justice, and involving them in the process of development is one of the most important innovations.

OTHER PROGRAMMES

Outreach to Remote Areas with ISRO

In a special partnership with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), PREM manages 8 Village Resource Centres that are networked via satellite communication to a broadcast studio at PREM’s headquarters. From this studio, PREM conducts at least 8 programmes per month on many of its ongoing projects and initiatives. Audiences at the 8 remote VRCs, who otherwise might not have access to information about development initiatives, can watch and participate interactively with PREM staff and experts as they broadcast programmes on education, health, livelihood, governance and other issues.

Community Rehabilitation in Kandhamal
PREM in partnership with Concern Worldwide has taken up Peace Initiatives in Kandhamal district since the communal conflicts of 2008. Networking with Odisha Adivasi Manch, members of PRI institutions, government departments and other civil society organizations, PREM has developed and supported youth camps and sports events to help foster community integration and spirit. Peace meetings and workshops have brought together people of various backgrounds for mutual support. PREM supported the tuition and study materials for a group of 7th-class and 10th-class students whose study was disturbed during the communal conflict. As a strategy, these youth became engaged in various community programmes and activities. PREM facilitated materials like bricks, stone, cement, and tin to 91 families of Beheragoan GP in Tilabali block to reconstruct the houses which were damaged during the conflict.

PREM has also conducted Participatory Poverty Assessment studies in two villages of Kandhamal district. Meeting with these communities, PREM is helping them to get information on different benefits, and to know which institutions they can access that are working for sustainable livelihood for the people. The survey evaluated the changes on gender issues among the communities and families, and attempted to trace out different directions for the communities on present climate change issues. The results of this survey will help PREM evaluate the progress of rural development in this region.

Disaster Management
The Odisha Super Cyclone of October 17, 1999 was of a much greater magnitude than any cyclone of the previous two decades. PREM initiated a collaborative response with other local NGOs, under the banner of the Ganjam Cyclone Relief Voluntary Action Committee, to maximize resources and co-ordination in the relief work. In the task of rescuing people from the path and damage of the cyclone, PREM volunteered to manage information sharing, mobilization of funds and accountability for the network groups. In the first phase immediate relief was provided to the cyclone-hit population. The second phase was devoted to organizing food for work, the third phase to livelihood support and the fourth phase to rehabilitation programmes. PREM’s relief and rehabilitation work and that of its network partners extended to one Municipality, two Notified Area Councils, 31 Blocks and 179 Gram Panchayats covering 1,212 villages. A total of 45,326 families comprising of 280,000 cyclone-affected people benefited in the Ganjam, Gajapati, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Balesore and Bhadrak districts of Odisha. PREM continues to work with village committees and youth clubs to facilitate disaster-preparedness training and build cyclone-resistant shelters. Peer groups help train their communities on safety and mitigation of risk to natural disasters.

PREM with its partner networks East Coast Fisher People Forum (ECFPF) and East Coast Development Forum (ECDF) were instrumental in coordinating response to the Tsunami of December 26, 2004, which required immediate action for relief and rehabilitation in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. After initial damage assessment through field visits, ECDF members organized local fundraising and volunteer mobilization to help supply food and medical assistance to affected families, distribute clothing and provide transportation for moving people to relief camps. ECDF’s objectives in the relief phase were targeted to reach 11,600 families to re-establish their livelihood through the provision of food, essential kitchen items, fishing equipment and small grants for income generation activities. It worked in eight locations in the Tsunami affected villages.

Promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Odisha is one of the most rural and economically deprived states in India but it is also rich in natural resources, and with the growth of globalization has attracted the interest of corporate business in India and further a field. As a result the state is entering a phase of rapid industrialization, and awareness on CSR among the corporate sector, policy makers and general public is an urgent necessity in protecting the basic rights and maximizing benefits among the most marginalized communities.

In 2005, PREM conducted a study aimed at assessing the understanding and status of CSR in Odisha. The study was organized in partnership with Concern Worldwide, Bhubaneswar, Partners in Change, New Delhi and Traidcraft, U.K. The scope of the study necessitated the participation of representatives from corporate industry, small business sector, policy making and regulatory bodies of government, civil society organizations, including local and international NGOs, CBOs, trade unions, impacted communities, media, academic institutions and multilateral institutions, all of whom have a stake in working on or influencing CSR in the state. The study also collected case studies of good practices from different stakeholders in the sectors of mining and spice trading. The study formed the basis of a workshop at the end of 2005 and the initiation of awareness programmes aimed at sensitizing policy makers and industry leaders to implement best practice in CSR.

Future Plans
With its vast experience in integrated development programmes PREM is building a strong knowledge base within its organization and its partners, and is committed to using that knowledge and mobilizing resources to continue the journey with marginalized communities for rights- and value-based sustainable development.

Among the most pressing issues facing India and the world is Climate Change, to which marginalized and unorganized sectors of the population are most vulnerable,

especially if they lack the ability and authority to manage their natural resources. PREM is working for Climate Justice and resilience to climate change across its operational area—where the climate issues are soil erosion, coastal erosion, desertification, land degradation due to mining and industry, water scarcity and contamination, etc—and also in partnership with networks across the state, country and world.

In 2011 PREM was one of the key attendees of the South Asia regional conference on "Building Livelihood Resilience in Changing Climate."

Another area of growing concern for PREM is Migration, which affects many people in poor and rural communities. Migration especially seasonal migration for the sake of improving livelihood is a fundamental right and necessity of the poor. But all to often the gaps in awareness, information and communication lead to negative elements of migration, such as exploitation of women and girls, child labour, sex trafficking, social alienation, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, and continued poverty and marginalization.

PREM is currently working to survey and study the scope of migration in Odisha in order to develop frameworks for development initiatives on this critical issue.

PREM is aware that the unique Culture of the Adivasi people in various tribes of Odisha is something that must be preserved, documented, promoted and mainstreamed into education. So PREM is working with educated youths from its programme areas to get them involved in documenting issues of development and culture in their communities, and to get the media involved for access to a wider audience.

PREM is also committed to developing itself as a knowledge and resource base of Odisha Adivasi culture and empowerment. The proposed Adivasi Resource Centre would include a library, resource and training centre, documentation unit and museum. Adivasi youths such as those educated through PREM’s work would become the primary functionaries of the centre and its outreach. They will have the opportunity to participate in workshops and short-term courses in skills training and enrichment of indigenous knowledge. Efforts will be also undertaken to organize consultations and seminars for documentation, preservation and promotion of Adivasi culture, folk arts and value systems.