Capacity Building of Elected Women Representatives and Functionaries of Panchayati Raj Institutions, Angul, Orissa

Objectives:

• Empowering/building capacities of elected women representatives for effective functioning and setting women’s agenda.
• Institutionalization of mechanisms (networks) to strengthen capacities.
• Strengthening community mobilization and constituency building so that women are able to articulate their voice and participate in the electoral process.
• Ensuring enabling environment for gender sensitive delivery of services through building multi stakeholders partnership.

Geographical Spread:

Key areas / components:

• 8 cluster level perspective building workshops, district convention organized, capacity building training conducted and cluster level resource mapping done.
• Women’s forum at clusters, blocks and district level created. 8 information kiosks were set up and quarterly advisory committee meetings were held.
• Mobilisation and strengthening of Gram Sabha with active participation and clear issue articulation by women.
• Process documentation and dissemination through media.
• Campaign through organizing Sammelans, film shows, folk songs and cultural programmes. It acted as a platform to share experiences and good practices.
• Women forums were enabled to play “watch dog” role to ensure services like health, education, nutrition, water and sanitation, employment etc.
• Multi stake holders discussions at cluster level were organized from time to time among the PRI representatives, government functionaries and forum members to share and improve service delivery.

Key outputs:

• Social evils such as dowry, domestic violence, sexual exploitation and harassment of women were raised and appropriate action was initiated by the concerned authorities against the perpetrators.
• Increased women’s enthusiasm for participating in democratic decentralization process.
• Women were well informed about local resources and ongoing local development activities.
• Women were able to effectively articulate their issues and they were actively involved in decision making.
• Networks of clusters/blocks/district forums established and regular interface is taking place between the members of the forum and government functionaries on development issues.
• Women’s participation in Palli Sabha and Gram Sabha increased and they are prioritizing women’s agenda in development.
• Process documentation is helping in making the people aware of the initiatives taken.
• Effective monitoring of implementation of basic services like regular attendance of girl student in school, immunization, mid day meals, supplementary immunization programme, PDS, maternal benefit, widow pension scheme, disability benefit, safe drinking water, self help group etc.

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