“Collaboration is not
about gluing together existing egos. It’s about the ideas that never existed
until after everyone entered the room.”
I had always heard
about the terms like collaboration, intensive engagement, scaling up, impact, and
systemic changes etc which were nothing more than jargons to me! Not because I didn’t
know meaning, but because they were used without any soul to them. Working with
adolescents from 3 different slum communities and starting our campaign Kadam
Milakar chalna hoga, we got an opportunity to meet Chandni Singh, Chief
Development Officer, Baghpat. We were meeting an IAS officer for the first time
and all sorts of thoughts and judgments were jumping all over my mind, contrary
to that it turned out to be engaging meeting where both of us could clearly
state our area of work and concerns, so the expectations about collaboration
ahead was cemented in the very first meeting. The discussion also lead to a
common ground of understanding which was empowering women by engaging them through
our curriculum leading to aware women who could become effective decision maker
while sustaining their SHGs for financial independence.
With discussion in the
first meeting, we got to see an alternative reality that the government wants
to work, they need support of NGOs/people to help their ground machinery work
effectively to provide public with the profits of the schemes made. For Sahas,
we always believed in collaboration with basic requisite that the partners
should believe in the need of the work, engage with each other at different
level and logistic support.
As young people, it was
our first attempt to collaborate with government body, we were on our toes,
excited and also in awareness that we would be reaching out to large number!
The first meeting was followed by community visit- there was an event in Binauli,
Uttar Pradesh by NRLM team, around 500 women from different villages gathered-
we engaged with around 100 women in terms of what are they doing, how is their
experience working with SHGs, are there any benefits and others. It was
enthralling experience to be with women from rural context, hearing their struggles
and still managing to live life. We were sure that we would want to engage with
women from NRLM scheme
.
We got lot of inputs
and learning’s as to how government machinery works, the intention to support
people was there- the benefits to the last thread was also evident, the only
and one of the biggest problem was lack of awareness about the information
regarding these schemes. While working with 67 women from different SHGs in two
groups – we documented each and every thing in details, which was also shared
with the CDO after each workshop, it was great to see that all points of
improvement were taken care of from their side and we also took the suggestions
in the most constructive way to give better experience to the women
participants.
On behalf of Sahas, we
built a strong rapport with both the participating women and the authority
directly working with the women. There was strong value of punctuality which
was evident by the mobilization of the women, and their timely appearance at
the venue. Apart from the above, we co-created designs, took inputs from the
officials and interestingly the last workshop on “feminist leadership” was
co-created on the lunch table with Mr. Aslam who directly works with the women.
The involvement of the government coordinators was amazing as there were timely
arrangements of the logistics, we got inputs from time to time and they never shied
away from sharing the feedback which kept the process transparent for both of
us.
The last workshop was
very interesting as it provided platform for interaction between the different
groups from morning and afternoon session, there was extended interaction
between government and women in terms of policies- giving right information and
opportunities. In spite of an extremely busy schedule, CDO Chandni ji came for
the last workshop, her presence was very crucial as she could directly interact
with the participants, get the energy of them while engaging in the workshops.
She also asked them about their experience and whether such workshops should be
conducted for other women- there was thumping “Yes” from them. She then distributed
certificates to the participants who were overwhelmed and extremely excited on
receiving it and interacting with the CDO. Interestingly the decision for our
next cycle was taken instantly there in the last workshop by asking question
regarding the same.
In terms of need,
values, support, respect and trust, this collaboration has been best by far.
The icing of the cake was the newspaper coverage of Sahas intervention with the
women from SHGs in Binauli in a national daily Dainik Jagran.
This intervention
turned out to be a positive example of cross sectoral engagement where NGO and
government body working together for the people with an intention to empower
them to lead a better life
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