People's Rural Development Association

	*Focusing on the Poor and vulnerable...*

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Resolution

Future Initiatives

Proposals for future development initiatives and partnerships

Proposal 1

*PRDA’s accumulated experience, knowledge and resources:*
	PRDA having worked in the tsunami affected communities and their adjoining communities with high incidence of poverty in the South of Sri Lanka over the past two years has accumulated on one hand a wealth of experience and knowledge particularly in relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts and on the other hand a resource base that can be effectively utilized for future development initiatives of these communities. Among the resources accumulated is a comprehensive data base of individual families, social and poverty assessments and village development plans - updated periodically – and conducted through a participatory process, a team of village animators trained in relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work and capable of adopting participatory approaches and methodologies, a number of community based organizations of poor and vulnerable families and physical infrastructure facilities such as disaster mitigation centres - which are also used for multiple community events, conducting training programmes etc. - and an information, communication and technology centre and a library. The interventions of PRDA in the tsunami affected communities and their adjoining poor communities included a) providing basic needs of the affected and the poor families such as housing, toilets, nutritious food for pregnant mothers, school uniforms, books and equipment for children, b) support for the revival of livelihoods destroyed in the tsunami and the development and the livelihoods of the poor families, c) psycho-social support for families and with a focus on women and children, d) construction of resting centres, net mending rooms and fish auction rooms for coastal fishing communities and e) improved access to information and communication technology particularly for rural youth and school children through the IT centre and the libraries.

*Searching for partnerships:*
	PRDA is now inviting partnerships from aid agencies, international non-governmental organizations, charity organizations etc. to partner with PRDA to support its new initiative to create multiple incomes for poor and vulnerable families in the Garanduwa, Henwela, Bandaramulla, Udumulla and Mirissa villages in the Weligama Divisional Secretariat Division in the Matara district, Southern Province of Sri Lanka. The target groups include the very poor families who do not have a stable source of income, poor families having members with disabilities and chronic diseases, poor widows without a source of livelihood, and the poor families whose livelihoods were directly or indirectly affected by the 2004 tsunami and are unable to restore them to their pre-tsunami levels.

*The new initiative proposed – problem, goals and objectives:*
	These poor and vulnerable families do not have a stable and regular source of income to meet their basic family needs. Mostly they depend on a single source of income and in calamities such as natural disasters, conflicts, illnesses etc. they are subject to severe shocks, difficulties and hardships. Domestic violence, alcohol/drug abuse and suicide are further ramifications of the economic hardships in these families. The level of risks and vulnerabilities associated with these families are substantially high and establishing only a single source of income for a poor family alone does not reduce their vulnerability to poverty and deprivation. They are also denied their rights to access resources (e.g. credit, grants, markets and other support services) from external agencies (e.g. government, aid agencies, NGOs, CBOs etc.) by powerful sections in the community and are excluded from participating in community based organizations. Or else they do not have the required capabilities to tap those resources. Though some poor families receive external assistance from aid agencies, resources made available to them are barely sufficient for a threshold level investment (investments that would generate sufficient incomes to fill up their family budget deficits and also for re-investment). As a result, assistance received is either used for other purposes such as consumption or else the livelihood activities initiated collapse after sometime as the families are unable to sustain them.

The proposed project aims at enhancing the wellbeing of poor and vulnerable families by providing them with a stable source of income. The expected outputs of the project include establishing diverse and multiple livelihoods for the poor, further strengthening their existing livelihood sources, providing financial grants/credit required for threshold level investment in economic activities, providing support services (backward and forward linkages) e.g. information, training, advice, technology, market linkages etc. for livelihoods and facilitating the formation of collectivities of producer families to penetrate into local, regional and national markets.

Proposal 2


*PRDA’s interventions:*
	PRDA has been facilitating and supporting the development initiatives among rural poor women in the dry zone district of Puttalam in the North-Western Province and the poverty stricken pockets in the wet zone district of Gampaha in the Western Province since 1989. The initiatives were primarily economic aimed at developing micro and small enterprises for rural women with the support of village level savings and credit programmes, credit from formal banks and capacity building training. More than 1000 rural women have been successful in establishing a micro or a small enterprise for themselves and generating incomes to supplement their family incomes. The other PRDA facilitated initiatives in the above mentioned two districts include technology transfer exchange programmes, child-centred development programmes, pre-schools for children, village infrastructure development projects and skills and capacity building programmes.

*Achievements:*
	PRDA has been successful in facilitating and sustaining over 40 community based organizations (CBOs) of rural women and around 30 pre-schools spread over the two districts, a federation of these CBOs, savings and credit programmes evolved around CBOs, the accumulated funds of which amounts to over Rs.30 million, a mini women’s bank entitled Enterprise Promotion Trust (EPT) managed by the CBO representatives, a training centre with residential facilities and eventually an outreach of more than 2500 rural poor families.

*Searching for partnerships:*
	PRDA is now inviting partnerships from aid agencies, international non-governmental organizations, charity organizations etc. to partner with PRDA to support its new initiative to improve the living conditions of the poor and vulnerable families in these rural communities by providing them with basic amenities required for a reasonable living. The target group includes the very poor families who do not have a stable source of income, poor families having members with disabilities and chronic diseases and the poor widows without a source of livelihood.

*The new initiative proposed –problem, goals and objectives:*
	Almost 65% of the meager incomes earned by poor and vulnerable families are spent on food consumption while the balance is spread over meeting expenses on medicine at times of illnesses, clothes, children’s education, purchasing kerosene oil for domestic lighting and to pay their recurring debts. In the circumstances, they do not have much cash savings to invest in improving their basic amenities such as housing conditions, sanitary facilities such as toilets, drinking water facilities, domestic lighting with grid connected electricity etc. They are also not bankable as they cannot meet the conditions imposed on credit by banks and other micro-finance institutions such as providing physical assets as collateral, government employees as guarantors and the high interest rates on loans. The implication is that these families suffer from leaking roofs during rainy season, communicable diseases particularly among children resulting from unhygienic sanitary conditions and polluted drinking water, insecurity in lives causing from unprotected drinking water wells, half-complete doors and windows and kerosene oil bottle lamps used for lighting in the nights. The families with disabled children are unable to look after their wellbeing by taking them to treatment and rehabilitation centres or to provide them with required aids prescribed for the handicapped such as audio-visual equipment, wheel chairs etc. As such, the psycho-social wellbeing of the poor and vulnerable is at low ebb with feelings of unhappiness, fear and anxiety, insecurity and distress. Sometimes their situations become worse when such families get displaced due to natural disasters and the on-going conflict.

	State interventions to support these poor and vulnerable families are limited to a minute food subsidy and a monthly cash allowance (public assistance) which is hardly sufficient to cover up the survival needs of these families. It is largely the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that fill up gaps in state interventions and look after the material and psycho-social needs of the families. However, their outreach is constrained by limited resources.

	Apart from the lack of material assistance to improve their household conditions, poor and vulnerable families also lack close guidance, counselling and facilitation on a continuous basis to put their meager resources and any other external support they receive into productive use and to improve their capacities to deal with crisis situations.

	The proposed project aims at enhancing the wellbeing of the poor and vulnerable families by providing them with basic amenities required for a reasonable living. The expected outputs of the project include mobilizing the Community Based Organizations (CBOs, affiliated to PRDA) to support the poor and vulnerable families in their communities, providing such families with basic physical infrastructure facilities (e.g. improved housing conditions, toilets, protected drinking water wells, improved lighting, aids for handicapped etc.) and facilitating a support structure to provide continuous guidance and counselling for these poor and vulnerable families.

Proposal 3: Developing community based mental health services in rural settings of Sri Lanka: A pilot project

PRDA invites partnerships for developing a community based mental health care model under its current Teasdale-Corti Trauma and Global Health (TGH) programme entitled “political violence, natural disasters and mental health outcomes: developing innovative health policies and interventions”, conducted in partnership with McGill University, Montreal Canada. The overall objective of this capacity building programme is to (a) enable mental health workers to improve their conceptual understanding of the community/social aspects of mental health; and (b) explore, design and implement appropriate interventions at the community level, in association with the communities concerned. The project will be developed and implemented in three overlapping stages: (a) dialogue and consultation with communities; (b) capacity building with local mental health workers; and (c) integration of the system into social welfare and health structures. A Concept Paper on this proposed initiative is available.