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Toilets Bring Escalated Dignity: A Case Study

resident of Bolaranga, which is a small village in the Batemura Gram Panchayat of the Maneswar block of Sambalpur district. She belongs to a BPL family with her household income ranges between Rs. 700800 per month. Incidentally, she is also a member of an BISWA SHG Bolaranga-2 formed by BISWA in that village. After, community mobilization took place over there with numerous training sessions and awareness meetings; she gradually started to evaluate the necessity of a toilet not only for herself but also for her daughters. Prior to it, they were used to go for defecation outside in the fields or the forest nearby, which was a risky proposition from various angles. Many a times she could accompany her daughters to the field or

M s Kishori Naik is a

Published by Debabrata Malick, Chief Editor. The Link, at BISWA Computer Section, Danipali, Budharaja, Sambalpur. PIN-768004 Ph.No- 0663-2533597, Email: thelink@biswa.org

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Volume-103

Communicate Minds

1st June 2009

FORTNIGHTLY

Training on Mental Health

Our Source of Inspiration forest for the sake of their security. But very often she could not accompany them due to her preoccupancy and she had to remain at home in tension and anxiety till they come back home safely. This necessity has made her opt for a toilet at the backyard of her house. And now she is very happy about this. She feels secured and enjoys a sense of escalated dignity and status in her community. If you want to subscribe online The Link, please

Sri K. C. Malick Chairman, BISWA

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Pitabasa Sethi Duryodhan Malick Ajoy Shroff Shiv Prasad Meher Bibhu Prasad Mohanty Prasant Kumar Sahu Dr. Jharana Mishra Ninu Nair In this Issue... Editorial Training on Mental Health Other news of BISWA

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BISWA SHG TARADEVI : A Success Story

BISWA Taradevi is a Self Help Group based in the village Jahangirpatna in Balipatna Block of Khurdha district in Odisha. It is located in a very interior place. The members of this group are very poor and mostly illiterate. This is a unique group in the sense that most of the members are from working class, i.e. they earn their livelihood from daily labour. Still they have the zeal to work together and raise their quality of life in spite of facing all odds. They conduct weekly meeting regularly. After being associated with BISWA; the group members were motivated to be trained on the world-famous appliqu work of Pipili. The group availed loan of Rs. 94,584/- on 19.10.08 from BISWA under Micro Finance for business purpose. Since then they are paying back the loan on monthly instalments. Now they have opened a sales outlet of their own at Banamalipur market. One can easily observe how they have matured and improved their products in terms of both quantity & quality, as they are doing their work very efficiently. They use to supply their products to New Delhi, Bhopal, Mumbai, Goa and some foreign countries like Iraq and others. Officials from Canara Bank, ICICI Bank had visited the SHG and had praised their work. The group members engaged themselves not only in business but also in social activities. The group took steps to help the poor and uneducated children. The children were taught about how to keep the environment clean & educate themselves with earning their livelihood. In order to maintain the coordination among the group
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Chief Editor Debabrata Malick Editor Ashisbala Dash DTP Govinda Ch. Tripathy Central Office
BISWA At- Danipali, PO- Budharaja Dist. Sambalpur, PIN-768004 Tele fax- +91-663-2533597 Email:biswamalick@rediffmail.com, kcmalick@biswa.org www.biswa.org ORISSA Gada Gopinath Colony, In front of High School, Plot No. E/7, PO: Rasulgarh Bhubaneswar-751010 CHHATTISGARH K-7, Sector-2, Agrasen Nagar, In front of Deendayal Upadhyay Nagar Thana Ring Road No.1, Raipur Chowk, Raipur (C.G.)

State Offices

A six days' training programme on Mental Health was organised by Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychotic & Applied Science (RINPAS) at Ranchi from 11th to 16th of May 2009, wherein 18 participants from 9 Partner NGOs participated. The participants were informed not only about the general health but also about the mental health including mental disorder, mental illness & characteristics of mental health at the outset. They were given training on various methods of psychiatric interview and how to write a case history of a mental patient. They were also assigned to visit wards of mental hospital for practical exposure. The participants were given information on Autism and Aetiology of Psychiatric Disorder. They were also trained on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder & Post Trauma Disorder alongwith its treatments. The training programme also covered Schizophrenia, its aetiology

and treatment. They were taught about Epilepsy and how to eradicate the social stigma towards it. They came to know about moods and bipolar disorders. There was a special class on substance abuse and how it leads to mental illness. The main thrust was given on misconception of mental illness and role of NGOs to eradicate the social stigma attached to it. Ms. Bani Mohapatra & Ms Sarita Mohapatra represented BISWA and participated in the programme. Both of them are in the team that Manages SWADHAR. A SWADHAR Home is being run by BISWA, wherein women in difficult situations are given shelter. Its beneficiaries are very often facing to traumatised situations. Moreover women with mental illness are also brought there. So such special training on mental health is a must for its managers.

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E ditorial
Total Sanitation Campaign
could be seen as a real challenge for them, who really care for it. Even though it is a programme of the government but it has to depend on others for implementation. Then the implementation needs supports from socio-cultural behaviours of society, family & individuals. As for example, habit of open defecation is so deep rooted in the minds of some of us that it is just impossible to change the habit overnight. But incessant advocacy and awareness campaign to bring change in this habit may break the ice. There is light visible at the end of this dark tunnel. Some people are reforming their habits in sanitation. The campaign of promotion of individual household latrines (IHL) is able to yield result. The real life story of Ms Sarala Devi of Bolaranga village in Maneswar Block of Sambalpur district could be an eye opener for others. Ultimately she realised the necessity of an IHL at home. It has escalated her dignity in the society, as she confesses. Her self-realisation may make others imbibe her. Her reformation may inspire others to follow her in coming days. But the success story is to be propagated among others. And there is a role for we Civil Society Organisations to propagate her success story to derive desired result in Total Sanitation Campaign.

areas of Sambalpur district to understand the aspects in environmental sanitation. The total sample size was of 1600 individual respondents from 40 villages in Maneswar block, Sambalpur district. The study is undertaken to understand the waste disposal practises, both for solid as well as liquid in the rural areas. As per the study the rural people use to dispose their waste water usually in four identified places like drains, streets, collection pits & kitchen gardens. Unfortunately the majority of them used the streets as their choice of place for waste disposals, as 69.6 % admitted doing so. The next choice for them is the drains, as 20.7 % opted that. Only 8.1 % used their kitchen garden for this waste disposal, whereas the least 1.6 % preferred to use collection pit for this purpose. Similarly it is found that as good as 58.2 % of our rural people use to dump their garbage in the collection pit. It is a fair practice of course. Unfortunately more than one third, to be precise 37.6 %, uses to throw their solid waste on the road sides. Obviously such a practice pollutes the roadsides as well the adjoining atmosphere. Only 2.5 % of our rural people use dust bins to dump their garbage that speaks volumes of our lack of awareness in this matter. Then 1.6 %
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BISWA conducted a study in rural

Study on Environmental Sanitation

of our rural people use to burn down their solid waste. That may be good for disposing the garbage but very bad for the air as the smoke coming out of that fire pollutes the adjoining atmosphere. Then only 0.1 % of our rural mass use to throw their garbage in to their nearby drains. That percentage may be found low but that is of course a bad practice, which warrants awareness for them in this matter. Then as low as 0.1 % use to utilise their solid waste in their kitchen garden, which is of course appreciable. It is well understood that the present waste disposal system in solid as well as liquid is leading to environmental pollution. The waste that is laid down on the streets and roads find its way to the nearby source of water and polluting the precious water available from the Mother Earth. It also gives much scope to mosquitoes, flies and insects to spread dreaded diseases like malaria, jaundice and diarrhoea. Another issue is to be intervened, if the solid wastes are segregated and the bio waste is used as compost manure that may add to our agricultural yields. The conclusion arrived from the study may help BISWA to devise and design hygiene education and waste disposal methodologies.

Special Learning Centres for Urban Slums Awareness on NCS-TCP

meeting on verification of Special Learning Centre of Bhubaneswar Urban slum was organized by BISWA Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC) on 25th May 2009 at its office. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Prafulla Dhal, Director BRIC. It was attended by all the BRIC staff members and from head office Sri Rabindra Kumar Mohanthy, Manager Programmes BISWA participated in it. After a customary session of self introduction by participating members, the meeting entered into the business session. Mr. Dhal clearly spelt out the vision & mission of BISWA and future focus on education. He said that only Bhubaneswar is having 377 slums with 4.00 lacs population and 29% of them are children in the age group of 0-18 years. Out of 377 slums, only 100 and odd are registered under Bhubaneswar Municipality Corporation (BMC), where as the rest are under tremendous pressure in terms of getting government services. He also emphasized that there is a need in terms of right based development of the slum people and reach out to the children, who are most vulnerable without any access to schools. In the afternoon, a meeting was organized to meet the teachers of Special Learning Centres of BBSR slums. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Biswal, wherein 12 teachers attended from 7 schools. Similarly the teachers introduced themselves in the beginning to the chair. Most of the teachers were having requisite qualifications to continue in the present service. But they required on the job capacity building in emergent low cost teaching alongwith learning materials and different playway methods of classroom transactions. In the meeting, it was finalized to visit all the centres, and teachers were asked to inform their slum committees to attend the meeting as per the scheduled time and visit. On

paper on "Quality Certification of Tissue Culture: Role of Accredited Test Laboratory". Then Dr. Sanket Thakur, Managing Director Chhattisgarh Agricon Limited Raipur presented his paper on "Harnessing the potential of Tissue Culture Plants particularly Banana in Odisha". Dr. S.R.Dash, Climatologist, Department of Horticulture Bhubaneswar presented his paper on "Perspective of Odisha Government in expeditious implementation of NCP-TCP". Finally Dr. K.Gurumurthi, Former Advisor, Department of Biotechnology Government of India, made his concluding remarks. After the Interactive Session-III, Dr. K.Gurumurthy explained the modalities for organising district level awareness programmes on NCP2

TCP. Sri Arun Das, Manager Programmes BISWA participated in it on behalf his organisation & presented the role of BISWA in it.
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members; SHG meetings are held regularly and matters pertaining to health, peace and communal harmony are discussed elaborately. They also use to discuss on how to utilise their free time to earn extra money for their families. By this time, the SHG has become a developed and unique one in that area. All members are financially self-sufficient and socially conscious. The group is now an illustrated example like a bright star for other Self Help Groups, as it has become a source of inspiration for others.

26th of May'09, at Similibasti slum, Surya Nagar, Bhubaneswar, Mr. Pitabas Sethi, Secretary BISWA chaired the session. Many issues were discussed, wherein women members of the slums specifically raised the issues of alcoholism, non solidarity among people and non access of mainstreaming school education of their children. Here the special learning centre is found functioning in the community hall since last one year with a positive impact on their children's performances. Soon after that the team visited Rameswarpatna slum. The schools are running in a private rented house with a cost of Rs.2000/ per month. It was a pleasant surprise to notice that only women members participated in the meeting. After some interactions with the mothers and few adolescent girls, it was disclosed that there are many issues needs to be resolved soon with regards to employment and education of their kids. On 27th the team went to Jharana slum near Mancheswar. The school is functioning in the community building. Toilet and drinking water facility are not available anywhere close to the community hall. It was observed during the interactive sessions with the people that 52 children have access to that school. They disclosed that the school was started by "World Vision" and then "Ruchika" took over in the year 2002. After Ruchika "The Alpha Foundation" took over the school and last year it closed down the business. "BISWA" have taken over the management since last two months. It was noticed that the schools are functioning in the rented house in Science Park slum, where the classrooms are very small without having proper ventilation. There is no provision of toilet and drinking water facility for the students coming to that school. Although the slum is having similar kind of facility in the style of Crche School run by a local NGO, we found there is enough need for a "BISWA" school, because there are 2000 families. After visiting the slums, we sat at "BRIC" office to consolidate the findings. 3

n awareness programme on National Certification System for Tissue Culture Raised Plants (NCS-TCP) was organised by Biotech Consortium India Limited, New Delhi on May 29th 2009 at Hotel Swosti Plaza, Bhubaneswar. It was sponsored by Department of Biotechnology, Government of India New Delhi. In the inaugural session, the welcome address was delivered by Sri Shiv Kant Shukla, Deputy Manager Biotech Consortium India Limited New Delhi. He also explained the objectives of the programme. It was followed with a deliberation by Dr. K.Gurumurthi, Former Advisor, Department of Biotechnology Government of India. The key note address was delivered by Sri J.D.Sharma, Director of Horticulture Government of Odisha. It was followed by a special address by Sri Upendra Prasad Singh, Commissioner Cum Secretary Department of Agriculture Government of Odisha. Sri Satya Prakash Nanda, Agriculture Production Commissioner, Department of Agriculture Government of Odisha delivered the inaugural address. Syed Mohammad Mashfuqulla proposed the vote of thanks. It was followed by the Technical Session-I in the chairmanship of Sri Upendra Prasad Singh Commissioner cum Secretary Department of Agriculture Government of Odisha. Sri Shiv Kant Shukla, Deputy Manager Biotech Consortium India Limited presented a paper on "Commercial Application of Plant Tissue Culture, its Techno- Commercial Feasibility and an Overview of NCPTCP" in this session. A documentary film on NCP-TCP was shown after that. Dr. T.Mohapatra, Principal Scientist, Indian Agricultural Research Institute New Delhi presented his paper on "Criteria and Procedure of Test Laboratories & Recognition of Tissue Culture Production Facility". Then the Technical Session-II was conducted in the chairmanship of Sri J.D.Sharma Director Horticulture, Odisha. In this session, Dr. D.Sarkar, Principal Scientist (Biotech), Central Research Institute for Jute and Allied fibres Barrackpore presented his
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