Community Building : Communities demonstrating to be Exemplary.

Striving to ascertain the different elements of Community Building, the writer has been able to envisage the reason & cause of the downsizing a community at different places across different times.

Today we are going to pen certain communities those who have demonstrated to be exemplary overcoming the odds of its era. 

• Kudumbashree: an empowered women’s network in Kerala, formed close to 1.9 lakh WhatsApp groups with 22 lakh neighbourhood groups (NHGs) to educate on key safety measures as advocated by the government during lockdown. Community Kitchen initiative through the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) with the support of Kudumbashree has provided more than 8,651,627 free meals to the labourers, those, who are in quarantine, isolation, destitute & other needy persons. Distribution of millions of cooked meals and provision of free ration under the Public Distribution Scheme to those in need is reflective of a well-thought and a caring response and relief strategy.

• Sikh Community: has done commendable work of supplying meals to the healthcare workers, migrant workers, homeless, those in isolation and quarantine facilities all over the world. It is an extension of their religious philanthropic practice of ‘Langar’ which refers to treating everyone in need of food, irrespective of their class, caste, gender, race, as Guru’s (Preacher’s) guest and providing them with food in a spirit of equality, love and kindness.

• Tablighi Jamaat: with the emergence of Covid-19 clusters throughout the country, there was huge outrage against the community, and the country’s nearly 200-million strong Muslim population in general after the Indian government linked hundreds of cases of Covid-19 to this community, angry and virulent messages flooded social media purporting to show Muslims conspiring to spread the coronavirus.

After weeks of demonisation and abuse, the coming out of the Tablighi’s to donate their plasma, brings a ray of hope and positivity in a sectarian environment.

“People, who are now cured of Covid-19, should donate blood plasma to others who are still fighting the disease and are under treatment,” Muhammad Saad Kandhlawi, the head of the Tablighi Jamaat said in a statement. He is facing criminal charges for organising an event that which have sparked widespread criticism.

“I am happy after donating plasma once and would be happy to do it again. The doctor said that five coronavirus patients will benefit from my donation,” Tabrez Khan, the first plasma donor informed while interacting with the media.

“This has been a tough time for us and we have had to face insults and attacks. More of us will come forward to donate our plasma… hopefully that will end,” Rafiq Mian, another plasma donor told the media.

According to doctors, people who recover from the pandemic develop antibodies in their blood to fight the disease. This, in turn, is called “convalescent plasma”, and the process of transferring it is known as “convalescent plasma therapy”.

• Community in Gangles: in a ward of Leh, the capital of Ladakh, which is located 11,000 feet above the sea level usually considered to be one of the coldest place, suffers from acute water scarcities due to the extreme climatic conditions. With a state-of-the-art technical collaboration with The Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department of Ladakh, in collaboration with Ladakh Ecological Development Group, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Leh and Kargil districts, and Bremen Overseas Research and Development Association (BORDA) South Asia – a civil society organisation (CSO) with expertise in water management, conceptualised to implement a pilot project supplying piped water to Gangles with a further scope to scale it up in other areas. The Housing and Urban Development Department in Ladakh provided strong policy and implementation support for this initiative.

The purpose was to achieve high-quality water supply for residents through household tap connections in alignment with the National scheme of Jal Jeevan Mission (Urban). The project was initiated in 2021 and set out to address the key challenges of high elevation, low winter temperatures, uneven terrain, and dispersed households by developing an insulated pipe distribution network connected to a reliable water source that could make water available all day, every day, at 75 litres per person per day. A plan was drawn up to provide a piped water supply to more than 35 households in Gangles, where residents have not experienced a constant water supply for 60 years.

The combined awareness raising, sensitisation and community involvement right from the nascent stages of the pilot project developed trust and enabled a sense of ownership among the community. Furthermore, extensive engagement between the city authorities and citizens established a strong partnership towards a common cause. The community were therefore willing to contribute towards the cost of insulated pipe connections from boundary walls of properties to households, ensuring both buy-in and a sense of ownership. Residents made small structural changes in their homes to insulate pipes and prevent freezing and undertook pipe repairs to reduce water leakages, which resulted in a strengthening of the entire water supply network.

The improved piped water supply system now includes: an ultrasonic water meter; a pressure- reducing valve at the main distribution pipeline that connects to households; a bulk flow meter heat tracing cable; and insulated pipes at the household level. The pipes are insulated to prevent freezing during the harsh winter season, therefore also minimising any interruptions to the water supply. Automatic meter readings are used to capture real-time data for efficient water management as well as future planning.

• INDIAN PEACE-KEEPING COMMUNITY IN THE UNITED NATIONS:

Peacekeeping is one of the core mandates of the United Nations, and it is also one of the most exemplary demonstrations of India’s leadership and moral courage on the global stage. In 2016, India set an example to generations of police officers and young women everywhere by deploying the world’s first female Formed Police Unit to the peacekeeping mission in Liberia where they served during the Ebola crisis. India was also the first country to contribute to the Trust Fund to help victims of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Peacekeepers.

Today, India is the fourth largest troop contributor to UN peacekeeping. Over 6,400 personnel from India are serving in 10 missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Haiti, Lebanon, Cyprus, South Sudan, Abyei, the Middle East, and Western Sahara.

They stand between civilians and armed conflict, in some of the most complex security environments around the world. They engage in laying the foundations of sustainable, long term, peace. They facilitate political processes, they implement complex peace agreements, they support elections, they help restore the rule of law, they uphold human rights, they support vital state-building functions, they disarm and rehabilitate former combatants and child soldiers, they ensure the safe movement of humanitarian relief and convoys, and they protect the displaced.

Till date, over 2,00,000 Indian peacekeepers have served in 50 United Nations peacekeeping missions in the course of the UN’s history, which is a monumental contribution. Over the years 164 Indian Peacekeepers have made the supreme sacrifice in their fight to protect civilians. The world owes them, and their families an enormous debt of gratitude.

• AGAMI: set up in 2018, with the intent of moving from “stuckness” to “movement”, by finding the new energy (in the form of new innovators and new ideas) in the field, making them visible, building their capacities and co-creating new possibilities and new narratives for the Law & Justice (L&J) arena.

Agami has focused on catalysing field-building within multiple opportunities in L&J, within formal systems and outside. A notable example is Agami’s critical role in catalysing the ODR (Online Dispute Resolution) movement in India by nurturing entrepreneurs, mobilising high level Government and judiciary influencers, and playing the role of a market-maker, to enable more citizens and businesses to resolve disputes equitably, efficiently and at scale. Since 2018, the number of ODR start-ups grew from 3 to 20, the number of enterprises piloting ODR is now 100+, 10+ Indian States use ODR platforms in their Lok Adalat’s, as do RBI and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). NITI Aayog formulated a national policy for ODR and in December 2023, India’s market regulator SEBI released a master circular on ODR, leading to the setting up of Smart ODR for the Securities ecosystem in India. Today, close to 5.45 crore disputes have been onboarded by ODR providers. Institutions are seeing an increase in consent rate from 15-20% to 40%; and ODR enabled Lok Adalat’s have a settlement rate of 10-12%. Most financial disputes are settled through arbitration on these platforms with a settlement rate of 40% in family disputes.

Agami has also anchored a coalition of leading organisations that successfully advocated for a new vision for Phase III of the e-courts policy in September 2023. This policy commits to process transformation and adoption of a digital platform through a budget of Rs. 7,000 crores approved for it. Now, PUCAR (a collaborative initiative with 80+ innovators, anchored by Agami) is stepping up to realise the vision of transforming the dispute resolution experience in India. Over the past year, it has developed a clean sheet design for resolving cheque bouncing and motor vehicle compensation disputes; a prototype for a judge’s virtual assistance (JIVA), a voice-enabled chatbot that provides legal information for disputes (JAGRIT) and an open protocol for discovery and selection of legal service providers such as mediators or online dispute resolution providers (PULSE). It is now working with different High Courts to ensure the adoption of these digital public goods. Some of these are poised to go live in the nation’s judicial system in 2024.

• Yuksam Community: a participatory community planning ecotourism, along-with the collaboration with the Sikkim Biodiversity and Ecotourism Project (SBEP) in initiating a design to conserve the biological diversity of Sikkim, a small Himalayan state in Northeastern India.

Participants are involved in ecotourism planning, training courses, and conservation management – all of which reportedly use participatory learning tools that build upon “best practices” and Sikkim’s natural and cultural heritage. A combination of appreciative inquiry and modified participatory learning and action (PLA) tools provide the basis for planning, implementing, and evaluating community ecotourism activities. This type of participatory research approach involves asking questions such as: What do you value in your community and environment? What excites you most about where you live? What is the most positive vision you have of your environment and community in the future? What do we need to do to realise a vision of the future? The focus is on finding the causes of success and motivation rather than failure as the basis for community planning.

Yuksam has served as the basis for further planning for community ecotourism in other project sites in western Sikkim, and many of the lessons learned have been incorporated into other project activities such as training in ecotourism professions. In May 1996, a team of 5 project staff and 6 local residents worked with local community members to gather information and generate site-specific ideas for linking tourism-related activities to conservation efforts

To be continued……….

Writer Suvro Sanyal

Mavericknews30 has launched a series of articles on community building, sharing insights and success stories. Stay tuned for the next article as we explore how to create stronger, more connected communities!

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