TIMBAKTU COLLECTIVE

A BRIEF UPDATE OF ALL PROGRAMMES

Initiated in 1990 with an experiment in regenerating and healing a piece of degraded land named Timbaktu, the Timbaktu collective works in the drought affected Ananthapur district, AP, India. It works with marginalized sections of people especially women, children, youth, dalits, small and marginal farmers, landless labour and people with disabilities in 140 villages.

The work with women was initiated in 1992 with the objective of economic and sociopolitical empowerment of rural marginalized women. This programme named Swasakthi has promoted three autonomous thrift cooperatives which together have a membership of 12000 women and a capital of Rs 5 crores. These cooperatives also run legal counseling and support centers to deal with issues concerning women’s rights. In the last quarter the Collective organized astrategic planning workshop for the leadership of the cooperatives for their future direction. The cooperatives have now decided to register the informal network they have and have also decided to extend their work into new areas.

The Collective initiated it’s work with children in 1992 by starting an alternative learning centre for dropout children namely the Nature School (Prakruthi Badi) at Chennekpothapalli village. This centre is up to 10th standard now. The Collective initiated a residential alternative learning centre for dropout/ children in difficult situations in 1994 at Timbaktu. Further activities with children include children’s resource centers, the arts and crafts centre, the Bhavani weaving centre, the children’s sanghas and children’s camps. Last year another programme namely ‘Back to Basics’ was also taken up to support children with learning difficulties. There are 45 Balala Sanghas with over 1300 Children. Under Back to Basics,60 volunteers worked with 2000 children from 100 schools based in 90 villages. The second phase of this programme is being initiated now.

In the last quarter, the attempt is to consolidate all work with children. A child rights training was held with the objective of evolving a common conceptual base. The concerned working group has been redefined to include all members working for children.

The work with youth is called ‘Yuvatha’. Under Yuvatha, youth sanghas are organized and training programmes on relevant themes like gender, environment, dalit issues, panchayat raj, RTI, NREGA, SEZ etc conducted.A youth cultutal team namely ’Marpu Yuva Kala Mandali” is organized which takes up an annual theme and conducts a campaign in the area of operation of the Collective. The themes taken up so far include gender issues, environment, SEZ, child rights, agrarian crisis etc.

The Kalpavalli programme for regeneration and development of common lands has been working on greening of 6500 acres of common lands. The people’s organization involved in this work is registered as the Kalpavalli tree growers cooperative. Benefits from this regenerated land include fodder, thatch grass, date palm tree fruits and fonds, toddy tapping, and many minor forest produce. Of late the Kalpavalli benefited by the new programme of the state government on CPR (Common Property Resources) which is linked to NREGA. About Rs 60 lakhs of CPR/NREGA works have been taken up so far in Kalpavalli area.Kalpavalli faces threatby windmills and mining companies and the Kalpavalli tree growers cooperative is taking all steps possible.

The Collective initiated a programme on promotion of organic farming and marketing in 2005. Under this, farmer sanghas are organized at village level including men and women with each family committing 3 acres of lands for organic farming. The sanghas are federated under the Dharani farming and marketing cooperative which also does the marketing of the produce. The produce is certified under PGS (Participatory Guaranty System). In continuation of this effort, recently the Collective also took up the initiative of CREM (Certificate course in Rural Enterprise Management) to develop people competent to promote business enterprises in the villages.

The Collective has also taken up watershed programme supported by NABARD. Besides the Collective has taken up the legal holding of the E & E (Empowerment and Entitlement) Coalition inspired ICCO.

The MILITHA Programme

The Collective started work with people with disabilities in 2001.During the first two years of Militha, the work was taken up by the team of the Collective who were working for other programmes. The focus of this phase was to collect information on people with disabilities, types, age group, gender and numbers and so on. This period served to establish rapport with people with disabilities and their families. Besides, the programme was able to refer a few people with disabilities for surgeries, assistive devices and to access benefits from Government schemes.

With the help of an anonymous donor, three field staff were employed. They were trained free of cost over four weeks. They acquired basic skills in rehabilitation, communication and facilitation and skills to work with families and communities. The main focus of the work was to enable people with disabilities to form Cross Disability Self Advocacy Groups.(CDSAGs).

In 2004, the Collective was able to raise Rs.5,00,000/- from ABILIS, Finland. Militha was sustained with this funding till October 2006.Thereafter, it received funding from Infosys Foundation, India ABILIS, Finland and Disability Development Partners (DDP),U.K. The Militha Programme has a three year funding agreement with DDP starting January 2007.DDP has also secured funding for Feb 2009 to March 2010 from the Jersey Overseas Aid Committee. This fund is to work with Children with different disabilities – early identification, assessment, appropriate rehabilitation, Interventions such as surgery, language and communication development including speech therapy, physio/occupational therapy, activities of daily living, life skills, functional academics and to set up an Orthotic Repairs and maintenance workshop. The Collective is the fiscal sponsor for a one year grant(Sep 2009 to Aug 2010) from the Disability Rights Fund for the CBO of persons with disabilities called Prathibha – Mutually aided co-operative society(MACS) to promote the implementation of The Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities(CRPD) in the working area of the Collective.

The aim of ‘Militha’ is to facilitate a community based organization of people with different disabilities to protect and promote their rights and to provide basic services such as rehabilitation and functional academics. Its activities include :

  • Facilitating CDSAGs at the village level comprising of people with Physical, Visual, Hearing, Intellectual and multiple impairments from 0 to 40 years and above;
  • Facilitating Mandal level Prathiba chapters of these CDSAGs;
  • Facilitating an Apex Body of representatives of these 3 mandal chapters of CDSAGs called Prathibha MACS,Registered March 2008;
  • Livelihood support to CDSAGs through education and seed capital ;
  • Training people with disabilities in facilitation, advocacy, management and networking;
  • Providing home based rehabilitation services, referrals and follow up;
  • Training people with disabilities and their families in rehabilitation skills;
  • Education of children with disabilities in main stream and special schools;
  • Programme Management

60 CDSAGs have been formed in 56 villages of the three mandals with a membership of 725 people with different disabilities: children, women and men from 0 to 60 years.

.Their activities include :

  • Advocacy on issues of persons with disabilities and to obtain entitlements;
  • Thrift to increase their credit worthiness to access financial assistance from Banks and other sources;
  • Assisting Militha Team in rehabilitation related activities such as identification, follow-up and contribution for providing these services;

Each CDSAG nominates one Woman and one Man to a mandal level chapter referred to above. The three mandal level chapters meet once a month and have their own office bearers – President, Secretary and Treasurer. The objectives of these chapters are :

  • To encourage people with disabilities from surrounding villages to form new CDSAGs;
  • To strengthen existing CDSAGs;
  • To address problems in CDSAGs such as leadership and managing their money;
  • To plan and review activities of Militha;
  • To appraise and recommend applications from members for financial assistance to Prathibha MACS;
  • To follow-up on repayment of loans;
  • To appraise and recommend applications from members for referrals and rehabilitation services to Militha;
  • To admit children with disabilities in main stream and special schools and provide follow up;
  • To take up common issues for advocacy such as obtaining houses, ration cards etc;

and

  • To support the Militha Team at the village and the mandal level with its work.

Four members – two women and two men are nominated by these 3 chapters to form the Executive committee of the Apex body, Prathiba MACS registered in March 2008.Prathibha meets four times in a year. The members of the CDSAGs form the general body of Prathiba by paying Rs.10 as membership fee. The objectives of Prathiba are :

  • To increase its capacity to take responsibility to manage the work of Militha independently in the future;
  • To formulate policies for its work and to monitor it;
  • To increase the membership;
  • To increase its ability to access financial and other services for its members;
  • To advocate for the promotion and protection of Rights of persons with disabilities using the CRPD and RTIA;
  • To establish linkages with other CBOs of people with disabilities and of other marginalized groups for advocacy and other support;
  • To facilitate the formation of a Cross Disability District Federation and
  • To fund-raise for its work.

Prathibha has received its first funding for its first project from the disability rights fund to the tune of Rs. 10 lakhs. This is the one year project to promote the implementation of CRPD. It has employed 7 people with disabilities, the coordinator being a visually impaired gentleman and a team of six facilitator’s three women and three men with physical impairment. It is developing a innovative methodology of training people to promote the implementation of this convention. It sees rights based work not just as enforcement of law but of changing social behavior. Hither to it has organized 4 training programmes attended by 35 people from 5 NGOs who are also promoted federations of persons with disability. These 5 NGOs are from 6 districts.

Prathibha and the other participating federations are conducting a survey on the statues of all children including disabled children of school going age in a given format: those who are attending schools, dropouts, reason for dropouts and those not attending schools and the reason for not attending. This includes children in pre school (Anganvadi). This data is certified by the secretary of the Panchayat, a government representative. This information will be used to make a citizen’s report as a tool for advocacy with the government to enable these children to attend school.

This initiative will soon begin to collect evidence based data on violence against children including disabled children. This data would be used to make a citizen’s report as a tool for advocacy to engage with the government and other civil society organizations to reduce violence against children. The rights based work with children sited above includes children with disabilities. Violence against children is one of the issues of concern to these associations of children.

Prathibha is an active member in the constitutional committee of the cross disability District Federation. This federation was inaugurated on the 3rd of December. Prathibha is taking the lead in developing a constitution for a cross disability district federation, probably first of its kind in the world giving due representation for people with different disabilities. Currently this district federation called Ananta Vikalangula Hakkula Vedika has a membership of about 28000 people with different disabilities.

The international day of persons with disabilities on 3rd December was observed in a grand manner in the three mandals. The celebrations were organised entirely by the Prathibha members including raising money for this event amounting to Rs. 58,000/- in cash and kind.

The members attend the mandal level federation meeting at their own cost except for one way bus fare every month as the program does not have funds to provide them with travel and lunch.

The Team currently consists of 13 people from Militha and 7 from Prathibha : 12 – facilitators, 6 - para professionals in rehabilitation and two coordinators. The 6 para professionals include 2 speech therapists, 2 – Special educators,1 – development therapist and 1- Orthotic Technician. Out of these 20 members - 11 are women. Out of the 20 members, 18 have either impairment or a family member with impairment. The facilitators are responsible for institutional development, advocacy, promoting implementation of CRPD and rehabilitation related activities. Their skills are constantly upgraded through on- the-job-training and through short term workshops.

The Current status of the programme is as follows :

  • No. of groups: 60
  • Members: 728
  • Savings: Rs. 8,92,534/-
  • Members contributions for services rendered: Rs. 40,676/-
  • Financial assistance from banks and other financial institutions : Rs. 20,75,000/-
  • Financial assistance from the Collective: Rs. 6,15,000/-
  • Total 270 members from 22 Groups benefited from these assistance by starting on improving their livelihood opportunity.
  • Houses : 239 under Indiramma programme
  • Pensions: 529
  • Corrective surgeries: 35
  • Assistive devices 123
  • Regular medication for Epilesy: 28people,
  • Speech therapy : 28 children,
  • Home based therapy: 42 children,
  • Intervention for ADLs : 25 children,

School going children

Sl.
No. / Disability / Boys / Girls / Total
1. / Loco motor / 9 / 7 / 16
2. / Hearing impaired / 2 / 3 / 5
3. / Intellectual impairment / 6 / 5 / 11
4. / Visual impairment / 3 / 2 / 5
5. / Cerebral palsy / 1 / 1 / 2
Total / 21 / 18 / 39

Members in Bala sanghas

Sl.
No. / Disability / Boys / Girls / Total
1. / Loco motor / 3 / 5 / 8
2. / Hearing impaired / 1 / 2 / 3
3. / Intellectual impairment / 4 / 6 / 10
4. / Visual impairment / 0 / 1 / 1
5. / Cerebral palsy / 2 / 0 / 2
Total / 10 / 14 / 24

The children with disabilities are visited once a month by the para rehab professionals. The facilitators do the follow up with each child at least once a week. Each facilitator works in ten villages.

Individual intervention plans have been made for 40 children and are regularly updated both in the file with the family and the file in the office. Teaching and learning materials have been designed and made by the rehab team and are used by 72 children with different disabilities.

The impact of this work so far on people with disabilities and in the community are:

  • Evidence of Leadership;
  • Evidence of ability to advocate and network;
  • Inclusion in family ,community life and in the other programmes of the Collective;
  • Evidence of increase in accessing entitlements, livelihood options and education; and
  • Evidence of increasing credit worthiness;
  • Evidence of children with disabilities enjoying their childhood through play, learning and cultural activities.

Disability was a non issue in the family and community. Today disability is visible and there are role models which have emerged as a result of this project in education, livelihood family life, enjoying childhood. The quality of life of people with disabilities has improved both in terms of participation and income generation. They have increased their capacities to organize and advocate for themselves and to build alliances with other marginalized groups. Four people with disabilities from the SHGs have become part of the development team of Prathibha.