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ABOUT US

Rajadighi Community Health Service Society (RCHSS) is a non-governmental, non-profit organization, serving over one million local community members of two districts of West Bengal, India. Among the various ethnic groups, we work with are approximately 150,000 tribal people and 320,000 Indo-Mongols, comprising mainly of underprivileged, marginalized agrarian families. All RCHSS community activities are based on solidarity and co-operation transcending cultural and communication borders. RCHSS is presently working within a limited locality to create a small-scale developmental model for global sustainability. 

 

It is an important task for RCHSS to create practical possibilities for the men and women in these remote areas to take part in crucial planning and decision-making at the grassroots level. Public advocacy, the dissemination of information, and documentation of current issues are focal points of our work. RCHSS uses holistic measures of analysis to determine the needs of the local people and implements methodologies consistent with the local cultural lifestyle. RCHSS methodologies strive to create a productive learning environment, incorporating emergent scientific models of sustainability, in order to empower the people and help recover their degraded morale.

Partnerships for Success

 

RCHSS has a partnership with many local and international organizations, as well as the local, state, and national governments. Most notably, RCHSS has a partnership network with more than 600 community-based women’s groups within an 850 square kilometer region. In conjunction with these women’s self-help groups, RCHSS creates activities to remedy different issues encompassing women’s rights, healthcare, food security, education, environmental challenges, disaster relief, and pro-poor governance.

 

Why partner with women’s groups?

 

Women, being socially exploited and oppressed, often find themselves in unendurable living situations. They work longer hours than their male counterparts and travel long distances, barefoot, to collect fuel and water. They receive lower wages than men for the same work and are not allowed an equal amount of food. When the men are finished eating, women get the scraps, regardless of whether they are pregnant or nursing. This disparity goes beyond the home. If a child is blessed with access to healthcare, it is always the boy that has the priority, not the girl. In general, girls are seen as a burden to their poor families and are frequently married by the age of twelve or thirteen. This means that they begin having children before the age of eighteen, thus the cycle is perpetuated.

 

This discrimination denies women a voice in the decision-making process, regardless of how the outcome of these decisions may affect them. Since women’s rights are at the base of this overwhelmingly disastrous structure, RCHSS guides the local women in becoming leaders of change by facilitating the formation and maintenance of women’s groups in each village.

Strategy
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RCHSS believes in the importance of communicating with community members at the grassroots level. When a specific group is in need, RCHSS facilitates the development of integrative programs within the community, according to the group’s goals and expectations. These community-based self-help groups work in partnership with RCHSS to promote a more proactive approach in community decision making. 

Objectives

 

  • Environmental protection and regeneration

  • Improvement of women’s status

  • Advancements in community health and education

  • Increases in disaster resilience

  • Reduction of poverty rates

  • Preservation of local wisdom and resources

  • Enhancement of people’s capacity to gain and exercise democratic and human rights

  • To ensure inter-generational equity

Key Achievements

 

  • Increased participation of women in local government

  • Advanced toward people-oriented power structures

  • Mobilized existing human and natural resources for greater self-reliance

  • Revitalized traditional bio-farming methods through natural demonstration sites

  • Established links to government resources

  • Broadened the knowledge base of disaster risk reduction and resilience among vulnerable regions

  • Strengthened the processes of the Panchayat (localized government) system

  • Facilitated self-help groups to participate in different livelihood innovations by the farmers and academics

  • Developed programs reaching over 145,000 rural households

From our hearts, with our hands, for the earth, all the world together.

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