Palghar: Mumbai’s neighboring district, Palghar, is grappling with the Covi-19 pandemic with a mid-September tally of more than 29,000 cases.
In a bid to provide for sustainable access to food and livelihood, the Mary Help of Christians Parish in Naigoan, run by the Salesians, joined local area leaders, government institutions, partners, and parishioners to help 300 residents in the area procure ration cards and employment.
Father Dominic Martis, rector of the institute and parish priest, initiated a collaborative capacity-building project after conducting a needs-based assessment which pointed to the dire need for sustainable access to food and livelihood.
The parish has traditionally followed a service-delivery model to help local people. However, they adopted a capacity-building approach, given the extraordinary circumstances due to Covid, Father Martis said.
The rector and his team assessed the needs of the local residents and set up help desks that coordinated between the internal and external stakeholders.
“We used a human rights based approach model for resilience and relied on participatory governance mechanisms so that the stewards—the local communities—also become the primary beneficiaries of this resilience and sustainability model for food security and livelihoods,” Father Martis said.
“There are two stakeholder groups in rights-based development—the rights holders (who do not experience full rights) and the duty bearers (the institutions obligated to fulfill the holders’ rights). Rights-based approaches aim at strengthening the capacity of duty bearers and empower the rights holders.”
The gap between the rich and poor is widening and according to the World Development Report, nearly half of the world’s population lives on less than US$2 a day.
Statistics published by Center for Monitoring Indian Economy Consumer Pyramids Household Survey provide a glimpse at how the pandemic has affected the region. The survey stated that from April and July, in the age group of 25-29, 11 million jobs were lost. But job losses in the workforce aged less than 40 were much higher, at 19.6 million.
At a more micro level, Mary Help of Christians Parish caters to around 1,100 Catholic families. The initiative undertaken by the parish enabled the parishioners to get their entitlements through this rights-based approach.
“The short term goal was that the families living in the neighborhood get access to government schemes pertaining to food and hence The Sustainable Access to Food and Livelihoods along with Job opportunities for the youngsters,” Father Martis, said.
Two help desks were set up in the parish.The first was to facilitate employment and the second to gather the data regarding ration card.
The parish pastoral council members taught people about the help desk’s purpose. The resume of candidates seeking employment came through the counil members.
Government ration-welfare schemes provide residents with saffron ration cards with 2 kg rice, 3 kg wheat and 2 kg Dal. The parish worked with local ration stores to help locals get access to the food grain.
“I was indeed very happy to co-operate and collaborate with your parishioners of Mary Help of Christians, Nagioan since most of the people have to come from very far,” Bhanumati Padmakar Patil, owner of a ration shop at Juhuchandra, Naigoan, said.