Dependence on climate has been the core of tribal communities since ages but with time unpredictable weather pattern  has made the communities more and more vulnerable.

No matter what, tribal communities of Bundhelkhand, Baghelkhand, Malwa and Vindhya range of Madhya Pradesh depends on weather for the survival of their families and communities. Caritas India initiating a programme ‘Saksham’ to build the climate change resilience of tribal communities to address their socio-economic and agriculture issues.

Supported by Misereor, the programme will cater to 27889 households with a population of 91000 from 152 villages in 102 panchayats of 16 Development blocks in Umaria, Indore, Dhar, Sehore, Jhabua, Ujjain, Sidhi, Sagar and Shivpuri districts of Madhya Pradesh.

A write-shop was organised with the four implementation partners to finalise the programme proposal at Bhopal between June 27-30, 2017. Recalling the programme orientation held in New Delhi, partners shared their aspiration to work on agriculture and climate resilience, volunteerism, Local Resource Mobilization and People Led Development.

The proposed programme aims to achieve enhanced food and nutrition security, diversified livelihood for smallholder farmers, rights realization and promotion of adaptive agriculture. The community will be trained on adaptive agriculture by popularizing and strengthening adaptive and climate change resilient agriculture, reviving traditional farming to build agriculture sovereignty and ensuring cordial relationship of communities’ relationship with forest for food and livelihood.

Dr. Saju M.K., Manager, West Zone shared with the partners that People Led Development is an evolution of empowering animation from charity model through various previous approaches of development adopted by Caritas India. It stands on the pillars of people-led approach, powered and driven by people’s resources, leads to people’s self-reliance, and collectivism (unity & expression).

“To achieve agriculture sovereignty, we need to have traditional seeds, availability of water, Integrated Nutrient Management & Integrated Pest Management besides the market” said Dr. Saju.

Partners were facilitated with programme formats like proposal, budget and timelines to design the proposal.

The write shop was facilitated by Dr. Saju M.K., Zone Manager, West zone with the support of Mr. K. A. Sebastian, State Officer, Madhya Pradesh and Mr. Soju Mathew, Finance Officer, M.P. All the eight Diocesan Directors of Social Work along with their project coordinators from ANWC Bhopal, IDSSS Indore, JDSSS.