The Power of collective strength

“Since I got married and came to this village, I do not remember that we never had CC roads in our area village. We have mud tracks that run through our village. In the rainy season, the mud roads are full of slush and dirt, which was making very difficult for the villagers to travel. Specially for the children. Most of villager have cattle with cattle, using the roads and keeping the straying cattle together in a herd, was not less than the circus. Moreover, cycles and carts get stuck in the mud. We work either on farms or as a daily labour. This was very difficult for families who have to use this road regularly. Many of us has to fetch the water from the tap during the summary season which was located near the road.

Luckily KALP was working in our village providing us various trainings and constant inputs and guidance on the livelihood accesses of NREGA. They encouraged us to form the CBO to fight collectively for the concerning issues of the women and NREGA. Some women who suffered a similar plight brought the matter of road at the CBO meetings. Meanwhile KALP organized a big campaign for preparation of labor budget involving our CBO members and community. Sensing the importance of participation our CBO and community members took active part while preparing the labor budget all the women came together and decided to take up matter of road in micro planning. We brought the Rojgar sahayak and newly elected Sarpanch to the road to make them aware of the situation. We also participated in Gram sabha and made sure that the raised issues are sanctioned in Gram sabha. Now we have a good CC road and we women are very proud of it. Through this we have recognised the importance of collective strength and now nothing will stop us to do good work for village.

“We are relived from the mud roads, now we are having good CC Road. We are very much thankful to KALP & PACS for helping us to identify this problem through Micro-planning”.
Kunti Lahare, CBO Leader, Jaijaipur