The Prakriya team of RLEK is working in 100 remote villages in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand under the project "Community Empowerment for Sustainable Development." Supported by the United Nations Development Project (UNDP) and the Government of India (GOI), this project aims to foster rights based development through a process of social mobilization in these remote villages.

Despite the fact that Uttarakhand is abundant in natural resources, this is not reflected in its poor economy. Attempts at developing economic activities based on the natural wealth remain largely underdeveloped in most economic and social aspects. Lack of access to education and health facilities, absence of roads, electricity and other basic infrastructure and the relative neglect by the government machinery has had a negative impact on the socio-economic condition of hill communities. Subsistence agriculture is the mainstay of these hilly areas, with animal husbandry providing an important supplementary income; these traditional occupations have been adversely affected with the introduction of the market economy. Extreme poverty and high levels of unemployment have resulted in the widespread migration of young men from the hilly regions to the plains in search of employment, either in the army or as low-paid domestic workers.

Women occupy a low status in society and are marginalized in all spheres of life. Despite the fact that women have been playing an important role in the local economy for several generations, women in this region are notoriously overworked. They are responsible for the majority of agricultural work (with the exception of ploughing), as well as tending to all the household and domestic chores. It is not uncommon for women to work up to 16 hours a day. The fact that, due to snow and monsoon rains, the majority of these villages are cut off from the rest of the world, for five months, adds up to the predicament of the communities. In an attempt to address these inequalities, the project specially focuses on women, who are the main beneficiaries under the project.

This innovative and integrated development project has been assisting the economically and socially disadvantaged groups from these villages, spread across the districts of Tehri, Uttarkashi and Dehradun, in the hill regions of Garhwal. This project is highly participatory, following a community empowerment approach, which focuses on building social capacity by supporting people's initiatives and organisations. The project is issue-based in terms of addressing major problems commonly identified across the three districts by the communities, and area-based in terms of addressing area-specific problems. It aims to empower the communities to take responsibility for their own development, for bringing about lasting changes and for ensuring sustainability of the process.

Community organisation through Self-Help-Groups (SHGs) forms the backbone of the project. Comprising mostly of women, these groups aim to promote savings and credit, while at the same time, working as pressure groups to address social issues such as education, health, liquor consumption, lack of access to natural resources etc. Trainings have also been provided to the SHG members, to create awareness on community health, traditional agricultural practices, micro-credit, veterinary practices, water resource management, Panchayat Raj and other relevant issues. These trainings have been instrumental in increasing women's abilities and confidence so that they can make an effective contribution towards community development.

The women's groups have initiated a number of campaigns in order to raise awareness around issues, such as 'Save the Seed Campaign', 'Anti-liquor campaign' and 'Girl child education'. Padyatras and demonstrations have been organised by the SHGs to alert people to these issues. The women from some of the villages in Uttarkashi district have succeeded in motivating the community to take collective action to ban liquor brewing and consumption in the village. A system of fines has been imposed on violators and a surprise raid committee has been set up to catch offenders. In order to improve the quality of primary education in the villages, SHG members have approached the district educational authorities to regulate the system. In the subsequent meetings that took place between SHGs, community members, teachers and officials, many of the SHGs have taken responsibility for monitoring the attendance of teachers in schools.

Providing alternative sources of income, in addition to awareness generation, is an essential component for poverty alleviation. This is being addressed through technical and financial assistance through the project. Based upon demand from the group members, capacity-building training programmes have been organised and micro-capital for investing in small-scale income generation activities has been given to the SHGs. Successful income generation activities that have been taken up and developed by the groups include, food processing units, making pickles, jams and sauces using locally available resources; dairy, goat and chicken farming and non-seasonal vegetable cultivation. Exposure visits for SHG members to other parts of the country have been conducted, (e.g. Rajasthan, Gujarat, Hyderabad) for sharing experiences and learning from examples of successful community development initiatives.

Increased community solidarity has led to collective action to address the village level problems. For example, voluntary labour (shramdaan) has been provided for the construction of water harvesting structures; community contribution towards village funds for operation and maintenance of water resources and the development of nurseries and plantations on Panchayat lands. In order to compensate for the inadequate basic services available in the village, a cadre of para-professionals have been trained in each region in order to compensate for the lack of government support services. Community members have been trained as para-vets, para-health workers, para-plumbers and para-horticulturists; these people act as resource people in their village and also aim to establish and develop linkages with the relevant government departments.

In each of the three blocks a community-based organization (samiti) has been formed. These samitis comprise of elected peoples representatives and have also been registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860. It is envisaged that these samities shall address the region-specific problems and coordinate and take on development activities in their respective regions. Trainings programmes have been conducted for the members of the samities, for building their capacities in organizational management and for identifying and dealing with regional development issues.

Women SHG members were keen to unite women from their respective Blocks in order to build a stronger platform for addressing their problems. Consequently, women's Federations were formed in the three areas under the project. The all-women membership allows prioritization of women's issues with minimal interference from men. The Federations allow the more active members of the SHGs to assume a lead role in addressing and facilitating development activities and in bringing women's perspective to the forefront of the development agenda. Drawing strength from the women's collective, these Federations are in a better position to lobby and advocate, at a higher level, the issues being raised by the SHGs.

A people-centered approach has been the underlying principle behind all the project activities and since inception the project has focused on community mobilization and capacity building, rather than on service delivery. This process is imperative if there is to be a sustainable impact, however building social capacity is also a lengthy process, especially in such remote areas and amongst some of the most marginalized communities. Despite the difficulties, the project has succeeded in initiating a process of change in these communities. Community mobilization and formation of people's organizations is instrumental in ensuring sustainability of the process set in motion by PRAKRIYA. However, these organisations are still in the evolutionary stage and will require further support, after the project period comes to an end in December 2002.