About Prakalpa
GENESIS
THE BEGINNING…
PRAKALPA had very humble beginnings in 1984. A group of enthusiastic college students who were active in the student movement decided to join the cause of social development and with a zeal to set up a social organisation sat in the village pandal and laid the first foundation of the organisation called PRAKALPA. They began with small programmes, talking to the villagers, mobilising community and doing community based work. The beginning was to advocate for different issues and the success of their programme lay in their strength of activism and the way they created a mass movement to bring together the community and the government programmes meant for them. In the beginning it was mostly non-funded programmes and whatever funds were ever required were contributed by the members and the community itself.From its non-registered status, it became formally registered and institutionalised in 1988 and was registered as an NGO under Societies Registration Act.
JOURNEY OF PRAKALPA….
THE 90s…
Then began a journey when the activism of these social workers spread to the entire district and came to the fore specially during the Total Literacy Campaign in 1991 leading the NGO movement to ensure literacy for all in Keonjhar ,
PRAKALPA then began the second phase of it’s journey. With small funding initially, the programmes in the implementation mode began, still focusing on community based organizations with programmes like creating village infrastructure through the FFW programme. Many such roads and , ponds and check dams were created which after 17 years are still contributing to the people .
Gradually, the programs started expanding and with capacity building, strengthening the community, education and infrastructure , health became a high priority area. We started working with the Paudi Bhuyans and Juangs in Banspal, We started interventions with the child laborers and street children.
2000….
Since the year 2000, the work of PRAKALPA diversified . We became the mother NGO for Keonjhar district. We started the school for the Juang girls. We started the vocational trainings under Jan Shikshan Santhan, we started many other programmes. We also took up the building of a training and resource centre . We started many other programme but the journey just seems to have begun..
The last 2 years…
The last two years have been an important phase in the journey of PRAKALPA. We are in the 25h year of our existence and since the last two years we have begun a phase of introspection and learning..
We started an internal assessment process both at the core staff and organisational level and evaluated our performances, roles and responsibilities. In the meanwhile we also tried to strengthen our vision and put up a goal for ourselves. In the assessment we found that we indeed had come a long way but somewhere something had gone missing. Though we had created a niche for ourselves and a basket of projects, we had somewhere not performing to the best of our potential.
Whenever we tried to do something worthwhile, we hit a blank wall and a lot of resistance. In the assessment a dramatic shift started to happen and we realised our forte was the community and we wanted to work for people’s rights. Our influence and name created could be put to better use if we started working with the people again.
The journey has come a full circle. We are in a phase of restructuring the organisation. In the shift from direct contractual implementation , we are shifting to more right based and advocacy work…The field based projects will give importance to direct work with the community, pilot programmes, demonstration and ideal practices sites in the form of ideal schools, hospitals etc. In the meanwhile the advocacy and fight for the people’s rights will take a new turn with strategies being worked out at the organisational level and this component tied intrinsically to all our programmes. We have had internal evaluations and our organisation has undergone a long process of soul-searching . And in the process we have identified the areas we want to work in the coming years by defining clearly, the kind of work we will do and the activities we will take up. A road map has been prepared based on our strong experience in the development sector in the last 24 years and as we step into the 25th year we are looking ahead at a future where our voice is heard and that voice is of the community we have strived to empower.
In this report, you will find a glance of the activities we are doing, the areas we are working in and the people we are working with.
We have enriched with 25 years of experience in our crusade in the support of the disadvantaged and the underprivileged. We have learnt many a valuable lessons in these 25 very eventful years and have much to learn in the years to come.
With a promise to keep up the vigil..
MEMBERSHIPS
Membership & Accreditations:
* Member, District Advisory Committee of Mission Shakti
* Member, DSMS
* Secretary, SAMADHAN, a Cell for the women in distress functioning in the grievance cell of the Collector & District Magistrate, Keonjhar
* Member, Information Technology Society
* Member, Watershed Advisory Committee
* Member, Zilla Swasthya Samiti
* Member, Orissa Red Cross Blood Bank, Keonjhar
* Member, District Implementation & Monitoring Committee, Eco Club
* Member, District Level Committee on Natural Calamity
* Member, Disaster Risk Management Committee
* Member, District Advisory Committee of the Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation & Prevention of Misuse)