Stakeholder Dialogue II on 'Mainstreaming Sustainable Social Housing in India', Delhi

The Stakeholder Dialogue II, under the Mainstreaming Sustainable Social Housing in India Project (MaS-SHIP) MaS-SHIP was held on 4th May 2017 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. Under the MaS-SHIP, consortium has been formed between four partners, namely Oxford Brookes University (Oxford, UK), Development Alternatives (DA), The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) and UN-HABITAT (UN-H) with support from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to promote sustainability in terms of environment performance, affordability and social inclusion as an integral part of social housing in India. The dialogue sought to define sustainability attributes and the method of measurement for evaluating building materials and technologies. The participants of the event came from varied backgrounds ranging from academia, construction industry, private developers, research institutes, and government.

Awareness campaign on water conservation, UP

The Water Campaign started in Jhansi on 9th May 2017 in partnership with NABARD. The campaign aims to create awareness in vulnerable/water stressed areas on water preservation and conservation techniques. The launch saw the presence of Ajay Soni, DDM, NABARD and Dr. Rajendra Singh, Founder, Tarun Bharat Sangh, Rajasthan, also known as the Waterman of India. Chandan Mishra, DA shared the strategy of implementation of the campaign. The campaign intends to reach out to 500 villages of Jhansi sensitising them to the need and benefits of water conservation.

TARA Akshar+ programme going on in full swing, Delhi

TARA Akshar+ under the umbrella programme of 'Gift Her Education', in partnership with CII has been ongoing in four areas of Delhi, namely, Sanjay Amar Colony C Block and Sanjay Amar Colony D Block of East Delhi and Bharat Vihar JJ Colony and Kakrola Village of South West Delhi. The aim of the project is to make 100 illiterate women, functionally literate. Apart from practicing reading, writing and arithmetic on a daily basis, guest speaker sessions are also being conducted to create awareness on topics of maternal health and childcare.

Certification of budding entrepreneurs, Delhi

DA group, under the UNDP COE project, provided training to 15 women entrepreneurs from Taimur Nagar, Okhla, New Friends Colony, Bharat Nagar, Sarai Julena and Khizarabad area on 'Start and Generate Your Business Idea'. 13 trainees have been given certificate of successful completion of the Enterprise Development training. The participants were also briefed on available entrepreneurship opportunities, possible enterprise development support from TARA and on government and bank schemes.

Career Counselling programme in government girls' schools, Delhi

DA group has collaborated with UNDP under the Disha Chat initiative, which aims to bridge the information gap by taking up conversations on higher education, employability, apprenticeship and entrepreneurship with secondary and senior secondary school girls. The programme aims to reach out to 10,000 girls across 40 government girls' schools in the Delhi NCR region. In May, 171 girls across 2 schools have been provided career counselling. Providing women and girls with access to the right career choices plays a vital role in promoting economic growth and empowerment of women.

Training and Capacity Building Workshop on C&D Waste Management and Utilisation, Tamil Nadu

DA and GIZ along with support of Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) and ICLEI conducted the capacity development workshop on 17th May 2017 in Coimbatore. Inauguration was done by Municipal Commissioner of CCMC Shri. Vijaya Karthikeyan I.A.S. The objective was to build capacity of concerned officials of municipalities on new rules and appraise them about various elements of C&D waste management such as new rules, tendering and good practices. More than 60 representatives from various ULBS, builders associations and Technical institutions participated in the workshop.

'Suhana Safar' - Training and Awareness Programme for Truck Drivers, Delhi & Uttar Pradesh

Training and Awareness programme with truck drivers and helpers of Dadri and Tughlakabad was conducted on 13th and 14th May 2017. 133 truck drivers and helpers participated in the intervention. This programme aims to improve the quality of life of truck drivers and helpers. The training topics like road safety, WASHH (water, sanitation, health and hygiene), financial literacy, personal development, alcoholism, etc. The feedback of truck drivers and helpers have been very positive and till date, more than 900 truck drivers and helpers have undergone these interventions.

District level workshop on water conservation, Madhya Pradesh

Workshop on water conservation was held at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Tikamgarh on 30th April, 2017. About 150 people form Dhikoli village participated in the workshop. Technical aspects like use of drip and sprinkler for irrigation for judicious use of water were taken up. The participants were motivated to select village level volunteers to take the campaign ahead. Group activity included preparation of a village map specifying water sources. At the end of the workshop, participants were trained to upload the map on the mobile application created by NABARD to create a database of water sources across various states.

WASH Ambassador Training in the Government Primary School, Uttarakhand

WASH Ambassador Training was conducted in the Government Primary School of Chauli, Roorkee on 25th May, 2017. The WASH in Schools programme provides schools with Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) education that encourages healthy habits among school students, teachers and managerial staff. These habits will be reinforced by the WASH Ambassadors across the targeted schools. The training also included water quality testing component demonstrated with the Jal-TARA chemical assay water testing kit which gave a quick visual indicator for specific contaminants present in the water.

Workshop for Community Radio Stations of Bundelkhand region, Madhya Pradesh

The six Community Radio stations of Bundelkhand region met in TARAgram, Orchha on 18th and 19th May 2017 to design a baseline survey to understand the livelihoods options in their broadcast areas. The community radio stations that participated in the workshop include Chanderi Ki Awaaz, Kisan Vani, Lalit Lokvani, Radio Bundelkhand, Radio Dhadkan and Radio Mann. This is part of Development Alternatives' Shubh Kal initiative on sustainable livelihood options. The outcomes of this study will feed into an awareness to action campaign on livelihoods and skill development.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices Analysis ongoing in Rajasthan

DA has partnered with UNICEF to develop a climate resilient water safety and security plan at district level in the light of Mukhyamantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan of the Government of Rajasthan. Mr Lars Bernd, Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction, UNICEF India, visited Udaipur on 27th April 2017 to observe DA's innovative approach of Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) Survey in context of climate resilience of children, adolescents and women in three districts of Rajasthan - Udaipur, Jalore and Baran. Innovative methods and games are being used to assess the climate vulnerabilities, community capacities and risks, namely, Climate Wars (Vaatavaran Badlaaw Ki Maar), Jungle Juggle, Answer with Your Feet, etc.

Blog

Managing our Resources in a Sustainable Way, Dr. Soumen Maity, Development Alternatives, Delhi

Green Public Procurement - A Potential Game Changer for India, Dr. Prasad Modak, Executive President of Environmental Management Centre LLP, Mumbai

Publications

Policy Brief on Farmer Producer Organisations in India
The paper is developed under year II of the research project "Transforming the Development Paradigm" supported by HBF. The focus of this paper is to study the Farmer Producer Organisations at the practice and policy level and explore policy lessons.

Learning Document: Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS) in India English Hindi
This learning document covers main learnings of work done on Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS) implementation by Development Alternatives in last eight years' time span. The objective is to facilitate a space for exchange of ideas and enable reach of learnings related to HWTS intervention initiatives to masses.

Training Package: Water Sanitation and Hygiene to Improve Human Health English Hindi
The HWTS programmes of Development Alternatives facilitate and provide technical assistance on urban health and health determinants. Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) being key determinants of health, necessitate access of the urban poor to WASH thus leading to better health outcomes, well-being and reduce poverty.

Community led resource efficient agriculture in Bundelkhand, Chapter written by Mayukh Hazra, Development Alternatives
This case study has been published in the CIPT Compendium titled 'Best practices on water and agricultural sustainability'. This is one of the 32 success stories from 19 states of India involving local NGOs, universities, corporate foundations, donor agencies and research organisations.

DA in News

We need to persuade the government to get involved, The Hindu BusinessLine, 26th April 2017
The Indian Resource Panel (InRP) is an advisory panel embedded within the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and its role is to advise on key barriers to progress on resource efficiency at national, regional and sectoral levels and give practical suggestions on how to deal with them. The InRP was set up to deal with precisely these issues and it submitted its first set of recommendations to the government.