Archives: Case Studies

Rupam is an 18-year-old member of Plan India’s Youth Advisory Panel (YAP) who has played a significant role in creating awareness on disaster preparedness during floods in his village in Bihar. She joined Plan India’s YAP programme in 2015 and the knowledge helped her steer her family and neighbour to safety

“As a youth mobiliser, I helped in sounding the alarm on August 14, 2017, the day of the flood and also helped my family and neighbours reach higher ground. Now, we are taking special care of the children, especially girls. We are holding one on one conversations with girls and women in our village and sharing information of good touch-bad touch and are strictly warning everyone from sending their children away with relatives in the city. We are encouraging them to hold ground. We will get out of this together!” she shares emphatically.

During crises situations, many a times, parents feel that children would be better off with relatives in the city, but in reality, many face exploitation, and Rupam’s training has taught her well. Plan India, as part of its preparedness mechanism, has empowered youth mobilisers through trainings, capacity building and information.

“I also know karate,” she giggles.

While children are trying to work around their way in these times of severe adversity; problems of open defecation, damaged houses, loss of agricultural land is looming heavily upon them. Women and girls specially are facing huge problems regarding sanitation.

“We take turns to relieve ourselves, a group acts like a barrier and hold scarves (a.k.a chudni). Managing periods is becoming a problem as well. A contaminated water table too is adding to our woes. Access to safe drinking water is limited.”

There is an immediate need to address the health and hygiene issues in the village. Sitamarhi is one the worst affected villages in Muzaffarpur district.

Plan India, in the past, had constructed water pumps in the village (locally known as champa kal) in higher grounds, and those are the only hand pumps that are still accessible, rest are well inundated. “The hand-pumps which are on the higher ground constructed by Plan India, are our only source of drinking water,” she shares. The preparedness has been very beneficial to the community and children like Rupam reflect the best of such awareness trainings and programmes.

Bihar is reeling under the effects of floods, huge loss of lives, property, livelihoods have been reported all over the state.

Plan India is amongst the first responders on-ground and is providing humanitarian relief to the most vulnerable and most affected. Hygiene kits, nutritional dry food items, tarpaulin, water purification tablets are being disturbed amongst affected families and communities. The team is also planning to conduct general health camps to address health and hygiene related issues. Plan India would also work towards the containment of mosquito breeding.

Arvind and his friends from the Youth Advisory Panel (YAP) had a huge task at hand when they heard from the government officials that the embankment near their village – Pakri, had broken. Pakri is a nondescript village in Muzaffarpur district in Bihar where agriculture is the main source of livelihood

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“As soon as we heard from the officials, we quickly took out our motorbikes and started alerting nearby villages. The district administration had sounded off the flood alarm, but villagers were still not ready to leave their homes,” said Arvind.

On August 14 2017, the embankment near Pakri village broke; waters gushed into the village and within no time devastated the whole area. A part of the primary school caved in, creating panic among teachers and students. They had to be evacuated within minutes…

Speaking about his engagement as a YAP member, Arvind shares, “Attending the trainings and meetings helped us in evacuating people and save lives. We guided them to higher grounds and quickly sealed off the primary school as people have a tendency to take refuge in permanent structures.”

“Cattle is not just livelihood for us, they are treated as part of the family. While we were evacuating people, they insisted on getting their cattle, which was a huge challenge for us,” shares Seema, another youth mobiliser from Pakri.

“We are also working with the ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) and Anganwadi Helpers to spread awareness about trafficking. Young girls and women are most vulnerable during crises situations. With the help of ANM didis (as they are fondly called), we are spreading awareness and are playing an active role in sensitising our village elders,” she added.

Youth Advisory Panel is a group of selected youths from the project areas of Plan India in Bihar. They play a huge role in planning and implementing programmes apart from regular monitoring. The YAP members are trained and capacitated and act as empowered youths who work towards the benefit of their community. In Pakri village, the YAP consists of 16 youths, amongst which, there are 5 girls.

Passing through the flood ravaged villages, one can feel the pain, and sufferings that the community is enduring. While waters will recede with time, the overcast sky worries the people, they cannot afford another day of rain – they have lost enough! They are eagerly waiting to get back to their houses, inspect what remains, what’s gone.

When the dust settles, they would need to think about livelihoods, rebuild houses….a long road to recovery.

Written by Debanjana Choudhuri, Manager, Marketing and Communications

Palika (name changed) is 20 years old and lives in a rural village in Bihar. She is an active and well known youth champion.

Palika’s association with Plan India began eight years ago when she joined a Children’s Club. She explained that before joining the club, she was very shy to speak out, “Whatever I was facing, I thought it was part of my life. Afterwards, I realised that this was not part of my life and these were issues that had to be overcome.”

In Bihar, girls are generally married off early, unprepared to bear the marital and childbearing responsibilities put upon them. Her village is particularly isolated, surrounded by mountains with only around 35 households. Additionally, due to the lack of educational and livelihood opportunities, child labour, child marriage and child trafficking are constant issues. Palika felt impelled to tackle the issue of child marriage in her community.

She managed to get support from her friends and the Plan Youth Advisory Panel (YAP). Palika went from door to door advocating for girls’ rights. Inevitably, she faced many challenges from her community; gender discrimination was so prevalent that her village would not listen to what she had to say. At 14 years, her own parents decided that they wanted to get her married but she raised her voice and successfully fought against their decision. Since then, she has worked with district officials and through ChildLine (1098 tele helpline for nationwide support to children in distress), prevented 12 child marriages!

Palika also found support from Dainik Jagran, one of India’s most read newspapers, who covered her story. ETV Bihar, a news channel also decided to report on her, which reached a wide audience. In 2015, Palika was elected as a state representative for the National Youth Advisory Panel.

Despite having already achieved so much and bringing about so much positivity, Palika wants to do more. “I want to dedicate my life to bring about change!” she says with confidence and determination in her voice.

Saina is a confident young lady who makes a living as a beautician. She has hopes of setting up her own beauty parlour in the future. Her ambitions about the future were never so assured in the past though.

“I think I was 3 or 4 years old when I heard the first comments from a relative, ironically also a female. She was lamenting that my mother had three daughters and that was such a huge burden. My poor mother was bending her head as if it was her fault,” says Saina, who has two sisters and two brothers. Her father, a painter, barely earned enough to feed his family of seven and her mother was constantly on her feet to ensure some semblance of order in their severely underprivileged life.

“I’ve seen my mother drinking water because there was nothing left for her after feeding us. I would ask her why she didn’t eat along with us and she would say she wasn’t hungry or at times that she had an upset stomach. At that age, I believed her. As I grew up, I understood the real reason. After that, whenever she said she wasn’t hungry, my sisters and I would also say we weren’t hungry. We wouldn’t eat until she joined us.”

Life went on as it did in the household. As Saina and her sisters grew, other issues started to arise. “Everybody would scare my mother saying that good looking girls needed to be kept in control or they would bring disgrace to the family. While my brothers passed their exams with great difficulty, we scored high marks and passed our school final exams with a good percentage. We would help our mother with household chores and then study. Whereas our brothers just had to focus on their studies. Yet, we girls were not allowed to go to college after we completed Class XII. My younger sisters were still in school and I was getting restless. I was itching to do something constructive. I couldn’t pressurise my parents to send me to college because I knew the financial situation. But I wanted to do something, find some way to make my life better by doing something productive with my free time. That’s when the Saksham mobilisation team knocked on our door. When I heard what they had to say, it felt like God had answered my prayers. They convinced my parents that they should let me pursue what I wanted. It was an easy decision for them to make in the end since it was free and included a class that was exclusively for girls, including finding employment in a company that was for women.”

Life dramatically changed for Saina when she enrolled in the project in October 2017 for the beautician’s course. “I was timid to begin with. I would barely raise my head leave alone look into the eyes of people I spoke to. But Saksham brought me out of my shell. Gradually, I opened up as I began following their instructions and advice. I put my heart and mind into the course and passed with good marks because I knew this was my chance to build my life.”

Saina now works as a beautician and earns INR 10,000 a month. “My mother was my only support and now she’s extremely proud of me. I want to do well in my career and give everything to my parents and my sisters that I never had. I’m focussed on my work and achieving everything I dreamt of. During my training, I also learned to manage my time and money. It gave me a lot of clarity. I see myself owning a successful beauty parlour in the future. Until then, I told my parents I am not interested in marriage. I reclaimed my life thanks to the Saksham programme. Life seems normal now. I feel lighter and more in control of my circumstances. Now, I feel good about being a girl. I have no words to express my gratitude.”