Urja Ghar – the energy of creativity, criticality and commitment:

 

Urja Ghar (Home of Energy) is a group of young people based in the rural parts of Sabarkantha and Banaskantha districts of North Gujarat and urban parts of Ahmedabad city. Held together purely by a commitment to peace, social justice and active citizenship through critical thinking, these young people have sustained their work in 55 villages of Sabarkantha and Banaskantha district of Gujarat and Udaipur district of Rajasthan for over eleven years now. Post the Gujarat carnage in 2002, community culture in the state was characterized by fear, apprehension, hatred and revenge. It is in this context that Urja Ghar was formed through a project turned into an organization owned by the community, by young people committed to using reason, dialogue and creative expression to build a culture of peace.

Urja Ghar works with adolescents, youth and community uses creative mediums to question the given, the unjust, the violent and builds groups of children and youth who infuse the village and its neighboring areas with the energy of reconstruction. Unlike many, it works both with the marginalized and the dominant sections of society. With the former, it strives to create a platform to promote a culture of dialogue in the place of culture of silence; with the latter it works to build sensitivity and empathy.

The mobilization of the community to empower for sustainable development is the major thrust area of the organization using various methods such as story-telling, watching and critiquing popular films, documentaries and songs, creative writing, music, theatre and games are the pegs it uses to learn and teach. The walls of the village are the writing board and magazine; the bazaar, the streets, the tea-stalls and the inner recess of homes its class rooms. Gender, caste, religion, violence, peace, reason – nothing is too sacrosanct for debate and critical analysis.

The Journey of Urja Ghar

The potential of an initiative that is focused on creativity, criticality and mobilization is apparent in the journey of Urja Ghar. During the phase of 2004 – 2007, it was focused largely on creating an environment that enabled dialogue and discussion and that challenged stereotypes pertaining to religion, gender and caste. As a result bridges were built in communities, children interacted with each other, women stood together in cases of domestic violence and fears of the ‘other’ were mitigated by the sheer experience of the being human of each person.

In the 2007 – 2010 phase, once the organization was registered as an independent society/trust, the work was shifted according to the need of the people in the villages, and issues pertaining to Right to Work, Right to Food, Health and Right to Education in the 16 villages of Sabarkantha rose to centre stage. During this time sathidars (Urja Ghar Volunteers and workers) worked tirelessly across the districts mobilizing people so that they could avail of the minimum wages under the NREGA; various health services that accrued to women, young girls and children under the age of six as per the ICDS; and insist on minimum requirements in the schools in the area. Urja Ghar took up the issues decided by the community collectively to work upon and went forward. At that time the focal point of the activities surrounding the issues related to Right to Work (MNREGA), Right to Education and Right to Health and the approach was absolutely right based.

After 2010, the work continued on the issues of School Governance including the empowerment of the SMCs and to make the primary education is the combined responsibilities of the community and the school together. The active involvement of the Panchayati Raj Institution and active and equal participation of the women and the youth was at the core of the work. The empowerment of the Rule of Law Committees in the villages for the dialogue with the concerned department for the civic rights remained the very effective in fulfilment of the basic citizen rights of roads, water and employment. The Youth Development programme evolved in to the employability opportunities through skill training as well as the support in various competitive exams by the Youth Resource Centre owned by the youth. Youth Resource Centre is very active in engaging the youth and the adolescent in the constitutional literacy through a game called Samvidhan Live in which the youth leart the constitutional values through a game in a very funful way and live the Indian Constitution relating it to everyday activities through experiencing with various tasks related to the fundamental rights and fundamental duties. The tasks were themselves the action by the youth as active citizens which led the youth as young changemakers. Urja Ghar has collaborated with the Magic Bus Foundation to take the program of Sports for Development covering the issues of Child Rights especially Right to Participation, Education and Health and Active Citizenship through the sports of football.  

Now, Urja Ghar has expanded its work in to the urban part of Ahmedabad city. It is working with the adolescent in the schools on the issues of Constitutional Literacy and Sports for Development.  In the collaboration with the Niti Ayog, Urja Ghar is working with the adolescents in the 13 schools in the various parts of Ahmedabad city on the issues of Child Rights, awareness regarding the SDGs and Constitution Literacy under its Youth Development through Active Citizenship Programmme.

Socio-political and Geographical situation and coverage of working areas:

Rural part:

The areas of Poshina Block and Danta block of Sabarkantha and Banaskantha district is surrounded by the Aravalli Mountain range chiefly populated by the Dungari Bhil and Dungari Garasiya Tribes. It is situated in the bordering areas of Udaipur and Sirohi districts of Rajasthan. It is an interior rural area having higher degree of migration and educationally Backward Block (Khedbrahma now newly created Poshina block) declared by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Gujarat. The community lives in scattered housing and lack of basic facilities like road, water, and livelihood opportunities at local level. They are having less semi fertile land and many of the villages are lacking irrigation facilities. The monsoon rain is the only source of water for irrigation and cultivation and lack of local level livelihood facilities force the people to migrate as agricultural labourers (Bhagiya Majdoor) with families and being exploited socio-economically by the land owners. There are different migrating patterns of work and duration in this area. The ‘Bhagiya Majdoor’ mostly migrates with the whole family including children and lives the life of bonded labours and socio-economically exploited by the land owners. The children who go with these families are the worst victims and suffer a lot. They do not have the any right of development -education, participation and protection as they were engaged in the labourer work or to take care of their younger siblings while their parents are at work. Moreover, the children who are not going with their parents and stay in the village with their relatives are also not going to school as no one take proper care of their education. The children are not very regular in the school and not having quality education for various reasons and the migration is the most affected reason for that.  Most of the children are malnourished in this Tribal populated areas and not having proper education so the vicious circle of poverty from the parents to the children are running from generation to generation.

The people migrate irregularly depending on good rain and crops on their little land or they are having marriage or other social program at home and had to drag into the hands of money lenders on high interest rates. The land owners lend them money in advance for social programme and the whole family has to work as bonded labourers. Moreover, Social customs like lokai (very expensive custom for the dead), Chadetaru (revenge) makes the community more vulnerable economically.

The Dungari Bhil community is living in very interior bordering rural part of Gujarat and Rajasthan States and remains aloof from the other parts of the states except those who migrate. The community has their own judicial system and there is no rule of law in the region. Least people prefer to approach to the police station and judiciary system for the matters of clash even in the cases of murder. The Panch  - a group of community male leaders from both the sides resolves the matter. Due to the revenge system, both the community in clash cannot meet or communicate with each other; the punch plays the corrupt role. Moreover, there are no fixed criteria for the conflict resolution for community punch. The punch demands more money from the accused, if they face resistant from any of the party they use police as forcing power to achieve their expected amount and keeps the share for the police. Such practices are some of the chief obstacles for the community to develop leading action with the sense of citizenship. 

Urban Part:

Juhapura is the largest Muslim Ghetto with the population of Muslims only in Ahmedabad city of Gujarat. Nearly 3-3.5 lakh people live in the area with very insufficient basic facilities related to educational institution, health facilities, government public transports, public places like gardens etc. As Ahmedabad city of Gujarat is highly polarized on the religious line, the youth in the Juhapura lives with the peope of same culture and having late exposure of the other culture. The ghettos has its own issues, the people from the ghetto are not fully accepted from the people from outside ghetto and the people live in ghetto don’t dare to raise their voice within community for progressive thoughts. So it is very difficult to have a platform for alternative voice in the ghetto. The situation of the women and girls in the ghetto are very pathetic at the same time communalism provides them the space to get out of the home which starts from the break in the curfew to fight the cases of the death, police atrocities and fake cases of their male siblings.  The youth are the only hope to have such possibilities to save the social diverse fabric of the Indian society and active citizenship for the more equal and more just society.

There is no community work in the other parts of the city, the Constitutional Literacy work covers the schools only

 

Thrust Area of the Programmes:

Urja Ghar focused on,

• Strengthening Rule of Law through empowering youth and community
• Women Empowerment
• Youth Developing through experiential learning and critical thinking for Active Citizenship

 

 Urja Ghar’s Current activities:

Engaging the Adolescent and Youth as Active Citizens:

URJAGHAR engages the adolescent and the youth through Resource Centre and working with the adolescents in the schools in Ahmedabad city.

 

Building a democratic space of children and cadre of youth and making a platform for creative expression to influence different institutions affecting children’s rights to development and participation.

1. Develop critical thinking and active citizenship among the adolescents and youth through various creative activities such as Samvidhan Live and Sports or Development and Theatre for Development, exposure Tour, Heritage Tour, film appreciation etc. to enable them for their right to participate and development.
2. Develop spaces for creative engagement of adolescent and youth so that they can express themselves and take leadership role for change
3. To create active citizenship among the adolescent & youth derived from the values of democracy, Justice and Equality along with Freedom of Expression. 
4. To bring awareness regarding the basic health and education issues among the adolescent groups engaged with Urja Ghar

Urja Ghar is working with the 15 schools in the various parts of Ahmedabad city on Constitutional Literacy collaborating with Niti Ayog and UNICEF through Rubroo organization in Hyderabad. One school is covered for the Sport for Development programme in the city. The adolescents from the school where the Sports for Development programme is on, 12 students come once a week to the centre for other activities. Urja Ghar has covered 585 adolescents through the Samvidhan Live – SDGs Live programme and 80 students in the Sports for Development programme with nearly equal proportion of girls.  

 

Towards Rule of Law Villages:

Urja Ghar is also working on the action research programme ‘Towards Rule of Law Villages’ with Center for Social Justice (Now totally voluntarily). The programme covers 15 villages in total from Danta block of Banaskantha, Poshina block of Sabarkantha in Gujarat and Kotda block of Udaipur district in Rajasthan. The Rule of Law committees have been formed in the all 15 villages and all the committees have been trained on the issues of state and citizenship relations, team work and how to work as a Rule of Committee on with the right based approach and sense of citizenship. The committees were formed through an intensive legal PRAs in the villages and the power structures were kept in mind. 

The committees have petitioned on the various issues of citizens’ rights violation to the concerned govt. depatments. Most of the isseus of facilities of road is accomplished in the villages and he committes are working on the various other civic rights issues in the villages. A Rule of Law center has been established in each village with a small library and various activities has been carried out at the centers to make them vibrant and make them a shared spaces to discuss the issues of the village as well as planning the solution as active citizens. 

The Rule of Law programme is an action research programme implemented into 15 villages of 10 panchayats of Banaskantha, Sabarkantha districts in Gujarat and Udaipur district in Rajasthan. A RoL committee was formed in each village and the committees were empowered with the training and exposure of participation in the various programmes. The RoL Committees are addressing the issues of Basic facilities in the villages legally supported by the paralegals and advocates from center for Social Justice (CSJ).