Participation and Citizenship

Tribal groups and other communities that are stigmatised because of their social status make up a disproportionate percentage of the poor. Marginalised from the rest of society, disadvantaged groups often lack access to good employment opportunities, education, healthcare and land.

Find Your Feet projects target social groups that are acknowledged to be the poorest and most marginalised. In addition to supporting traditionally excluded members of society to establish a livelihood, FYF partners raise awareness amongst communites of their rights and provide them with a platform to lobby government officials to improve local services and ensure that policies are implemented that benefit the poor.

Case Study: supporting disadvantaged groups in Chhattisgarh, India

In Chhattisgarh, FYF is working in partnership with a network of three local organisations, the Participatory Learning Action Network (Planet), on a project that is empowering people from the adivasi (tribal) communities: supporting them to set up small businesses and to access their economic, civil and political rights.

Dukram's story

Dukram sits with other villagers from Gedagon in their self help group discussing the social issues that affect their community. The issue of land rights is a high priority. Dukram and his young family are one of many in the village to have been displaced from their land by the Government Forestry Department.

"Until recently we farmed five acres of land. We used to grow lentils and local rice varieties. Although the land had been with my family for two generations, we did not have patta (legal ownership) but earlier this year the Forestry Department told us that this would be arranged for us."

One day, they arrived on my land and said that they wanted to mark out the five acres for the purpose of arranging the patta, so I let them. The next day I arrived to find my crops being uprooted and big ditches being dug.

In Gedagon, the Government is carrying out a World Bank-funded project to maximise incomes from the forests by creating wildlife sanctuaries and exploiting the valuable forest resources. As a result, people who have been farming the same land for generations, but have not been able to register ownership of it, are finding themselves excluded for their own land and denied the opportunity to earn a decent income.

"The Forestry Department has claimed my land and I am now forced to work as a wage labourer on land that has been in my family for years."

In the short term, Find Your Feet partner, Planet, is providing group members with vocational training which allows them to develop alternative ways to earn a living. Importantly, Planet is also enabling the communities to challenge the Forestry Department. Community groups, like Dukram's, are collecting evidence to give to Planet so that they can document the examples in preparation for filing a case against the Forestry Department. By providing the space for traditionally disadvantaged groups to come together, the project is fostering a sense of unity amongst the communities and enabling them to work together to overcome poverty and discrimination.