Prayas Samastipur Project
Name :-Prayas Samastipur Project
State :- Bihar
Areas covered :- Samastipur
Working with :- Neglected children and marginalized communities
Major issues:- To eliminate child labour and to provide education through school or alternative education. To provide health care and shelter for neglected, homeless and street children. Create opportunities for development and rehabilitation of the children in need of care and protection Apart from it the project aims at imparting vocational skills and job oriented training for the youth and women. Thus promoting socio- economic empowerment of the marginalized women and communities.
About the project in brief:-Prayas Samastipur project presently is engaged in providing functional skills to youths and girls in order to rehabilitate them and link and mainstream them for their socio-economic betterment. Prayas samastipur imparts vocational education through its seven centers in following trades- stitching, cutting and embroidery, beauty culture, traditional ‘madhubani’ painting, screen printing and computer training. After completing the training in the vocational courses women are able to earn for themselves. The basic idea behind this project is to take each and every child to school or to provide them a highly structured innovative non- formal education. And later enroll them in government schools once basic literacy and education have been provided to them as per their age. . The project has also come up with the Drop –in center for Railway children to provide care and protection to children living and working at railway platforms in Samastipur railway station. The Railway Police Force (RPF) and Women Welfare Organization (WWO) are also part of this project. Through this program, the attempts are being made to bring such children in mainstream who come in contact of the police through counseling and by following the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (care and protection of child) Act, 2000. The project has introduced Self Help Groups (SHGs), micro- credit and income generating programs: Through these programs, women/men of weaker sections are motivated to become economically independent by starting their own economic activities. Samatipur Khetriya Gramin Bank has been linked with SHGs for loan etc.
Prayas Manav Seva Ashram project Samastipur, Bihar
Background:Followed by the situational assessment visit of the General Secretary Mr. Amod K. Kanth along with Mr. Sandeep Sneh, Programme Officer of Jan Shiksan Sansthan Prayas on May 11, 2003 to Samastipur, it has been proposed to create a chapter of Prayas to address the critical issues of neglected children and the communities for socio-economic transformation. The issues of juvenile justice was discussed in a conference organized by the Mr. Meghnath Ram, Superintendent of Police, Samastipur. The conference was followed by inauguration of a Juvenile Justice cell as contemplated under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2000 by Mr. D.P. Ojha, the Director General of Police, Bihar at Samastipur police station. The foundation of juvenile justice cell was essentially seen as the foundation of Prayas project in Samastipur area that would eventually evolve as a centre of activities for the children in need of care and protection and marginalized women in the Samastipur district.. A series of discussions were held with the number of NGOs, Grameen Bank, Manav Seva Ashram to find out the feasibility of social intervention by Prayas and subsequently agreed upon that Manav Seva Ashram would run Prayas chapter in Samastipur.
Prayas’ activities would mainly address on the issues of alternative education juvenile justice and socio-economic empowerment of women and youths through vocational training and self -help group programmes. This project would focus on specific activities in relation to child development in the areas of alternative education centres for out-of-school children and school drop-outs, vocational training programme in the patterns of Jan Shikhsa Sansthan Prayas (JSS), Self- help Group activities for women, etc. Additionally, the project will make an endeavour to establish close linkage with the juvenile justice cell at the Sadar Thana, Samastipur for strengthening functioning of the J.J. cell. The project will be managed by Manav Seva Ashram, a NGO led by Ms. Indu Rani Singh as its General Secretary in association with Prayas Institute of Juvenile Justice. A local management committee would be constituted to implement the project activities and a separate Resource Committee for local resource mobilization in order to make the project self –sustainable.
Need of start Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS) in Samastipur (2000):
Keeping with the track record of vocational training programmes, in the year 2000, Prayas was identified by the Ministry of Human Resource Development as one of the NGOs in the country to run the scheme of Jan Shikshan Sansthan in the NCT of Delhi. Jan Shikshan Sansthan Prayas, launched on 12th August 2000 under the aegis of Ministry of HRD (Govt. of India), started functioning simultaneously from its offices at Prayas Juvenile Aid Centre (JAC), Jahangirpuri, in North Delhi and from the Institute of Juvenile Justice in Tughlakabad, South Delhi. Jan Shikshan Sansthan Prayas is also a Nodal Centre for imparting Non- formal Education, Vocational Training to the target groups at various locations as well as training for the trainer’s besides making them aware in the field of social, economic, political and other related issues.
Prayas a national level organization working for the mainstreaming of street and other working children in Delhi since 1988, having its presence in Bihar took cognizance of the situation in Samastipur and has initiated some basic exercises towards creating certain economic empowerment programmes in this district. It is strongly felt that the Jan Shikshan Sansthan with its meticulously developed methodology to improve the occupational skills and technical knowledge of neo-literate and trainees needs to take urgent initiative to bring about a perceptible change in due course of time in this otherwise backward region.
