Mamta Samajik Sanstha

To achieve our Vision/Mission and objectives we have conducted activities on following issues in the past 28 years:

• Reproductive Child Health including Nutrition, Pulse Polio Programme, Vitamin A Administration, Iodine Deficiency Control Program, Diarrhoea Management, TB, STD, HIV/AIDS etc in more than 2000 villages & 200 city slums of Uttarakhand and western U.P.
• Adult Literacy for women of 30 city slums and 35 tribal community villages.
• Diversified Agriculture which includes Agriculture, Horticulture, Dairy, Poultry, Formation of farmers’ federation, Self Help Groups etc in 40 villages of two tribal community blocks Kalsi and Chakrata of district Dehradun.
• Water & Sanitation which also include construction of low cost toilets for below poverty line people in 20 villages of two districts i.e. Pauri Garhwal and Chamoli in Uttarakhand.
• Women Empowerment through advocacy for their rights, legal literacy, health and nutrition, Women Land Rights, Livelihoods activities, vocational trainings, Income generation, Leadership & Skill Development, formation of women and adolescent girls SHGs, Microfinance initiatives for poor women for their small entrepreneurships in more than 300 villages of Uttarakhand and U.P.
• On Panchayat Raj, Health and Nutrition, Community Need Assessment, Water and Leadership and skill development of civil society organizations, community leaders and volunteers Sanitation etc in 33 Blocks and 350 villages of Uttarakhand and western U.P.
• Enhancing capacity and skill of Adolescent girls groups through trainings on family life education, health, nutrition, awareness about their rights, education, vocational and career guidance in 100 villages of Dehradun and Boarder district Chamoli.
• We have successfully completed our project called “Garhwal Health & Development Package : 2000” on key components of Primary Health Care in 30 blocks of Garhwal Division, Saharanpur & Haridwar, covering more than 300 villages with the financial support from UNICEF, Lucknow, technical support from the concerned departments like Health, Education, Block, Agriculture, Horticulture, PRIs etc. and implementation through 17 networking agencies.
• We have also undertaken project called “Social Mobilization for Child Care & Nutrition” in full block of Vikasnagar, Dehradun, covering 56 villages with the support from UNICEF, Lucknow. Under this project we have taken out several children out of malnutrition, particularly girl child. We have also formed 31 adolescent girls groups in villages of Vikasnagar block to look into the nutritional, health, Socio-economical, legal and emotional needs of the adolescent girls. Beside above programmes, we have undertaken following projects on health, Nutrition and Hygiene:

a)-Health Education Project with primary school children and community in 40 villages of Block Ghat, District Chamoli with the support of TPAK/JICA, Japan to promote proper health and hygiene practices among school children and their families.

b)-Iodine Deficiency Disorders Control Programme with students’ of class 8-12 and community in 4 districts of western U.P., covering 62 colleges and more than 400 villages with the support of Govt of U.P. and UNICEF, Lucknow to educate the students and community the consequences of iodine deficiency disorders and promote use of iodine salt to use at their households to prevent IDD.

c)-Strengthening of Integrated Child Development Services(ICDS) and village women and adolescent groups on health, nutrition and sanitation with women and adolescent girls in 18 villages of 3 Blocks of District Chamoli with the support of Govt of Uttarakhand and World Food Programme.

d)-Conducted State, Divisional and district level stakeholders meets in Uttarakhand to promote RNTCP and DOTS. With the help of tbACTION

e)-Conducted more than 500 trainings and orientations in the past 16 years for middle and grassroots level functionaries and communities at large on common health problems like TB, HIV/AIDS, Polio, Iodine Deficiency disorders, Vitamin A Administration, Diarrhoea Management etc to develop capacity and skill of these functionaries in the required field, so that they may deliver good services and yield good results.

Women Empowerment

•  Mamta has constituted more than 120 women self help groups and adolescent girls groups in villages of two districts i.e. Dehradun and Chamoli.
• Conducted various social, cultural and vocational training programmes for women and adolescent girls to develop them as a leader and catalyst of change. More than 15,000 women & girls have been trained on women rights, govt schemes, health, nutrition, gender equality, livelihoods, Sewing, Food preservation, Horticulture, Agriculture, Primary Health Care, Pre-primary education, Adult education, Panchayati Raj in the past 16 years.
• Chicken Embroidery training in 8 villages of Vikasnagar, 300 women/girls, support – SEWA, Lucknow (2000).50 women initiated embroidery work with SEWA and earned Rs 2000/- to Rs 4,000/- per month. Rest of the women and girls used the embroidery skill locally in their family and village.
• Currently, Mamta is associated with several women networks at state and national level and these days, we are encouraging women SHGs. to raise voice for their livelihood & land rights. These groups are now demanding to the govt. and their local Panchayat to give them right over village common properties in order to ensure their livelihoods through some income generation activities as a group.

Income Generation and Vocational Trainings

• Income generation for the weaker section of the society, has been the main thrust of Mamta since its inception. One can think about his/her education, health and social responsibilities better, if he/she is economically sound. Mamta, since its inception involved some women from weaker section in income generating activities such as: knitting, sewing, embroidery, painting, hand made soft toys, greetings cards, eatables like pickle, jam, chips etc.
• To market its products, a shop called ‘Lowcost Home Care Point’ was opened and maintained for 3 years i.e. 1992-94.It was an unit of voluntary organizations or network of Mamta’s seven partners who found it difficult to market their products, kept their products in this shop. We had to close down the shop because we could not compete the market.
• Mamta has entered in the field of Micro credit in December,2007.Since then we have formed 101 Joint liability groups(JLGs) and provided loan of Rs 50 Lacs to 505 members of women from weaker section of the society with the help of Uttarakhand Microfinance and Livelihood Promotion Development Cooperative Institute, Govt of Uttarakhand. Currently 100 more groups are ready to take loan for their small entrepreneurships. We are targeting 74 slums of Dehradun in the beginning and gradually expand the micro credit work in rural areas of Dehradun and other districts of Uttarakhand. We have also linked up our organization with L.I.C.of India in March, 2008 to provide micro insurance facilities to the members and families of the weaker section of the society, particularly to the members of micro credit groups.
• We are also planning to start functional vocational trainings for less educated and disadvantaged youth of the society on various viable trades in order to give them an opportunity to either start their own small entrepreneurships or get suitable job after the training.
• Mamta with the support of Directorate, ICDS(Women & Child Development deptt),Govt of Uttarakhand , conducted convergence trainings on early child care and development for the frontline functionaries of primary education, women and child development, civil societies and health department in 19 Nyay Panchayats of 4 blocks in district Chamoli. Total 617 frontline functionaries got an opportunity to understand the various steps of early child care and development and they got motivated to play a significant role in early child care and development in their respective field through their departments.
• The project Women Development Initiatives was implemented in 5 backward villages of Vikasnagar Block, district Dehradun w.e.f Ist January, 07 to 31 December,2007 with the support from TPAK-UNIFEM, Japan. We focussed our project activities on women and adolescent girls in five villages as primary group and covered approximately 750 families and 3000 population of weaker section as a secondary group of the villages, mostly having the population of scheduled tribe, scheduled caste, other backward class and Muslim. We have formed one women and one adolescent girls group in each project village. The members of the each group were encouraged to select two members out of their group as leaders of their group to whom Mamta provided training on leadership skills and all relevant issues pertaining to their group’s health and sustainable development.

Other Projects and Achievements:

• 8th Red & White Bravery Awards (1998-99) were given in Meerut on 1.5.99 and Mamta was honored with the Silver Award in recognition of an exceptional Act of social courage.
• Has been associated with ICDS and Most India-USAID Micro-nutrient program State offices, Dehradun as their Master Trainers to train their various level functionaries.
• Has been associated with CORE, New Delhi for providing trainings under Pulse Polio Eradication campaign to their Block and village level coordinators as a master trainer in 4 Districts of U.P.