Dream building exercise, Modicare Foundation

[Sandhya Mishra]

Date of visit- 16^th Sept 2010

 

Place- Kapashera village

 

Visitors- Ms. Alka Pathak, Chief Advocacy & External Relation Officer CARE India and EMPHASIS team of Modicare Foundation

 

Details -

Today we have visited Kapashera village along with Alka Madam and Sandhya Madam.  The purpose of the visit was to get orientation of the field area of EMPHASIS destination site in Modicare Foundation area. The plan was also to meet some impact population there. The situation of roads and street was so horrible because of heavy rain that instead of using streets and lane we were walking down on platforms made in front of houses and shops.

 

Meeting with Raju - Sandhya Madam introduced all of us to Alka Madam and we headed to Mahakali Dhaba (a restaurant) where we met Raju Thapa, the owner of the restaurant. Raju is from Kanchapur and runs a popular eating joint known as “Mahakali Dhaba”. We got very surprised to see Alka Madam talking with Raju and his wife in Nepali language. Alka madam was asking about Raju’s family, native place, his relationship with the land lord etc. While sharing with her Raju told that his original name is Man Bahadur but he purposely changed his name to Raju, a familiar Indian name.

 

Group meeting- After that we met with a group of 10-12 young Nepali boys in a room situated in a big campus which houses more than 50 rooms. It was very interesting informal meeting because they all were talking very openly and freely with Alka Madam and Sandhya Madam. They were from Morong, Syangja and Jhapa district and here also Alka Madam initiated discussion in Nepali which easily converted the environment very friendly.

 

The group was very cohesive in terms of age, life style, education and understanding of the issues. Most of them have had education till 10^th or 12^th but very few of them wanted to continue study further in India. There was one boy who shared that he does drugs in form of opium, alcohol, ink remover fluid etc. and cannot live without it. One boy was a truck driver who had good understanding of HIV & AIDS and condom because of TI projects run by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation on National Highways.

 

They also shared about a Nepali call girl Sonia (name changed) who has been accessible by most of them in Kapashera village. Nepali mobile people do have multiple sexual relations but rarely they use condom.

 

Taking clue from the discussion Sandhya Madam started CLCP (Community Life Competence Process) where she requested the participants to share their dreams with all of us. Shared individual dreams were mentioned below:

1.     Want to learn Korean language and settle in South Korea

2.    Want to do Hotel management course from Hyderabad and my father is arranging money for the same (Rs. 1 lakh)

3.    Just want to earn and save money so that I can start a small provision  store in my  village (Nepali) and support my family

4.    Want to become rich by any means

5.    Want to continue job in export company

 

…………To be continued and want support from CARE to complete the CLCP

 

Common dream- They expressed their common dream to start a youth club in Kapashera and they asked whether EMPHASIS program can help them in this.

Sandhya Madam told that under EMPHASIS program we can facilitate them to accomplish their common dream to constitute a youth group but first they have to take a lead towards this. There would not be any financial commitment from our side but they can use our DIC for group meetings in future.

 

Point of discussion for NING members- How to go further to facilitate them in constituting a youth club at Kapashera village.

 

Meeting with two persons from Kanchanpur (woman and man) - The woman was alone at home and her kid was playing outside. Her husband works at Udyog Vihar (Gurgaon) in an export company and they came to India 5 months back.  She was having some gynecological problem for which she had undergone treatment from a private hospital but still she is not ok. She told us that their land lord and police asked them to submit their Identity cards urgently otherwise they would be thrown out from the village. When we shared that there should not be any legal issue to have an I-card for Nepali mobile people if they have Nepali citizen card with them. Then she told us that they forgot to bring the Nepali Citizen Card with them for which they are now planning to go back and bring the cards.

In our opinion the police has become little strict because of security purpose before onset of Commonwealth Game (CWG) happening in Delhi from 3^rd Oct to 14^th Oct 2010.

The man from Kanchanpur was just back from his office because his brother was leaving for Nepal on the same day and he has to handover some money for her family back in Nepal.  He has been staying in Delhi for last 6 years in the same company. He has got the ESI (Employee State insurance) card from his employer. The Employees’ State Insurance Scheme is an integrated measure of Social Insurance embodied in the Employees’ State Insurance Act and is designed to accomplish the task of protecting ‘employees’ as defined in the Employees’ State Insurance Act against the hazards of sickness, maternity, disablement and death due to employment injury and to provide medical care to insured persons and their families.

 

It was very satisfactory and enlightening field visit for all of us. We would like to continue the discussion raised in our note.

 

 

 

Report prepared by

 

Puran Thapa and Sandhya Mishra

Modicare Foundation

[Sandhya Mishra]

Dear Laurence & Rituu,

How are you. Apology for late reply.  Answering to your comments, first we had done the recap of dream building exercises executed with them earlier. It was altogether a combination of individual dreams as well as community dream. The most shared community dream were having Identity card and youth club at the location. They collectively decided to go forward with the later one i.e, youth club at Kapashera, Delhi for the Nepalese population.

Rafique has facilitated the self assessment with the group where they have rated themselves at first level wherein they are aware of the fact that youth club would certainly give the community a common platform and unite them.

To plan for action, the following tasks have been decided by the group to accomplish:

• Priority practices – Who all would be the member of the constitution of youth club

• Target levels for these priorities (they want to go from level 1 to level 2)

• Actions they want to undertake to reach the target levels - who is responsible for each activity, collection of ID proof if any

 

The next meeting would be planned in this week or the next week to discuss their action plan. I am attaching few pictures for your reference.

 

Thank you & regards

sandhyaa

EMPHASIS, Modicare Foundation Delhi

[Laurence Gilliot]

Dear Sandhya,

Do you have a picture of this community?
I would like to add their story to the Constellation annual report.
Did you facilitate the self-assessment and action planning with them?

Thanks,

Laurence

[Dr. E. Mohamed Rafique]

Hi Puran and Sandhya,

It is but natural that migrant communities in an alien land dream of coming together in a show of strength against the stigma of being a foreigner. Hence, the wish to form an association.

Moreover, considering that the major pull factor to the destination country is always the lure of a better job and better payment, compared to the source, it is not surprising to see making money come up, repeatedly in their hopes and aspirations.

I remember, that the last time I was her in Kapasera along with the Modicare team and the CARE UK visitors Sarah and Mia, I facilitated a dream session, which brought out the same or similar wishes. I distinctly remember the couple of community members (Rocky, and the older person) who stated that we have done more than three dream sessions in this particular community. Accordingly, I had then promised to do the next step in the CLCP, namely self assessment in Jan 2011.

To this I look forward,

[Laurence Gilliot]

Dear Puran and Sandhya,

 

I'm sure the youth enjoyed it a lot to discuss their dreams together with you. Like John-Pierre always says 'the most important is to keep on dreaming' even when you are in a difficult situation. I also believe that if you have a dream and you believe in it, you will always be able to realize your dream.

 

What you could do with the youth is

- to build a dream for the youth club

- to build an action plan to set up and run the youth club

 

If anyone has more experience with doing this, please share with our friends!

 

Laurence

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Dear Sandhya,

 

Thanks for this blog. Do you know that the youth in Nagaland expressed the same dream- of setting up youth clubs. They want to use these clubs to meet and address issues of the village.  If any section of the society in any country is most important for change, it is the young people.

 

I just noticed the first three blogs on Ning from CARE- two from EMPHASIS project and one from Nari Saksham. We are learning a lot from you CARE team.

 

Cheers,

Rituu