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OUR INITIATIVES

Community Level Initiatives

This project, supported by Micronutrient Initiative, aimed to improve Iron and Folic Acid (IFA) consumption among adolescent girls and pregnant women in 20 districts of Madhya Pradesh. Through capacity building of health workers and awareness campaigns, the project addressed critical nutritional deficiencies, improving maternal and child health outcomes.
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Community Participation in Governance and Decision Making

With the introduction of 73rd Amendments to the constitution Panchayats became institutions of Local self-government in India. The Constitution identified 29 subjects as an area of work for Panchayats. These include health, education, rural industries, water management and irrigation, agriculture development, development of fisheries, animal husbandry, dairying and poultry. Debate realised that unless successful models of effective local self-government are not developed the powers and authority of self determination, on subjects and issues of local importance, will not come to the local communities. Keeping this in mind Debate started working in two districts of un-divided Madhya Pradesh namely Bastar and Rajgarh.

Food Security

Debate worked in the tribal areas of Betul and found that people faced scarcity of food grains during rainyseason. Based on the situation analysis Debate started a programme to address this issue. After community consultation it was decided to develop grain banks in a cluster of 21 villages. The grain banks were established with community contribution of 5 kg of maize and 5 kg of wheat from each household. Later government also contributed 4 quintal of wheat per grain bank. The grain banks were established in the year 2001 and are working very successfully in the villages. Based on the experience of Betul Debate
started a similar programme in district Jhabua where with the help of WFP Debate established 176 grain banks in in 176 villages of three development blocks of the district.

To combat food insecurity, Debate facilitated the creation of grain banks in tribal areas like Betul and Jhabua. This initiative encouraged community contributions and government support to establish sustainable food reserves. The grain banks provided critical food security during lean seasons, benefiting thousands of families and becoming a model replicated in other districts.
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Water management and Agricultural Development

Water is a major challenge in almost all the villages where we have worked. Water for household uses, water for animals and water for irrigational requirements are three major areas of concern in the villages of Madhya Pradesh. In all the villages Debate had to face this issue and demand of support from the community. In order to address this issue Debate has undertaken following steps:

  • Situation analysis of the water use and scarcity;
  • Identification of sources of water;
  • Changing pattern of availability of water over past few decades;
  • Identification of sustainable solution for water availability;

Major focus of the work was to create water-harvesting structures with the use of low cost and sustainable technologies. Debate has helped communities in Rajgarh and Sahdol districts to construct structure for water conservation agricultural needs.

 Forest Management

Forest and forest products are major source of livelihood in rural areas of Madhya Pradesh especially for tribal population of the state. The management of forest is a joint responsibility of forest Department and forest committees constituted in the villages. Debate has worked with forest committees to understand their roles and responsibilities in managing and preserving forest in Bastar (in Chhatisgarh), Betul, Sahdol and Raisen districts.

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Parshads In the Training cum Orientation
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To combat food insecurity, Debate facilitated the creation of grain banks in tribal areas like Betul and Jhabua. This initiative encouraged community contributions and government support to establish sustainable food reserves. The grain banks provided critical food security during lean seasons, benefiting thousands of families and becoming a model replicated in other districts.

Health

In the field of Health Debate has supported Health and Family Welfare department in capacity building of its field staff on various components of service delivery. Important among these are:

  • Planning and implementation of programmes for Micronutrient supplementation (20 districts in Ujjain, Bhopal and Jabalpur divisions of Madhya Pradesh);
  • Data management and estimation of the requirement of different micronutrients such as IFA tablets, Vitamin A syrup, Injection of Vitamin K, Calcium and other important drugs;
  • Designing capacity building programme for Panchayat representatives to plan, implement and manage the health programmes in their respective villages (With UNFPA, DANIDA, Directorate of Health Services of MP, UNICEF and CARE);
  • Developing health plans of villages in three blocks of Panna district;

Women Empowerment

Training of women Panchayat representatives about their rights is one of the core programme Debate has undertaken in last 15 years. Debate has developed learning materials on women rights and has trained standing committees of Panchayat and Gram Sabha to act as an institution of support for women facing problems and difficulties in their lives. Working on the concept of gender budget, training women Panchayat representatives to understand the concept of gender budget and how it can benefit them at local level has been another area of intervention in almost all the programmes undertaken by Debate.

Child Workshop
WOmen Triba_l PAnchayat Leaders in Dindori (1)
Group Discussion (1)
In Chhattisgarh, Debate facilitated participatory planning under the BRGF program. This initiative involved capacity building of Panchayats and local governance structures, enabling them to identify community priorities and create actionable development plans. It addressed gaps in infrastructure and resource allocation, significantly boosting regional development.

Tribal Development

Large parts of Madhya Pradesh are inhabited by the tribal communities and around 21 districts have geographical area under Fifth Schedule of the constitution. Debate has worked on the issue of strengthening governance in tribal areas. The work has largely focused on orienting elected Panchayat Representatives in Tribal areas about the power, authority and responsibilities bestowed upon them though 73rd Amendment to the constitution together with Extension of Panchayats (Scheduled Areas) Act 1996. The work has few very key elements that are:

  • Capacity Building;
  • Handholding Support to the representatives after training on key issues of planning, management and implementation;
  • Preparing Development Plans for their Village