VRTI ACTIVITIES

1. SHREE VIVEKANAND RESEARCH AND TRAINING INSTITUTE
MANDVI –KUTCH


Office:
Near Jain Ashram, Nagalpar Road,
Mandvi – Kutch, Gujarat (INDIA)
Pin: 370565
Phone No.: 02834 - 223253, 223934,
Fax No. 02834-223838
E-Mail: [email protected]


Profile

Introduction

Shree Vivekanand Research and Training Institute established in
1975, is registered in 1980 under Bombay Public charitable Trust

2. Act 1950.Under the valuable guidance of Mr. Kantishen Shroff
(KAKA), it is working in 225 villages of Kutch (Gujarat).The
Government of Gujarat has honored it with rank “A”.

Main objective of the organization is to promote sustainable rural
development with community participation in the area. Main
activities are Rain water harvesting, Creating drinking water
distribution resources and distribution systems, Watershed
development, Prevention and mitigation of salinity ingress,
Promoting salinity resistant crops, Disaster management, Livelihood,
Health & hygiene, Education and capacity building programs at
village level. Environment friendly activities like tree plantation,
Eco club, and Smokeless chullas are also being carried out. The
vision is to develop sustainable economic activities based
on agriculture, animal husbandry and rural art & craft.

Activities of the organization

·Water harvesting and management

Water scarcity is very serious issue in kutch. For the solution of this
problem organization considers water harvesting and water
management activity as an important programme. This programme
covers various govt. schemes, projects of different funding agencies
and donors with community participation. Water harvesting
structures like check dam, Storage tanks, percolation tanks, Farm

3. ponds, Farm bunds, recharging tube wells, well recharging are being
constructed for maximum harvesting of rain water.

Water saving is equally important therefore organization promotes
various water saving techniques like Drip irrigation, use of recycled
plastic pipe in place of open channel, trench irrigation etc.

·Watershed development

The whole idea of water harvesting is to make last drop of rain, go
underground. Rain water falling in watershed areas flows very
rapidly. We make the rainwater to stop where it falls and make it to
percolate into the ground. We have to direct all our activities for
balanced and sustainable progress of water, land, forest, animals and
humans. Direct there activities towards set objective.

We train the people living in watershed areas and mould their
behavior, attitude, conscious and values for appreciating the
importance of natural resources.

We invite them to visit good sites to make them appreciate the value
of natural resources so that instead of depleting them they nurture
them.

4. ·Local self governance of drinking water and cleanliness
program

Activities were organized in Kutch after the 2001 earthquake to
encourage people for their own drinking water requirements. With
this intention since 2003 WASMO is carrying out activities to make
people participate and have a sense of ownership of sustained
activities for drinking water and cleanliness of their own village. We
have seen good results of these activities. To complete the projects
people form committees, they involve women, get help from NGO’s
and supervise the project themselves. For long term success of the
project they accept the responsibility for operation and maintenance.
People have started collecting water tax and deposit the funds with
Government. Government is encouraging people for this with
“MANIR” program with operation, Maintenance Fund. This fund is
available to villages which collect water tax, have rules and
regulation for water consumption and are also maintaining
cleanliness


oNursery and Eco club

People are becoming concerned about environment. They have
started planting and nurturing trees. For supporting this activity
VRTI has setup two nurseries at Mandvi and Naliya with the
capacity of nurturing about 50,000 plantlets. We supply these
plantlets to primary schools, high schools, panchayats and for

5. backyard of the houses. We nurture large variety of local trees
suitable for local soil, water and environment.






oTraining and exposure tours for skill enhancement

Under various programs, we imparted the training to make them
responsible for self governance of their village. We also provided
training to improve their capacity and productivity. We also
organized relevant exposure tours. With the exchange of ideas and
actions people got ready to improve the quality of life in their
village.


oSNEHAL
(Sustainable Nutrition, Education, Health & Livelihood)

This scheme is conceived by the United States of America,
Department of Agriculture (USDA) and is being implemented by
CARE – India. From the environmental viewpoint this scheme is for
four delicate and sensitive districts of Gujarat (Kutch, Patan,
Surendranagar & Rajkot) and the prime objective is to improve and

6. provide sustainable livelihood for poor people leaving on the edge of
the economy. It is necessary for their community empowerment.

The critical elements of this scheme are residence, reestablishment
of the infrastructure for community living, improvement in their
income and ability to sustain the onslaught of natural calamities. The
scheme also targets to address the issues of Sustainable Nutrition,
Education, Health and Livelihood.

For this we have to focus on communities which are left out of main
streams and are deprived. The scheme is also sensitive about
women, children and youth. The target groups are fishermen, salt
pan workers, charcoal makers, pastoralist and marginal farmers.



oSelf Help Groups (SHG)

Under the SNEHAL scheme we formed a group of women to come
under one roof with strong sense of team spirit. We organized
training programs and activities to enhance their skill sets and
knowledge so, that they can cooperatively improved their livelihood.

oHealth

7. Various activities were carried out with due importance given to
awareness for health of women, children and youth. These activities
were coordinated with ICDS, Health Dept., Local PHC and CHC.
The discussion was organized with target groups like pregnant
women, feeding mothers & small children. The discussion included
topics like delivery, mother and child death, regular vaccination,
mother’s day, etc. For effective presentation we organize audio
video shows, street plays, role play, display of charts & banners,
workshops which created good awareness among participants

oEducation

Some of the objectives under SNEHAL project explain the
significance of education in life, encourage children to go to school
and minimise the rate of drop outs from school.In each village the
project facilitates education for girls in the age bracket of 10 to 20
years with the cooperation of Government, parents and local
PANCHAYAT. We supported village education committies to
improve the quality of education.

oFishery

Most of the villages covered under SNEHAL project are within 3 to
8 km. from sea. There are 399 families who earn their livelihood by
fishing. They are doing this activity since generations but they have
not upgraded their knowledge, use outdated equipment and do not
have proper licenses to operate in international sea water. This
deprives them from earning dignified livelihood. We worked with

8. there families to obtain their identity cards, licenses, smart cards
from concerned authorities. We provided them necessary training in
cooperation with Fishing Department. We replaced their outdated
equipment with modern equipment. We also studied their market
structure and helped them get better prices. These have improved
their income significantly.


oCohesive society

It is the sense of cooperation and sense of belonging which is
essential for a sustained Socio-economic growth of a cohesive
society. You need a local group with strong sense of responsibility
for sharing the benefits of growth and progress. With the strength
and dexterity of such a group, change is possible. If local group
takes up the responsibility and carries out the social activities
together, the results will be sustainable.

oVivekgram – a monthly magagine

We are publishing monthly magazine “VIVEKGRAM” with
objective of shaping a healthy and progressive society in villages.

oDocumentation of successful programmes

9. You learn a lot while working with people and organize activities
based on experience equipped with knowledge then it becomes a
sustainable social activity and easy to implement in reality. People
need moral support for taking risk. They need some one to mentor
and provide needed finances. This makes the activity lively. A lot
of social good is being done by lot of people. They identify the
problems and they also have some approach to solving the social
issues and problems. If proper documentation is done to spell out
the problems, issues, solutions and experiences, it make much
easier to replicate the approach for similar problems anywhere
else and provide similar solutions. It will answer questions like
what were the hurdles ? what were the solutions ? what can be the
possible challenges in future ? what were our skill sets ? what new
skill sets will have to be learned ?

With these objectives, we have established an institute
“Vivekanand Institute of Education for the Sustainable
Development” (VIESD).We have prepared documentations for the
following topics related to food, fodder, water and soil
management, climate change etc.

1.Cattle Feed Centre
2.Community fodder Bank
3.Seed Fair
4.Water harvesting and management
5.Eco club
6.Kitchen garden
7.Solid waste management
8.Waste land development and soil improvement
9.Global warming

10. 10.Prosopis (Babool) management
11.Rooftop rain water harvesting
12.Employment generation in rural area – handicraft





oNational awards to organization

No. Award Oranization Year
1 National Award for
Rural Development
FICCI-New Delhi 1993
2 National Award for
Rural Technology
Shree Ram vaisnav
devi Bhatiya
Memorabl Trust -
Delhi
1997
3 Parmand kapadiya
and Jadavji
Somchand Maheta
Rastriya Safai
Puraskar
National Sanitation
and environment
improvement
Foundation
1997
4 Parmand kapadiya
and Jadavji
Somchand Maheta
Rastriya Safai
Puraskar
National Sanitation
and environment
improvement
Foundation
2003

11. 5 Darsak Award Darsak Foundation
-Ahmedabad
2006
6 Bhumi Jal
Samvardhan Puraskar
Ministry of water
harvesting Govt. of
Inida
2007
7 Bhumi Jal
Samvardhan Puraskar
Ministry of water
harvesting Govt. of
Inida
2008