Rama Devi Women's University has adopted the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) flagship program of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) Government of India, the country coordinating organization IIT Delhi and Regional Coordinating agency NIT Rourkela. UBA aims to bring a transformational change in rural development by active participation of higher academic institutions with local communities, and reorientation of curricula and R&D design of knowledge Institutions. The Mission of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is to enable participating higher educational institutions to work with the people of rural India in identifying development challenges and evolving appropriate solutions for accelerating sustainable growth. It also aims to create a virtuous cycle between society and an inclusive academic system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors in responding to the development needs of rural India. Rama Devi Women's University, Bhubaneswar has adopted a cluster of villages namely (1) Kainpokhari in Cuttack District and (2) Mendhasala, (3) Andharua, (4) Arilo and (5) HariharpurinKhurdha District.
The UBA expert team has organized meetings with various stakeholders in the proposed villages and hamlets in the month of December 2019 and January 2020. The community problems have been identified from the data analysis through face to face discussion, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) exercise, observation, key informant interviews and findings of the Household Survey of the five villages. Village Development Action plan has been proposed to address some of the key problem and challenges by various age group and gender.
Student volunteers conducted household survey of the five adopted villages as a part of the problem analysis for Village Development Action Plan August 2019-January 2020
PRA is "an approach and methods for learning about rural life and conditions from, with and by rural people" (Chambers1994). UBA-team RDWU has conducted PRA exercises and have adopted following tools namely Natural and Social Resource Mapping, Observation, Wealth Ranking, Seasonal Mapping and time series Analysis to gather information for village development plan.
Village Social Resource Mapping and Natural Resource Mapping Exercise conducted by Unnat Bharat Abhyan Team of Rama Devi Women's University as a part of the Participatory Rural Apprisa Exercise for developing Village Action Plan for Andharua Village September 2019
Mapping the Seasonal Agricultural Crop Pattern and Challenges for Community by Unnat Bharat Abhyan Team of Rama Devi Women's University as a part of the Participatory Rural Apprisa Exercise for Village Action Plan for Andharua December 2019
Discussion with the Head Mistress and teachers, Word Member, Parents and students at Andharua Primary School to understand the quality of education and its impact as a part of the Village Development Action Plan February 2020
The online workshop has been organized in the month of April 2020 during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown period. The Sarpanch, Ward Member, Head Mistress, Swachha village group, Anganwadi worker, Asha Karmi, SHG members, village youth and some member of the Village Development Committee have participated in the workshop. The discussion was to gain community knowledge on the utilization of Sarpanch village development fund, community preparedness to accommodate 102 labour immigration and engaging school children through 'SikhyaSanjog' activities.
Rama Devi Women's University Vidya Vihar,PO:Bhoinagar Bhubaneswar,751022,Odisha,India Phone No. : 0674-2542644 Email:registrar(at)rdwu(dot)ac(dot)in
