Village- Nuapada, GP- Nuapada, Block- Sinapali, Dist- Nuapada
Nuapada of Sinapali block is a village with 118 households and 480 populations of scheduled caste, scheduled tribes, and other backward caste people. The people of this village mainly engaged in agriculture and daily labor activities, but unfortunately, the village is highly prone to drought every year. In 2022, the community recently faced a severe drought in the village for which they had to suffer the loss of their agriculture.
Chale Chalo has been working here since 2021 with the community people on water conservation measures. Every month, the team of Chale Chalo, with the support of Didi groups, conducts monthly meetings, interactions, and home visits to generate awareness of water and livelihood security. In the meetings, the team facilitates the village people on the water, water cycle, watershed components, its management, rainwater conservation, forest regeneration, protection, and other measures impacting sustainable water and livelihood security.
During the discussions, the Didi members, Jala Mitras(water volunteers), village water management committee members, and other stakeholders get linked to their available natural resources.
A forest named, Pradhani forest was one of the dense forests near the village, but with time, people have used the forest products for their regular needs resulting in forest degradation. While learning about the watershed components, which include the 5 J’s- Jal, Jivan, Jantu, Jungle, Jami (Water, life, animals, forest, and lands), the community internalized the linkage and importance of these components for sustained watershed management and specifically, the role of forest in water and soil conservation.
With collective efforts, the Didi leaders led the village people in collecting the seeds, preparing the seed balls, and throwing them in the forest areas. In the last year, they have prepared 800 seed balls, and thrown them in the Pradhani forest, and around 600 saplings have been planted in their private lands in convergence with the horticulture and agriculture departments.
In September 2023, through PRA exercises while preparing micro water security plans at the village level, Mr. Barun Sunani, the field facilitator, shared about different government officials and departments through the Chapati diagram. The Didi leaders and other community people decided to get help from the forest department by demanding plantation activities in the Pradhani forest.
On 2nd October 2023, the team, Didi leaders, water volunteers, and village people with the presence of PRIs and GPEO, attended the special Gram Sabha, where they highlighted the micro water security plans at household, farm, village levels and shared the consolidated gram panchayat development plans of Nuapada gram panchayat. They also submitted the proposed application to the Forest Range Officer, Sinapali for undertaking the plantation program. The ward member, Mr. Narayan Bag, has been given the responsibility of looking after the work of the plantation.
Again, on 25th November 2023, Mr. Bag, and Mr. Barun, visited the Forest department and gave another copy of the application to concerned officials. Mr. Murali Panda, the range officer, accepted the application and assured village people that the proposed plan for the plantation work would be done.
After a couple of months, during the follow-up visit by the Didi leaders, they got confirmed that their proposed application had been already approved and added to the action plan of the forest department. The plantation work in the Pradhani forest has been already done during the rainy seasons.
The Didi leaders, water volunteers, and the village water management committee members are creating awareness for the protection of the forest, preservation of ecology, and undertaking a plantation program for effective rainwater conservation.