Community led efforts bring well being in villages of Rajasthan

January 06, 2021

Sahyog Sansthan in Udaipur, Rajasthan India is a community based organization that primarily supports a grassroots network of Indigenous farmers in one of the driest regions of the country. Rooted in Gandhian thought, Sahyog promotes swaraj – or self reliance – as one of their key tenets, encouraging communities to become less dependent on markets, government, and NGOs. One of Sahyog’s key strategies is to organize local communities into collectives that serve as a vehicle for self-led programs. Sahyog’s work with such groups includes topics like water security, drought mitigation, revival of common pastureland, agroecology, and savings. The below photos capture some of Sahyog’s work in community-led development and ecological restoration over the past year.

A group of women meet their self-help group in the Malarvas village. These grassroots collective approaches encourage group formation, decision making, and action on several fronts. Their work deals with basic savings and thrift activities to encourage a common pool of funds for members. The groups also discuss health, farming, or social enterprises.
About 90 farm families enlisted for Sahyog’s organic farming program last year. This photo is one of several mixed gender trainings on organic farming for community members.
A woman visits a compost pit that she created with locally available materials. Over 50 such compost pits were created by community members in the last year.
The well pictured here is named "Umerwala" and located at Surkhan village. Sahyog has been working with local communities to create wells that will get recharged with rain water during the monsoons. These wells then provide water during the off season. Umerwala stored enough water to irrigate the lands of 6 families in the summer season.
This water harvesting structure, named ‘Vankalivelly’ by the locals, is a type of small check dam. It was constructed in June 2019.
A family enjoys a swim at Vankalivelly, which is replete with water during the 2020 monsoons. This structure recharged groundwater for over ten wells in the area and provided irrigation to about 25 families in the area. Despite the impact of COVID-19, these families were able to irrigate their fields and enjoy a harvest.
This stone wall is a soil and water conservation measure that helps to check runoff and to control erosion. By forming a barrier that slows down water runoff, rainwater seeps into the soil and spreads more evenly over the land. This is a widely practiced technique by farmers in many dry regions of the world.
A family observes the results of the organic farming methods on their fields. In order to encourage and show the actual benefits of organic farming systems, Sahyog conducted field trials, visits, and demonstrations. 90 farm families were part of these experiments in the last year.

By Ashlesha Khadse , Program Manager, Asia and The Pacific