Fraternity Fellowship Program
(May to Oct 2020)
About Fraternity Fellowship Program:
The main objective of the Fraternity Fellowship Program is to enhance alumni and their local Civil Society Organizations’ capacities to address the social and economic rights of marginalized to catalyze transparency & accountability of State.
Respond to Covide 19 Pandemic Situations:
Even though social and economic situation changed drastically due to Covid 19 pandemic, fellows tried to address the challenging situation by reaching out Dalit and Adivsis community with relief packages. Along with networking organizations and community leaders, they tried to provide assistance to the most vulnerable people during the lockdown period. During the pandemic they reached they managed to support 5 migrant families with ration kits and more than 120 families with ration kits. Some of the fellows also followed up with the Municipal Corporation and got residential premises sanitized with their help.
Mr.Rahul, fellow from Telangana State did remarkable work during pandemic, in the month of Sept 2020. He reached to more than 90 Street Venders and created awareness about SVANidhi Yojana launched by Prime Minister (PM) which provided Rs.10, 000 (Ten thousand rupees) loan for the Street Vendors, those who are affected during the lockdown under Athma Nirbhar Bharath Abhiya. With his consistent efforts, total amount of Rs.9,00,000.00 (Rs.Nine Lakhs) got successfully accessed by Street vender from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe community. Fellows from Telangana state did case studies on the issues of Status of Women and Sanitation workers during Pandemic period and worked effectively on these issues. Whereas fellow from Karnataka created awareness about Caste discrimination practice in the state and followed up Caste Atrocities cases during pandemic period.
Capacity Building Training Program:
Manuski conducted online meeting and training program to discuss in details to respond the challenging situation and handle community issues even during lockdown period. Through meetings discussed about strategies to work on Monitoring Public Distribution System (PDS) and intervention required to deal with issue of Migrant labour, Domestic Violence, issues of Sanitation workers, etc., accordingly the fellows prepared their work plan and initiated work
In month of May 2020, Manuski conducted online reading session on “State and Minorities” and discussed in details about the Fundamental Rights of Citizens and Admission of States into the Union. Manuski conducted online series of lecture in month of May and June 2020 with help of Amebedkar Carvan Social Media on various topics such as “Caste & Carona, Constitutional Morality, Dr. B.R.Ambedkar and his Approach to Law, Stop Killing Us – Issues of Manual Scavenging, etc. in which experts on the subject address in the series of talk and also interacted with viewers.
Access to Justice – Defending Caste Based Discrimination
Fellow from Karnataka gathered information from various newspapers on caste based discrimination practices and worked on creating awareness about Prevention of Atrocities Act by sharing videos and news about atrocity cases in the district to activists, community and authorities as well. Furthermore, fellow filed Right to Information (RTI) applications to Superintendent of Police office & Commissioner of Police Gulbarga city to get detail information about cases registered under PoA Act 1989 during the lockdown period from the month of March to June 2020. Meanwhile fellow also approached victims of atrocities, were police department has not registered the cases due to lockdown.
Access to Public Entitlements
Even during the Pandemic period, fellows interacted with various government departments regarding the access to various schemes. Fellows from Telangan followed up Kalyanlaxmi Schemes in which the Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe(ST), Backward Class (BC), Economically Backward Class (EBC) families get assistance for their Bride’s marriage. The eligible families get up to Rs.1, 00,116.00 (One Lakh one hundred and sixteen rupees) as a support for the Bridge’s Marriage. Together they 6 families to apply for the schemes, in which 2 families received benefit whereas application of 4 families application were under verification progress by the Revenue Inspector. They followed applications of Asara Pension Scheme and as a result 2 applications successfully got sanctioned. Within the schemes, the senior citizen receives Rs. 2000.00 (Two Thousand Rupees) per month as a pension.
They also created awareness about Best Availability School Scheme (BASE) which is the State government Policy. The policy is about free education for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC) communities, from 1st and 5th standard, which included Free Admission and Books, Transport facilities, all at free of cost. With their support total 380 applications got submitted and they also followed up with concern govt. officers regarding the admission process. Fellows also created awareness about Ambedkar Overseas Schemes.
Fellows also took action again unlawful activities by timely communicating with State through letters and memorandums. Fellow from Karnataka submitted letter to Chie Minister of Karnataka to remove non-SC communities from the list of SC community as per Supreme Court Order No 1381/219 dated 14th Feb 2020. Few of them also submitted memorandum to President to take immediate action in Hathras case where 19 year old girl gang raped and killed and also submitted memorandum to the Commissioner of City Corporation Gulbarga Karnataka requesting not to remove any labours of SC/STs working on loading and off-loading.
Building Communities Breaking Caste Barriers
Fellows participated in workshop on Buddha Dhamma and celebrated Pournima. During the programs they focused on creating awareness about Buddha Dhamma and Ambedkar movements among the people. The program was attended by more than 80 participants. One of the fellow from Telangana also created awareness about the inter caste marriages in Nizamabad district and encouraging new generation for inter caste marriages and with community supported successfully organized inter caste marriage in which the Bride belonged to Backwards Community whereas Groom from Schedule Caste Community. Fellows also interacted with other organisations though meetings and discussed about ways strengthening Dalits and Adivais and also planned to conduct awareness program on Dalit and Adivasis’s rights.
