Over the years, AID's philosophy has evolved to appreciate the seemingly
intricate and interconnected nature of issues that affect the poorest of the poor
in different parts of
The word region,
is used pretty loosely in this context -- it may mean a district, it could be a
village in a district, or it could be a bigger entity. Of course, the deeper
understanding may even lead us to realize that different "regions"
may need different "models" of grassroots development -- but one
thing that will remain the same is the yardstick for the appropriateness of an
intervention, namely, will it lead to "sarvoday
through antyoday" - i.e. will the intervention
strategy empower the poorest of the poor, in the region.
While AID has worked on a large
number of diverse projects with many different NGO's, CBO's
and movements, a very small fraction of these projects have been with NGO's and
movements in the North East. There may be many different reasons for this,
including - lack of volunteer support to visit the North East region to
identify groups we can work with, poor representation of people from the North
East as part of the AID community in any chapter, our lack of sufficient
knowledge of the issues that affect the poor in this region, fewer groups from
the North East contacting AID for funding, etc. Till the creation of the cell,
our sustained effort in the region had been through AID MD's interaction with
NEN (North East Network) with whom we have done a series of projects. While the
involvement with the NGO itself had been very good we were not successful in
involving the NE community in our efforts. This changed after the summer of
2003 when
1. Increasing AID's
understanding of issues that affected the marginalized sections of society in
this region
2. Increasing AID's
presence in the North East, by identifying groups/movements/individuals we can
work with
3. Implementing a paradigm for
sustainable development at the grassroots by actively seeking out groups and
projects that worked on issues that affected the poor.
The current North East cell
includes members from many AID chapters as well as members from the NE
Community who may not be part of AID. In addition to volunteers from the
One of the first
tasks of the North East Cell was to evolve a concept note that would address
both the vision of the Cell as well as the mechanism of operation of the cell.
The final concept note may be viewed at:
http://www.aidindia.org/twiki/bin/view/NECell/AidNeConceptNote
It is to be borne in mind that
unlike some other regions, wherein AID has participated in a large number of
projects that may help identify fundamental issues that affect development in
the region, this is not so in case of the North East. Thus, even as we chart a
bottom-up approach of identifying the main issues that affect the poor in
districts in which we already have a presence, we remain open to continuing to
identify new groups with whom we can work in the region - though they may work
to address many different issues in many different districts. However, the cell
has made a conscious decision to try and learn about the history, culture, and
issues that affect the poor in the seven states of the North East
(see http://www.aidindia.org/twiki/bin/view/NECell/AidNeProcess)
1. Work with
North East Network (NEN) - Not quite a new initiative since the inception of
the NE cell, but we expect that our involvement with them will increase as we
seek to understand the issues in the north east. NEN, a networking
organization, has worked in the area since 1991 and has been involved with
issues related to women's right and conflict situation in several states in the
North East. AID has been working with the NEN since 1999. We have done three
projects with them including building the first health center in a Dharikathi village in
2. Trips by members of the Cell
to the North East
(Trip reports can be viewed at http://www.aidindia.org/twiki/bin/view/NECell/ProjectVisitReports),
These trips delineated a very
broad set of new groups that we could work with. Two new groups that we are
currently working with to identify sustainable projects that we could work them
on, include ACRD (
3. Learning about the History and
Culture of the North East
Even as we identify new groups
and movements to work with at the grassroots in the North East, we are now
looking to learn about the North East from a historical perspective. This
includes history that may be taught in mainstream historical texts in the rest
of
(See http://www.aidindia.org/twiki/bin/view/NECell/AidNeProcess)
4. Work with the Rural
5. Work with ERLISID, Kokrajhar and
3. Involving the NE
Community in the
We believe that
one of the important steps in understanding (and possibly solving) the issues in NE is to build a better dialogue between the NE
community and the so called 'mainstream' Indian community. AID Boston
volunteers, Debo, Anand, Shailja, Sree and Shrinaath, had the wonderful opportunity to participate in
the Boston NE Community's BIHU celebrations, on April 17th 2004. We tabled at
the event and even got a chance to speak to the audience there about the NE
Cell within AID. We sold 15 AID 2004 calendars besides getting as many as 20
new volunteers to signup to be part of AID. In fact, we even had one new
volunteer, Aditya, even attend the very next AID meeting. We are currently
identifying various ways in which we can involve members of the NE Community
proactively in the work done by the NE Cell.
4. The Ship (or Boat) of
Hope Proposal
http://www.aidindia.org/twiki/bin/view/NECell/DiscussionTopics
http://www.aidindia.org/twiki/bin/view/NECell/ShipOfHopeProposal
The Brahmaputra
river and its tributaries flow down from the eastern
Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau into
Noted social activist and
journalist, Sanjoy Hazarika
and his team of grassroot boat builders, have
proposed the development of a prototype of a well-designed and locally built
country boat, low-draft and quick-moving, to carry teams of medical personnel
from government and private agencies as well as life saving equipment sent by
government, donors and relief agencies. Such boats can be designed and built
locally but with better technology including the use of stronger diesel engines
than the irrigation pump sets which double as motors. Members of the NE Cell
together with personnel from IIT Guwahati, professors
and students from MIT and independent design engineers from India and the US,
are working closely with Sanjoyda both in helping
with the design of the boat as well as in raising funds for the implementation
of the project (the budget for the project is clsoe
to $30,000 of which a sum of $15,000 has been requested of the World Bank)
The rivers of
The design and construction of
one such boat can show that the unique resources of the region can be tapped
for innovative and sustainable change through Boats of Hope.
More info: Contact:
ne-cell@mit.edu