Summer Camp at Dadar 16th & 17th May 2018

CSA with its networking partner Salvation Centre for Community Organization held a two day summer camp at Dadar on the 16^th & 17^th May 2018. Twenty three children from various communities across Dadar participated in the camp.

For the first day the resource person Ms. Clipsy Banji conducted a session on ‘Behaviour Management’. She took an interactive session with the use of various games.

She explained the children how they would generally react to various situations and how they must portray themselves with their good behavior at various levels and phases of life.

On the second day Ms. Darshana Souz, CCO staff conducted a session on “Personality development” with the use of games and action songs. She explained the method by which in difficult situations one should overcome their weaknesses and turn it to their strength.

The main focus of the summer camp was to provide social and personal values to children through these sessions. Children have actively and whole heartedly participated in the program.

Women’s day celebration at Bandra

International women’s day was celebrated at Bandra on 12^th March 2018. One hundred women with sixty children were present for the celebration. The theme chosen was ‘women and Equality’.  The main speaker for the evening was a police inspector from the crime branch at Bandra. She spoke about various laws in the country related to women against Domestic violence act 2005, Sexual harassment at workplace, cybercrime, and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act. Along with providing safety and security instructions, the inspector urged the women to look after their own health as well. The chief guest representing CSA motivated the women to overcome difficult situations through a short inspiring story. Songs, skits and dances were performed by women and children.  The program ended with a nourishing dinner. The celebration was well planned and executed by the community animators under the guidance of CSA & Centre for Community Organization (CCO).

CSA Empowering Women through Financial Literacy!

CSA changes the life of 40 women with its Financial empowerment program (FEP) which began in November 2016 at Mumbai & Dharavi Island. The objective being to enable the marginalized & underprivileged women to understand the importance of savings. In order to encourage women to make their own decision for their personal & family growth and for the growth of the society at large, CSA in collaboration with its networking partners designed a module for the program. Engaging at the grass root level CSA conducted sessions every month at Poinsur, Bunderpakhadi, Goregaon & Uttan areas. Fifty women participated and understood the method of savings, the various types of bank accounts like Saving and Recurring Deposit(RD) and the procedure to open a simple bank account. Out of the 50 women, 40 completed their 12 months RD of Rs. 500 a month and decided to make an FD as well as restart an RD (of Rs.1000).

A lady from Bunderpakhadi said, “After the FEP program I learnt to save money daily. To increase my family income & savings I started to work as a domestic worker instead of staying home and have decided to increase my RD saving from Feb 2018.”

Another participant from Goregaon said,” I was working past 15 years as a domestic worker but I could never save even Rs.500 an annual but now I could save Rs.6000 last year.

Leadership Skills and Celebration of Saheli Din at Pragati Kendra Trust, Worli 25.01.2018

Ms. Shilpa Kashelkar, who specialises in Women empowerment and is a visiting faculty member from Nirmala Niketan, led a training program on Leadership Skills at the Pragati Kendra Trust, Worli on 25th January 2018. Ms. Sheetal Palande CSA staff; helped in organising and assisting the event. A total of 57 women from Janata Colony, Golfadevi and Waorli Koliwada attended the program which majorly revolved around different aspects of leadership. The women were mainly from the self-help groups and domestic workers. 

The session started with discussing the types of leadership i.e. Strategic Leadership Style, Cross-Cultural Leadership, Democratic Leadership etc. The speaker went on to explain the values one requires to be a good leader. Every Ideal leader should have the 6 basic qualities, she said, i.e Trustworthiness, Ability to understand others, Team worker, Intelligent, Responsible, and Punctuality. Group activities were conducted to understand to make them understand the concept better and feedbacks were shared on the same.

At the end Pragati Kendra Trust also celebrated Saheli Din on the occasion of Makar Sankranti with these women. Ms. Vanita Patil, CCO staff of Pragati Kendra trust explained the concept of working together as a group and spreading the sweetness around just like the combination of jaggery and sesame seed does.  The program helped the women realise the leadership potential each of have in them and how should one shape them in order to become a successful leader.

Training on Project Report Writing 28th & 29th Dec 2017

  

The Caritas India  Jeevan PLE (People Led Empowerment) had organized two days training on Project Report writing for Jeevan PLE project coordinators on 28^th and 29^th November 2017 at Canossa Convent, Andheri Mumbai. There were 12 participants from Karunya Trust, Kalyan, Vasai Janhit Trust, Pune Diocesan Social Service Society, Center for Social Action, Mumbai, Sinddurg Diocese Social Service Society, Aurangabad Social Service Society, Loksamgraha Social Service Society Chanda, Bosco Gramin Vikas Kendra Ahmad Nagar and Muskan.

The resource person for the training was Mr. Andrew Fernandes and Dr. Maitrayee who are development consultants for social work. 

The objective of the training was :

•   To write in brief and prepare quality report
•  to capture verity and Newness in reports
•  to teach report writing skills and clarity

Mr. Andrew explained the importance and features of a good report writing wherein it has to be precise and completely self-explanatory so that people can capture and understand the content. Furthermore, he explained the impersonal style with which the report has to be written with accurate date, signature and reference to relevant details related to the topic.The technical details have to be maintained and arranged in a logical manner.

A Sample Monthly Report Format with examples was presented and explained along with the difference between output and outcome.Each participant was given an exercise to prepare a report on topics like Sustainable Agriculture, Tribal Rights etc. Discussions were held and feedbacks were given to improve the writing skills. The guidelines for writing an impact /case study and steps to be followed were taught as well.

The training on project report writing was very well explained by the resource persons. All participants were able to understand the report writing format and the consolidated report. They even learnt the tools, methods and structure of Impact case study.  

LEGAL AID WORKSHOP FOR COMMUNITY WORKERS 16th Nov 2017

A one day workshop (5th Capacity session) was conducted by CSA on the 16^th of November 2017 at Dadar Salvation Church Hall, Mumbai. The topic was legal rights with a specific focus on the Domestic Violence(DV) Act (2005). The resource persons for the workshop Adv. Bharat Kale was an activist & offers legal services, legal awareness trainings and also works at policy level interventions, public interest litigations, etc. The 30 participants were representatives of various Community based organizations. 

The session was very interesting for the participants as most of them knew a thing or two about the DV Act; however, there were still several misconceptions and questions regarding the same which were aptly addressed by Bharat Kale. He spoke about the Rights of a Woman at a Police Station, filing of Zero FIRs, things to keep in mind when filling an FIR, on ways to communicate with the Police, and other small tips that social workers could use in various cases. Also he explained the governing system as well as fundamental & human rights. Although the workshop was a short one the participants felt empowered with more knowledge and information that they could take back to the community and their homes. Feedback from the participants was positive with a stress on more sessions on other laws as well.

Cake Making with Domestic Worker Group 14.11.2017

Mrs. Sailee Shirkhe who's been through Basic and Adv. Capacity building programmes of CSA, conducted a cake making & cake-icing workshop at the Skill Enhancement Program for domestic workers held at St. Pius Community centre, Mulund on 14th November 2017. This program taught a new skill to the twenty-five domestic workers, to enhance their income generation capacity. They were taught techniques to prepare cakes without the usage of microwaves and using simple materials available in the market at affordable prices. These women are inspired and plan to make and sell cakes as a side business. It is indeed a success story of CSA training programmes for empowering a woman to empower others.