Project Parimochan is a participatory programme launched by Parijnan Foundation® to reach out to people below the poverty line (BPL) and initiate sustainable development in several villages around the Shri Chitrapur Math®. The twofold aim of this endeavour is to improve livelihood and thereby the quality of life of the participant natives on the one hand and on the other to ensure sustainable management of the natural resources within the given area. By virtue of its generation under the umbrella of spiritual sanctity provided by the Math and its Guiding Light – the extremely dynamic, erudite and open-minded Master -His Holiness Sadyojat Shankarashram Swamiji- the Parimochan Project has also played a vital role in strengthening the human value system in the villages ‘adopted’ by it. There has been a perceptible decline in vices and family tensions, as also a decreased dependence on the government’s administrative system alone for the fulfillment of the basic needs of village populations.
The Parimochan Project has proved successful because of the four sound principles in which it is rooted :-
Community mobilization has been achieved by creating ‘Sangha’-s of 10-15 members, with an adult from each of the needy families. Weekly meetings are held to ensure that each member saves a fixed amount in the ‘Sangha’ to utilize later for self-lending. Monitoring the formation of Self-Help Groups (SHG-s), training the community facilitators who train the SHG members is done at the onset of each phase.
Community empowerment is done through giving exposure and training in livelihood promotion for member families.The ‘Sangha’-s thus become planning, implementing and monitoring bodies for all interventions at family level – both livelihood and ‘quality-of-life’ programmes.
Community participation happens when the ‘Sangha’ scans available options and develops a family-level micro-plan for each unit, based on its available resources , earlier experience, feasibility of chosen option and its existing or likely competition.
Family support or development assistance is provided through the ‘Sangha’ to each unit to start the chosen activity and the ‘Sangha’ decides the amount to be repaid and its instalments. This goes into the common fund to be used for sustainability of the programme.