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Call for Proposal

Process Documentation of ARCH’s Work on FRA

Action Research in Community Health and Development (ARCH) is working for protection of land and forest rights of the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers for past four decades. In 2003-04, it participated in the national campaign for protection of rights of the forest dwelling communities, which led to passage of historic Forest Rights Act (FRA) in the parliament of India in December 2006.

From 2008 ARCH team together with other partners and especially the tribal communities have been working full-time for ensuring proper implementation of this Act in the tribal areas of Gujarat. This has been an uphill task with many challenges and ups and downs. But with patience we were able to secure important achievements.

This work has been for recognition of individual rights over lands being cultivated by the people as well as community rights of the village Gramsabhas over forest resources, including the right to protect, conserve, regenerate and manage forests for sustainable use. It has involved training and capacity building of village Forest Rights Committees and Gramsabhas, networking with like-minded NGOs, advocacy with government officers, finding innovative solution of using GPS and historical Satellite Imageries as evidence of whether the land was under cultivation in 2005 or not and also filing a PIL in the Gujarat High Court when more than 110,000 claims were wrongfully rejected by Sub-division and District Level Committees. It has also involved working with the state government in institutionalizing the process for overlaying and verifying GPS data with help of Satellite Imageries by by GEER Foundation on a pilot basis for Narmada district and now in expanding this process in remaining 13 districts of Gujarat. It has also involved working with the people and Gramsabhas for post rights issues including encouraging them to carry out various land improvement measures, to protect and regenerate forests as well as to prepare forest management plans. And the work is still going on.

Expectations:

The researcher is expected to study the available books and articles and carry out detailed interactions with ARCH team and villagers to understand the processes and to prepare a book documenting what was done how was it done and what results have been achieved and also what is not achieved and why. S/he is also expected to identify lessons from this experience which would be useful for other organizations engaged in similar work.

Language: English

Length: 125 to 150 pages

Timeline

15 September – 30 October, 2024

Your skills and experience:

You are an expert or researcher or practitioner on environmental issues and have a sound understanding and knowledge of the Forest Rights Act and various issues of its implementation in different states of India and are an experienced writer.

How to apply: Please send a recent resume/CV and a brief letter of motivation along with a writing sample (no more than 300 words) and the draft of table of content you would like to include in the book and total cost of your input to m_ambrish@hotmail.com latest by 31st August 2024. More information about us may be found at https://www.archgujarat.org

In search of a better world – making a difference…

In remote villages in southern and eastern Gujarat, poor families struggle against limited access to health care and schools. Complex political and economic forces threaten residents’ rights to their land. ARCH is dedicated to improving the lives of the tribal population through grassroots action and community-level research in health, education and development.

ARCH was never conceived as a pure charity program. Behind our extensive services for poor tribals, we have always envisioned ARCH as an actor in a process of social change. Change always comes in pieces. At the time of our conception in the 1980s, the idea of “social change” often meant total, sweeping transformation of the social order, violent if necessary. We rejected the powerful notion that the liberation of the poor can occur only through a revolutionary overhaul of the social order. Peaceful, democratic and peacemeal social action was our task and method. Thus, we began by setting up a dispensary in Mangrol and organizing villages threatened by the prospect of the Narmada Dam. Our early activism led to just resettlement policies, and gave roots to our present community organizing and mass action efforts for tribal land rights. Our constructive activities to better the lives of poor people in rural Gujarat have flourished into a tangible piece of social change, but we never lose sight of our final goal – the well-being of individuals. A non-compromising individualism is at the core of action. For us, man is a measure of all things.