Our activities

Origin

PARA came into existence in 1986. It was registered as a separate organization from the Don Bosco Mission for developing a wider ideological base, administrative independence and legal standing. It is also registered with the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India under the Foreign Contribution and Regulation Act, 1976.

Functioning

PARA had initially functioned at Ravulapalem till 1993 with the financial grant of Don Bosco Society. As there was a growing need for huge external grant in accordance with the expanding needs it entered into an agreement with the Bread for the World, as its project partner.

The work we do has received tremendous response from the people of concern as well as the general public of the area and a considerable change has been brought about in the living standards of the people of the service domain. The large scale adherence of people to the movement for Dalit empowerment launched by PARA., people’s spontaneous sensitivity to the emerging issues, their inherently built capacity to address independently the outstanding and impending problems that they confront in day to day life, transformation of their attitude towards self and others, gaining acceptance as fellow citizens with dignity, fairness, equality and equity in social process will definitely corroborate the above view point PARA feels that it has, however, to go a long way in the alleviation of socio-economic and political penury particularly in the changed political context.

Current Operation

Currently we are operating in three Mandals at Konaseema region of East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh. They are a) Athreyapuram , b) Ravulapalem c) Kothapeta. The total area covered by the three mandals is about 240 sq.km.

Since our main aim is to organize the unorganized Dalit (depressed class) agricultural laborers, we has established a close collaboration with some of the other partners of BFW like Salaha, Janachetana and Krushi so as to make its work more result oriented.

Building on these initial collaborative venture PARA has along with like minded NGO’s been able to set up DAPPU a dalit bahujan network promoting Community Based Organisation for Rights and Entitlements and for Economic Development through promotion of Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies by scaling up women SHGs. In this larger effort PARA is also being supported by Christian Aid and Cord Aid.

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Ekalavya Training Centre was inaugarated in the year 1995, to train people on goal setting, work plan development, giving inputs in the different areas of their work, minimum wages, land related laws, human rights def-ence and promotion, thrift and credit, gender sensitivity, child-rights cultural concerns.

The Broad areas of Training given under the umbrella of ETC are:

• Human Rights Promotion;
• Land related issues concerning the subaltern communities;
• The need for role models of successful Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies for women for their economic development and empowerment.
• New ways of responding to the problem of school drop outs and child vagrancy;
• Creation of Alternative Theatre – Street theatre and Play back theatre;
• Research in Subaltern Identity and Psychology.

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Children from the Streets

Taking care of innocent children is one of the prime concerns of PARA. Run-away kids found in the Railway and Bus Stations of the nearest river town of Rajahmundry are first sheltered in an open care shelter in Rajahmundry itself and in later on inorder to impart basic education and other skills they are brought here to safety and are educated .

Labouring Children

In the 3 mandals of our operation, several children of the dalit community are not sent to education as they cannot afford to and instead they are sent to work to earn money. These children are rescued from places of work and are brought to PARA after convincing the parents and basic education is imparted.

After successful completion of the basic education, these little ones are then sent to Don Bosco Boarding School in Ravulapalem or the Government Schools in the vicinity. During holidays, PARA becomes their home .

Special Classes for 10th Standard failed Students

It was also a common observation that many of the children, who fail in their 10th Standard due to various reasons are discontinuing their studies.

In order to encourage these children to go for further studies, We are specially collecting all the failed students immediately after the results are declared and are giving them special coaching classes with some of the best teachers, so that they will be passing their exams.

Over the past few years, it has been observed that roughly around 70% come out in the supplementary exams as a result of these classes.

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