Human Rights Advocacy and Research Foundation along with CRDS, SEEDS and BEST organized a two day Training of Trainers for the West Zone at Yercaud on the 23rd and 24th of July 2019. 58 participants (21 women and 37 men) from 12 districts participated in the workshop. The participants were from the following districts: Salem, Namakkal, Thiruvannamalai, Trichy, Krishnagiri, Karur, Dharmapuri, Tirupur, Perambalur, Erode, Cuddalore and Coimbatore.
The workshop focused on the Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) that is to be made in all panchayats to avail the allocated fund for the panchayat from the government. Sustainable Development Goals and how they can be tied up with village development was also discussed. The participants first identified the existing issues that they faced in their villages and came up with strategies on how to resolve those issues in the panchayat level.
The participants did group work where they identified the schemes available to them from the center and the state government, how these schemes can be used to meet their needs, what kind of taxes and fees can be collected by the panchayat etc. They concluded by making a futuristic vision of how they would like their villages to be by 2023.
