Samarthan
Samarthan started as a project of Vidhayak Sansad in 1993 and was registered as an independent organization in 1996. It is an advocacy organization whose main mission is ''To consistently pursue social issues by strengthening the accountability in democratic institutions and through the effective analysis of information, and dedicated efforts towards the establishment of social justice as envisaged by the Constitution of India'." The objective of Samarthan is to make democratic systems more effective and more meaningful so that marginalized people are heard in the process of policymaking and implementation.
Samarthan addresses issues and conducts campaigns on various issues that affect the marginalized communities. Samarthan has facilitated the formation of an independent forum of rural journalists called Abhivyakti Samarthan (Abhivyakti means expression) which has been working on human rights issues.
The specific objectives articulated by Samarthan at this time are:
- To pressure the state government to revise its Employment Guarantee Scheme to accommodate literate and urban youth,
- To oversee implementation by the state government of the recommendations of the Supreme Court of India on reforms in the police system,
- Revision of some of the state government’s land reforms legislations in the wake of economic globalization and privatization,
- To work for the revival of the State Human Rights Commission,
- To encourage twenty-five young organizers to build trade unions,
- To enable effective use of information technology in organizational functioning,
- To lower its reliance on funding agencies to 50% and undertake activities that will make the organization self-reliant to some extent.
Last updated on Thursday, October 9, 2008.
