Rural development ministry inks MoU with Lady Irwin College

Ravi S. Singh

Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 16

The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana — National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) of Rural Development Ministry and Lady Irwin College (Delhi University) here today signed a Memorandum of Understanding for establishing Roshni — Centre of Women Collectives-led social action.

Roshni is technically and financially supported by the UNICEF India. It will provide technical solution at the national level for DAY-NRLM.' It will be located in the college’s Department of Development Communication and Extension.

It is dedicated to spread awareness among women, especially on aspects of health and nutrition. “If women are empowered, the community gets empowered. Hence, Roshni, in effect, empowers the community, said the college director Dr Anupa Siddhu.

DAY-NRLM aims to reach out to 8-10 crore rural poor household in a time bound manner and stay engaged with them till they come out of abject poverty. It envisions breaking the self-perpetuating cycle of malnutrition, illness, out-of-pocket expenditure for treatment, poverty through its savings and enterprise approach and layering of Food, Health, Nutrition and WASH (FHNW) interventions through self-help groups and their federations.

Roshni aims to work with women collectives for social action on FHNW interventions in alignment with DAY-NRLM Dashasutra strategy and supporting implementation of convergent action plan under POSHAN Abhiyaan.

It will learn from Swabhimaan, a Union government’s pilot project in vogue in Odisha, Bihar and Chhattisgarh, catering to women’s health and nutrition intake, and similar models, and extend support to DAY-NRLM to expand the scope of FHNW interventions.