Journey of Sahjeevan

Sahjeevan, literally sah- together jeevan- living, was initiated as a response to the support needs being articulated by the rural women's movement that was being led by Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan in the early nineties in Kutch. The women wanted to address the numerous issues of drought, migration, water and fodder shortage, falling productivity in their traditional occupations of agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries and later the loss of resources and land to industrialization. Therefore, Sahjeevan, from its inception developed a strong gender perspective on natural resources. Our professionals also learnt and developed pedagogy of learning from and respecting traditional wisdom.

After a decade of action research and developing models with the women collectives, Sahjeevan along with some other organizations actively participated in establishing and strengthening a network under the umbrella of Kutch Nav Nirman Abhiyan. This helped Sahjeevan upscale the solutions developed with the rural women and dovetail the learning's of some other organizations in the district.  Sahjeevan provides leadership to the Drought Proofing Program, coordinated by Abhiyan.

In 1996 with an accelerated industrialization in the district, came the problems of competition on natural resources and destruction of flora and fauna. Sahjeevan encouraged a debate on the form of industrialization through a platform called the Forum for Planned Industrialization.

This network went on to question several projects, and support several villages to protect their water, land, grasslands and mangroves.

The Forum also developed a framework including a land use plan for planned industrialization.

After the earthquake in 2001, in collaboration with Abhiyan, Sahjeevan set up a new organization, Hunnarshala Foundation. Hunnarshala specializes in community driven housing and introducing green technologies, like earth walling and sewerage recycling. As specialists in this field, they have facilitated over 20000 homes in India and abroad. They also advise policy and conduct studies and assessments.

In 2003, the water team in Sahjeevan registered to set up the first of several knowledge centres, called Arid Communities and Technologies. This organization focuses on providing support on planning, training and research on a range of issues surrounding water.

Sahjeevan in the years to come would like to continue to set up knowledge centers that develop the understanding on different aspects of life from the looking glass of our environment and offer solutions for a more sensible living.    

Mission

Reviving traditional economies and livelihood with gender and conservation perspective through empowering people with knowledge and environment friendly technologies.

Objectives

Our Approaches and Focus Area

Our approach is to bring trained professionals and rural experts together to analyze and understand their reality, access information and create knowledge to nurture and develop our natural resources to strengthen their livelihood security.

We create viable models and encourage the state and the other stake holders to adopt these approaches on larger scale. We then provide regional planning, training and coordination support for larger implementation. We call these sectoral interventions 'Knowledge Centers'. Over the years five knowledge centers have been incubated and nurtured in Sahjeevan.

These Knowledge Centres are led by young professionals from Kutch, who are then encouraged to set up independent organizations federated together for the common cause for ecological and economic development of Kutch. At present, knowledge center on water has got its separate organizational identity.