♣ Women Empowerment
The women in our society laying behind in every walk of life. They are at the bottom of the society. Ours is a man-predominated society and due respect is not paid to them. In our social life they are regarded as ‘creator’ but in reality they are treated as untouchables weaker section of the society and destroyer of the society too. Woman are not given equal positioning the society but they are subordinated, sub- servant to their male counter parts. In the economic field woman’s contribution is supplementary to men. The major portion at working women is in unrecognized sector. They are unskilled and under paid. Considering, the condition of women in the area, it is still worse and precarious. Low literacy rate among women (as a whole), higher rate of women atrocity,marginalisation of women in the agriculture sector and wage discrimination against women laborers, women deprivation of the ownership of means of production and consumer goods, low coverage of women in the decision making process are some of the crucial problems affecting the women folk in the area. So keeping the felt need of the women in the area in view, provision of legal aid, SHG & IGP promotion & health care badly needed. In order to bring them in to the main stream of the society, there has been a need of activities for started intervening with meaningful effort.
♣ Micro-Finance
Micro Finance provides opportunity to the poor for getting sufficient amount of credit easily to start any income generating activity. Micro finance not only deals with the credit part, it ensures the right to save & it is one of the most powerful weapons, which works for bringing the poor rural people into the mainstream.
In spite of considerable improvement in the states of women, they still comprise the largest section of deprived population. It is widely recognized that the process of growth, economic transformation and development in particular has adversely affected women as a group. Lack of capital is a serious constraint to the development of women in rural areas who find little or no access to credit. Credit can help women take up farm allied activities such as milch cattle, poultry or independent small enterprise, enabling them to respond to the opportunities created by the process of economic development.
♣ Food Security
India has more persons suffering from endemic or chronic hunger, whether measured by calorie intake or anthropometric indicators of malnutrition, than any other country. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical & economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Food security at national level & sub national level is mainly related to food production & overall economic development of a nation. But when we come to the house hold or individual level, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure availability of food in adequate quantities to all the individuals. This is because people are not equally endowed & many people are deprived or have lost their ‘entitlements’ owing to various social, economic, political, religious reasons. The significant contribution of various poverty alleviation programmes, which we feel, is that they are able to provide/ensure or able to restore the inadequate food entitlement and hence food security at house hold/individual level which perhaps otherwise would have been tremendously difficult, owing to variety of reason like logistic problems, social, economic & political rural setting, targeting of the interventions etc.
♣ Global Warming
Global warming is the rise in the average temperature to a level which influences the life forms on the earth surface. The rise in the globe’s temperature is due to variety of factors, both natural and anthropogenic. This rise in global temperature will alter the world climate leading to major shift in flora & fauna, cropping pattern will change, food supplies will be affected and new diseases might erupt. As a result the effect of global warming seen in the operational area. Since last one year, due to rising of sea level, the Bay of Bengal entering towards the inland up to 50 meters 6 times & entering seawater into Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon Chilika & make the salinity level high. So rising of sea level directly affect the coastal ecology & bio diversity of the lake, which affect the food security of the 1 lakh fisher folk community in puri district. Besides these various type of skin diseases.
♣ Community Health
In the health front, malnutrition, absence of sanitary living condition, ignorance on causes of diseases and inadequate health services make the health condition of people deplorable. The area is Malaria & Fileria prone and other common ailments like Typhoid, malnutrition, respiratory diseases, Diarrhea continues to plague the coastal community through out the year. Added to this due to large-scale migration there is high prevalence of STD/HIV/AIDS in the project area. Although there are Anganabadi and ANM Centers in selected villages, PHCs and private Health Centers in block head quarters, people due to lack of awareness, affordability, regular absenteeism of health personnel in the centers, longer distance and bad communication facilities could not avail the minimum health care facilities. On the other hand majority of the people rely on indigenous health care system. They depend on herbs and roots to cure diseases. That apart different kind of charms, amulets and other superstitious devices to counter act the evil influence of human and supernatural agencies are still prevalent in the area.
