Nirman- An initiative for Sustainable Development

NIRMAN works to support marginalised agrarian, tribal and forest dwelling communities with focus on women and youth by addressing their food and livel Read moreihood insecurity through community based interventions. The organisation aims to strengthen community based institutions through capacity building for increasing their involvement in local governance and decision making process. It also encourages sustainable management and conservation of natural resources through bio-diverse farming, community forestry and community-led ecosystem management of fresh water lagoons. The organisation provides support to millet based farming systems which provide ability to transform small farms towards generating higher productivity by enhancing soil fertility and stability, optimising water use, diversifying crops and incomes, building resilience to climate change, achieving high yields under difficult conditions and creating new local markets. Through its research based and training interventions the organisation is working with 448 farmers in 24 villages in Tumudibandha Block of Kandhamal district of Odisha. NIRMAN also supports participatory forest governance by using the progressive legislation of FRA to initiate the process of strengthening local institutions like Palli Sabha, community organisation like “Nagabali Upatyaka Bikash Manch” and works towards the settlement of ownership rights on forestland and community forest resources by encouraging communities for filing claims under FRA for title on customarily used forestland and community forest resources. Also, the organisation conducts various policy workshops and discussion forums on the conservation of Chilika Lagoon. The thematic areas of these workshops include the future of Chilika Lagoon, state-level consultation on working on the voluntary guidelines for securing sustainable small-scale fisheries in the context of food security and human-environment relationship in Chilika. NIRMAN also provides support to farmers with an aim to increase the productivity of sugarcane by acquiring technical knowledge from ICRISAT-WWF i.e. ‘Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative’ (SSI). The new technology helps to increase the sugar content in the cane, requires organic inputs and consumes 75% less seed and 40-60% less water. Additionally, NIRMAN has introduced and encourages the use of green energy in rural areas. It promotes solar light and efficient bio-mass stoves to tribal and rural households. Through its green energy initiative, NIRMAN is providing the rural poor with access to clean energy and has decreased the use of firewood consumption by 66 %.