Samaj Unnayan Kendra

Samaj Unnayan Kendra (SUK) is a voluntary social service organization for social action and economic development in a holistic integrated way. SUK was Read more established by a group of committed volunteers, for providing assistance and support towards betterment of the disadvantaged people, who are deprived, exploited and lead their life in deplorable condition. The group initiated a Social Service Bureau to help the distressed to regain self-confidence and strength and hence the method adopted was to listen to them, their problems, suffering and to assure them that there was somebody to listen to them. This was done through human relation, personal attention and counseling with the downtrodden and deprived people in different remote, backward districts of West Bengal. Year long experience of working with these people proved that all disadvantaged groups e.g. women, children, disabled, aged, and others irrespective of their castes, creeds, and socio-economic status etc. have the inherent capacity to take responsibility for and make choices about their lives. In fact they are able to articulate and access their rights and emerge as leaders facilitating positive social change. SUK sees itself as a facilitator towards enabling this change. It believes that access to information and knowledge about implication of education, health, nutrition, child protection, livelihood and the available schemes along with changing socio-economic structures curve their life and contribute towards having greater control over their lives. A culture of silence prevents the women, children and general people from talking about their problems, issues and aspirations as also the violence they are experiencing in their daily life. SUK believes that a collaborative and collective process that connects individuals and the organization with each other enhances learning in a mutually beneficial way. It aims to draw on this synergy to help reach common goals. Mission and Vision: Holistic and sustainable development in livelihood, health, nutrition, education and protection of poor and disadvantaged groups through skill building, knowledge sharing and transfer of technical knowhow. How SUK works: • As a Communicator helping target groups to articulate their problems, aspirations, develop their ideas and translate them into action. • As a Facilitator providing suggestion and ideas about their development, facilitating in bringing a collective approach responsive to community problems and needs. • As a Change Agent for awareness generation on need-based socio-economic issues and their surrounding situations, creating their inner urge for united action towards the betterment of their status through internal change of self and/or community enrichment. • As a Community Organizer helping to form self-help group creating values, self-respect, dignity, self-reliance and sense of social responsibility through need-based training and sharing. • As a Support Group generating target groups feed-back, strengthening base-level receiving/utilizing mechanism, promoting effective bottom-up pressure group that may take the benefit of Govt. delivery mechanism. • As a Network Instrument promoting organizational management abilities among different grass-root level groups, village committees, women groups, childrens groups, parents groups, youth clubs etc., developing leadership quality of their core members, channeling group efforts to common issues they are most concerned about. Assisting the community based organizations to get their key personnel/social activists equipped with necessary skills, knowledge through training suitable to their existing skill and works. Major areas of work: • Disability and Development (through early identification, relevant education, training, counselling, networking, advocacy, aids and appliances support) • Health (main focus is on mother and child health - preventive, promotive and curative) • Nutrition (for children, pregnant women, nursing mothers) • Disaster Preparedness (forming task force- giving training etc.) and disaster Management (rescue, relief, rehabilitation) and Civic Rights. • Knowledge Management and building knowledge base on the gathered experience. SUK has been working on the above mentioned issues since 1975. In every aspect, its strategy is preventive, promotive and curative by involving all stakeholders. through situational analysis with different tools like social mapping, participatory analysis, focus group discussion and use of statistical methods. The organization collects, compiles and analyses data, to further the work in the remote, hard to reach, scattered areas belong to Sundarban belt and outskirts of West Bengal.