BSW FIELD VISIT REPORT

SUBMITTED BY:- NEEL KAITH

REGISTRATION NUMBER:- 22BWL015
BATCH: - 2022-27
SUBMITTED TO:- Dr. SAURABH ANAND
SUBJECT: SOCIOLOGY FOR SOCIAL WORK
 INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT......................................................................................1)
INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................2)
CONTENT................................................................................................................3)
3.1) DAY ONE.........................................................................................................
3.2) DAY TWO.........................................................................................................
3.3) DAY THREE....................................................................................................
3.4) DAY FOUR.......................................................................................................
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................4)
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I want to express my sincere gratitude to my BSW stream professor, Dr Saurabh
Anand Sir, along with Dr. Ambati Nageswara Rao sir and Ms. Apoorva Patel
Ma’am for providing me with the critical opportunity of going on these field visit.
This endeavour would not have been fruitful without their essential guidance and
support.Addtionally, I want to thank our Director sir, Prof. (Dr.) S. Shanthakumar
for his generous support to the BSW faculty members and providing us BSW students
with this precious oppurtunity for holistic development.
 INTRODUCTION

From May 15th to May 18th

I was provided with the valuble opputunity to go several field visits along with my
fellow students from the BSW stream. This time, the trip only conisisted of students
of 2022-27 batch,.We were accompanied by our stream professor, Dr. Saurabh Anand
Sir along with with other BSW faculty members: Dr. Ambati Nageswara Rao sir and
Ms. Apoorva Patel Ma’am.

These field trip comprised of visits to several important Non-Governmental

Organizations (NGOs), Voluntary Organization as well Trade Unions that were
consistently and successfully work in their respectively fields to address various social
issues that continue to plague Indian society such as lack of educational and
employment opportunities for marginalized communities, a dire need for the equal
treatment of differently-abled human beings as well as adequate employment
opportunities for women in order to earn a decent living.

These field visits were carefully planned to provide us students with the proper
knowledge as well as the practical working of social work, and how students as well
aspiring social work professionals are supposed to apply their academics concepts in a
practical setting to produce concrete, positive changes in our society.
 CONTENT

3.1) DAY ONE

DATE: 15TH MAY

LOCATIONS: The Serenity Trust Library & Botanical Garden & JeevanTirth
Organization

COMMENCEMENT: we initiated our field visit by first visiting The Serenity Trust
Library & Botanical Garden. We arrived at the location in the morning around 10AM
and were immediately greeted by our tour coordinator, Mr. Shreyas Bhavsar sir who
was present there to guide us on our field visit and provide us the knowledge of
different flora and fauna located inside the garden as well inform us about the purpose
and the mission of the garden.

ABOUT: The Serenity Trust Library and Botanical Garden was established by its
founder Mr. Firdos Cambatta, who established the Serenity Trust with the purpose of
preserving the rich natural heritage of Gujarat amidst the rapid modernization the state
has witnessed, resulting in several negative consequence such as the rapid depletion of
forests as well as extinction and dislocation of several important animal species
important to the state. The garden is an open space of land measuring approximately
40,000 sq. Meters located near the Koteshwar village on the Bhat-Motera Road. The
Garden contained 800 species of indigenous & exotic plants as well as several species
of animals such as 100 species of birds, reptiles such as snakes and lizards as well as
several mammals such as herds of Blue-Bulls (Nilgais) often seen on the outer
perimeters of the botanical garden.
We engaged in several activities after arriving at the garden such as spotting of different
bird species, visiting the flora and fauna libraries located withing the garden which
provided approximately 3,000 books on environment, wildlife & conservation of our
natural heritage. The visit to the botanical garden proved be a highly rewarding as well
enjoyable experience which provided us with a much-needed break from the fast paced,
stressful environment of Urban society and reminded us of the importance of our
natural environment.

JEEVANTIRTH ORGANIZATION: After successfully completing our visit to the

Botanical Garden, we embarked on our next field visit on the same day, to a Non-
Governmental Organizations known as Jeevantirth. We arrived at the location in
afternoon around 12PM and were greeted by the NGOs founder itself, Mr. Rajendra
Purohit, popularly known by others as Raju Deepti sir. Mr. Rajendra sir founded the
Jeevantirth organization on 14th July 1997, taking inspiration from the concept of “total
revolution” initiated by renowned politician Jayaprakash Narayan. The aim of
Jeevantirth was to provide integral services to vulnerable sections such as marginalized
children, women and youth of society based on Gandhian Ideologies.the word
“jeevantirth” means “life pilgrimage” stating the lifelong commitment of its founders
to the cause of social development

Jeevantirth's primary areas of focus are issues relating to 1) education, 2) the

environment, 3) rural development, 4) women's empowerment, 5) vocational training
and 5) decent livelihoods. Jeevantirth has focused on teacher preparation, material
development, and capacity building of grassroots organizations in addition to the direct
execution of creative, cost-effective programmes.

The NGO has provided its services mainly through two of its initiatives: 1) The Urban
Initiative and 2) the Rural Initiative.
The Urban Initiative primarily consist of programmes and schemes such as the
establishment of “Bal Sanskar Kendra” .About 600+ slum children in Urban areas
attend Baal Sanskar Kendras, or education centers, before or after school for one to
two hours so they can learn the fundamentals of learning, complete their educational
tasks, work through problems together, and instill positive behaviors like personal
hygiene and respect for other individuals. In order to become a catalysts for change in
the community, educated citizens, and contributors to the advancement of the country
in their own unique ways, they are also offered “citizenship training” which helps them
become social conscious about the various socio-economic issues that plague their
respective communities as well as the general society.

For Rural Initiative, The organization has the initiated an effective programme called
the “Harit Sena” or “Green Army”, whose main purpose is to spread environment
awareness amongst the children with a hope of a bright future. 20 municipal schools of
Dediapada taluka are chossen & each school is visited at least twice a month during
which 2 hours sessions are held to educate the children about nature. Children learn
about forests, farms, rivers . To get them excited about these teachings- jungle, farm
and river visits are done. The most efficient facet of Harit Sena is introduction of 3
kinds of gardens in each school: Kitchen Garden, Aaushadhi Baug (Medicinal Garden)
and Flowers Garden. Kitchen Garden contains plants that produce edible fruits and
vegetables,

Aaushadhi Baug contains plants and herbs that have medicinal properties while
Flowers Garden contains plants that are visually pleasing.
Students take responsibility of five plants each, which they plant and nurture in these
gardens. This activity has increased children’s knowledge about plants and their
properties. It has taught the children about plantation process and cultivation of trees
and plants. They have developed a sense of gratitude and responsibility towards trees,
plants and farmers.

These particular programmes mentioned above are based on the theory that if children
coming from socio-economically-educationally deprived communities are provided
with basic love and care, skill training, motivation to live decent life with values; by
acquiring right knowledge, skills and attitude; they develop positive mindset about
themselves and society, and become asset to the nation.

LEARNING OUTCOMES AND PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS (DAY ONE)

According to my personal observations, I have noticed a few recurring themes

throughout the 1st day of our field visit: - the importance of environment as well the
need to focus on rural development. Both Organizations that we visited constantly
stated the importance of environmental conservation and how it is an integral part for
the sustainability and improvement of our society. For example, the Hari sena
programme launched by Jeevantirth stressed the importance the importance of
preserving our depleting environment, which is highly integral for a higher quality of
life in rural areas, as well as highly important to stop the overcrowding of urban areas.

Learning outcome: Importance of rural development through environment’s

comservation
3.2 DAY TWO

DATE: 16TH MAY

LOCATION: GANTAR NALSAROVAR

ABOUT THE LOCATION:

On 16th may, we visited the Gantar Organizations and its branch, located at 6 kilometers
before Nalsarovar , around 55 kilometers from Ahemdabad. We were first greeted by
the location’s coordinater and Founder of the NGO - Mr. Sukhdev Patel sir. After
meeting with Sukhdev sir, We got the opportunity to try the delicious local cuisine such
as the Gujarati “Methi Na Gota” (Fritter) and “Chach” (spicy buttermilk).

ABOUT GANTAR:

Gantar Organization was starter by its founder, Sukhdev Patel. Formerly registered in
1992 , Gantar as an organization aims to promote education and employment among
the youth through the Gandhian approach to education, popularly known as “Nai
talim” which stresses that “work and education are not separate". Based on this ,Gantar
aims to to give the child with wisdom and ethical character while going beyond the
limitations of the current formal education system. The creator thinks it is possible to
transform the future of society by harnessing the youthful energy of thousands of
disadvantaged youngsters and making positive changes in their lives.

The NGO particularly worked on the education and empowerment of children

belonging to migrant laborer families who switched from one location to another based
on the status of their employment. The children of these families missed out on several
opportunities due to the nature of temporary and volatile nature of manuel labour jobs
.
Ganter starts by first surveying the areas that have huge migrant labour population.The
founder of the organization, Mr. Sukhdev Patel sir stated in our field visit that villages
of Sanand, Viramgam, Dhanduka, Dholka and Patdi blocks of Surendranagar and
Nalsarovar block of Ahmedabad district had a huge labour population and thus they
started their initial efforts their by imparting vocational training to children living their,
who belonged to the migrant-laborer families. 25 trainees,who were volunteers, initally
were placed in different occupations from electrician, carpentry to automobile
mechanic,etc . A hostel was given for accommodating them in the city.

A local committee called Bal Adhikar Samiti was established to manage this communal
hostel. The committee's chairman is the village sarpanch, while the secretary is the local
schoolteacher. Anyone who wants to can join. It solicits donations from the local
community to pay for mess and other costs. They are motivated by the notion that they
are providing for their own children, who are the future of this town.

As a result, the scheme "Bal Rashmi" was created as a system of school assistance.
NGO called CRY provided support for it. In ten communities around Nal-Sarovar,
community hostels are operating on a biannual basis. The educational authorities may
apply this invention to other regions with a comparable migration problem because it
was a repeatable model.
LEARNING OUTCOMES AND PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS (DAY ONE)

Based on the personal observations recorded on the second day of the field trip, I
noticed that pricinples we learned on the second day of the field visit can be considered
as an extension of the learnings we got on our 1 st day. The second day of field visits
revealed the gaps of conventional education and process of moderniation and how
alternative, indigenous mode of education & skill development could help

prevent the gaps of our current education system as well as insure the development of
every individual

Learning Outcome: importance of an alternative, Gandhian mode of education and

development which emphasizes, not only a formal academic cirriculum but also the
development of a person moral and work ethic though continous vocational skill
training.
3.3) DAY THREE

DATE : 17TH MAY

NAME OF ORGANIZATION: PRABHAT EDUCATION FOUNDATION

ABOUT PRABHAT EDUCATION FOUNDATION :

Registered in 2003, The aim and purpose of Prabhat Foundation was to support
children with speacial needs through via the identification and support of youngsters
with learning disabilities who are having trouble in regular classrooms.

Prabhat expanded its services to include helping children with special needs and their
families who are afflicted by stigma, misinformation, and neglect by parents and
communities

Over time, it became clear that there were many physically and psychologically
challenged children in and around Ahmedabad.

Prabhat envisioned a centre for professional rehabilitation treatments that would be

accessible to individuals with mobility and financial challenges. Prabhat's trademark was
working with and through local communities.

ITS FUNCTIONING

1) Prabhat Centres, 2) Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), and 3)Advocacy are

the three primary avenues through which activities advancing an inclusive society
are carried out.

. Prabhat Centres find nearby assistance for individuals in need. Some of Ahmedabad's
poorest slums are home to Prabhat's Centres. The Centres are designed to be warm,
upbeat, and secure places for treatment, learning-by-doing, counselling, evaluation, and
fun.
The main function of this centres is to provide an environment in which the needs,
abilities and challenges of children with special needs are respected and opportunities
created for them to learn and to grow as citizens. The evaluation and therapy processes
are carried out and supervised by professionals to help the team of Prabhat's special
educators. Opportunities for occupational training give youth with exceptional needs a
clear path towards future careers and contributing citizens. By collaborating with
neighbourhood schools, the Centre most crucially helps to establish and increase
chances for inclusion of children with special needs into the general population.

. Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) ;- The purpose of Prabhat's CBR is to

provide supportive settings and capabilities in neighbourhoods and homes for children
with special needs and their families who are unable to visit Prabhat Centers due to
barriers related to accessibility, distance, or awareness.To mobilise households and
communities to assist and nurture children with special needs, CBR aims to increase
awareness, knowledge, and capacity in these areas. To create and enable a supportive
atmosphere for the kid and her family, Prabhat's staff makes frequent trips to the
designated places. The CBR Programme also reaches out to those who are unable to
visit the Centres due to distance or mobility issues. To do this, Prabhat makes an effort
to hire team members who are local to the areas it serves or who are familiar with them.

.Advocacy refers to process by which Prabhat invests all of its initiatives and assets
towards enhancing possibilities for families and kids with special needs. Its goal is to
eliminate stigma and fear so that children may participate in Indian society as equals.
Prabhat regularly holds awareness-raising seminars with anganwadi workers, students,
teachers, and other administrative officials from conventional schools and colleges as
part of the advocacy activities. The goal of advocacy work is to increase public
awareness and move people towards an inclusive society. Furthermore, to find any
children with difficulties, professionals also perform a thorough evaluation of the kids.
Under Prabhat's Early Intervention (EI) plan, appropriate help is provided if any
disabilities are found. Workshops, public performances, gatherings, and baithaks are all
examples of regular awareness activities.

LEARNING OUTCOME AND PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS (DAY THREE)

Several personal observations recorded on the day three of the field visits have several
parallels with the our curriculum of stream paper titled “Sociology for Social Work”.

For example:- one of the concepts that was taught to us in our academic lectures was
the concept of “in- group/out-group” which can be explained as the phenomenon tend
to socialize more properly with individuals who have more similar traits like themselves
and unconsciously tend to keep themselves away from out-groups. This phenomenon
manifests itself in society through discrimination and exclusion of human beings with
physical and mental disabilities.Prabhat’s visit shed a light on the this highly neglected
communities of human beings in our society and made us more empathetic to their
conditions in society

Learning Outcome: we all studied various social movements in our academic

curriculum and how constant agitation for the improvement of our society leads to
successful efforts. Here in this case, Prabhat Foundation’s constant to improve the
conditions of differently-abled children provide us with an example of a successful,
sustained effort to improve our society.
3.4 DAY FOUR

DATE:18TH MAY

ORGANIZATIONS VISITED: 1) SEWA (SELF-EMPLOYED WOMEN’S

ASSOCIATIONS) &

2) AIDMI (ALL INDIA DISASTER MITIGATION INSTITUTE)

ABOUT SEWA:

SEWA or Self-Employed Women’s Association is a trade union registered in 1972.It is

based in the city of Ahmedabad and has a memebership of approximately 25 lakh or
2.5 million.

When we visited the SEWA office in Ahmedabad, we got know about the history as
well as the purpose and the functioning of the organization

SEWA was founded by its ELA BHATT , with the aim of promoting the rights of
women that were working as self-employed in low income sectors of the economy. It
evolved from the Women's Wing of the Textile Labour Association (TLA), India's
oldest and biggest textile workers' organisation, which Anasuya Sarabhai and Mahatma
Gandhi formed in 1920. The Women's Wing was founded with the intention of
teaching wives and daughters of mill employees how to sew, spin yarn, knit, embroider,
and engage in other charitable endeavors

The SEWA Bank, founded in 1974, ignited the global microfinance movement. In order
to safeguard home-based employees with fundamental labour standards, the ILO
recognised them as workers in 1996. The Street Vendor's Act was established in India
in 2014 to recognize the idea of Natural Markets in cities and the rights of vendors to
make a living there.
These huge gains are the outcome of SEWA's prolonged and persistent campaign to
provide the country's unorganised sector workers a voice, legitimacy, and visibility for
their labour..

Structure and functiong of SEWA

According to the Indian Trade Unions Act of 1926, SEWA is officially recognised as a
trade union. Women who work for themselves across India are welcome to join the
union. The annual membership cost is Rs. 10. A two-tiered structure of elected
representation oversees the union. In a ratio of one representative for every 1500
members, the members of each trade elect their representatives.

These delegates make up the Pratinidhi Mandal, or Trade Council. The Trade
Committees (Dhandha Samiti) in each trade run concurrently with and in addition to
the Trade Council. The Trade Committee has anything between 15 and 50 members,
with no set membership ratio. Every month, the Trade Committees meet to address
the issues facing respective trades and potential remedies.

SEWA initiates and runs national campaigns which often lead to policy advocacy. These
campaigns bring voice, visibility and validity to the informal sector workers at national
and international level.

SEWA has several member-owned economic organizations, that provide livelihood

security, reduces vulnerability & lead to economic empowerment of its members. Each
organization of the SEWA family is independent and autonomous, both financially and
in the decision-making process.
services like savings and credit, health care, child care, insurance, legal aid, capacity
building and communication services are important needs of poor women. If women
are to achieve their goals of full employment and self-reliance, these services are
essential.

Recognising the need for supportive services, SEWA has helped women take a number
of initiatives in organising these services for themselves and their SEWA sisters. these
services are provided in a decentralised and affordable manner, at the doorsteps of
workers. supportive services can be and are themselves a source of self-employment.
For example, midwives charge for their services and creche workers collect fees for
taking care of young children.

AIDMI (ALL INDIA DISASTER MITIGATION INSTITUE)

ABOUT: AIDMI was founded by Mihir Batt after several waves of massive droughts
from 1987-89 in Gujarat, India. In 1989, Mihir R. Bhatt and the other three team
members started a project on disaster risk reduction. The initiative eventually evolved
into the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), which continues to function
today.

AIM & FUNCTION:

Over the years, AIDMI has broadened the scope of its work to include 14 different
types of catastrophes in 18 different regions of India as well as nine other Asian nations.
As envisioned in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), AIDMI
works to connect local communities to national and international levels of risk
reduction, relief, and long-term recovery policies and programmes.
As a learning and action organisation, AIDMI supports, gathers, processes, and
disseminates information about disasters, lessons learned, and novel ideas. In addition,
AIDMI holds stakeholder round tables, conducts trainer capability trainings, reviews
and reflections, evaluations and impact studies, and conducts pilot or demonstration
projects with citizens at the centre.

Over 30 assessments of disaster risk reduction have been carried out by AIDMI across
South and Southeast Asia. The practise of independent and collaborative evaluations of
humanitarian activities in the area has been pioneered by AIDMI. In this developing
field, AIDMI has gathered and disseminated ideas regarding how joint assessments
might enhance ownership, management, and accountability in favour of the
underprivileged and impacted community.

AIDMI promotes active and meaningful local participation in all disaster-related

programmes through national and regional round tables, seminars, workshops, and
consultations. It also pushes for mainstreaming gender issues, children's safety, and
school safety in important areas of disaster management. Examples of its initiatives in
this respect include the National Campaign for Pro-Poor DDMPs, Climate Smart
Disaster Risk Management, Linking and Mainstreaming DRR and CCA, Wetlands
Risks, and Protecting Human Rights in Natural Disasters.
LEARNING OUTCOMES AND PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS (DAY FOUR)

The last, fourth day of our field visit ,some personal observations that were collected
bring my attention to the Importance of community-organizing in improvement of our
society. SEWA as well as AIDMI have provided with a stunning example of how to
efficiently and organize a large group of people collectively to demand as well maintain
a better standard of living in society.

For example- SEWA as a trade union has constantly agitated for the improvement of
self-employed women by bringing them together under a banner of their single trade
union.It has constantly voiced its support for the solidarity of women of all trades and
improvement of all society indirectly.

AIDMI on the other hand has constantly Created community-based approaches to

climate change adaptation and promoting them through regional networks.ItProtected
and promoted the rights of disaster victims with a focus on women, children, Dalits,
and minorities; delivering timely, and targeted assistance to communities affected by
disasters; and providing shelter, livelihood, water, and food projects.

Learning Outcome: importance of community organizing to agitate as well demand

better outcomes and overall improvement in society.
 CONCLUSION

In conlusion: these 4 days of field visits to different organizations was enlightening

and inspirational.All the organizations and their effort to constantly provide a positive
influence of society is highly exceptional.

We got the chance to personally observe the NGOs and their transforming work
throughout the field trip. The programmes and activities they have carried out show
how diligently they have worked to solve social and environmental challenges. The
NGOs and their practical strategy, which included sustainable development, poverty
reduction, youth empowerment, women empowerment and education, left a deep
effect on all of us.

We are appreciative for the chance to see firsthand the amazing work of all these
organizations, and we will keep the lessons we gained in mind as we continue our path
to a more just and sustainable future.