Shramjivi Janata Sahayyak Mandal (SJSM)

Project – Kitchen Gardens

MF Issue Area : Environment Protection, Healthcare, Women’s Empowerment

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Based in Satara, Shramjivi works in the marginalized rural communities of Satara and Raigarh, focusing on tribal rights, natural resources, and livelihood, while keeping women in the forefront. The goal of this project is to create a sustainable development model by empowering the Katakari tribal population to protect their environment through responsible utilization of natural resources in order to elevate their own livelihoods. Shramjivi hopes to achieve this by motivating tribal families to grow kitchen gardens to provide food security. Shramjivi encourages income-generating, medicinal plants and trees, such as cashews, mangoes, jamun, blueberries and jackfruit, and teaches proper management of wastewater for kitchen gardens.

Tribal self-help groups composed of women will be responsible for managing this process, through their rapport with local schoolteachers and villagers. They will promote kitchen gardens, composting processes, and plantation with school children. This program will also address the problem of malnutrition by promoting homegrown medicinal plants and organic vegetables in kitchen gardens.