In June 2006, I visited the Samaj Shilpi program of the Rejuvenate India Movement (RIM) in Udaipur, Rajasthan, being coordinated by AID partner Seva Mandir.

During my whirlwind three-day tour, I had conversations with men and women in villages: about cattle troughs, school locations, electricity connections, and many other matters! I came away impressed with the engagement and rejuvenation I found in the community. Igniting this spirit of self-reliance is indeed the goal of the Rejuvenate India Movement (RIM) and its Samaj Shilpi program.

Samaj Shilpis of Seva Mandir, Rajathan. (Left to right): Bhanwar Singh Chundawat, Fateh Lal Jat, Himmat Singh, Kamendra Taank, Nathu Singh, Bhanwar Singh Rathore (Photo: Srinivas Krovvidy)

To make this goal possible it sponsors full-time village volunteers through a network of NGOs (see photo). These Samaj Shilpis live in villages with villagers and play the role of a catalyst, mingle with the community, build and strengthen people’s organizations. Rather than a social engineer, the Samaj Shilpi, literally, ‘sculptor of society’, must be an artist, seeking not to impose his own vision on the community but to strengthen the intrinsic patterns

I came back with many vignettes; questions about the unacceptably high student-teacher ratio in the school, a woman who spends three hours a day fetching and serving water at the village meeting, villagers working under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), a farmer who donated land and water for a communal cattle trough, villagers working to improve the design of the woodstove. I was even able to connect their difficulties with getting electricity connections with similar AID work in Srikaulam! Overall, it was the picture of thriving, dynamic communities, able to demand their rights. Some of this empowerment can be attributed to the work of these Samaj Shilpis.

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From a visit report by Srinivas Krovvidy, College Park
[With input from Ashima Sood, Davis]

More information:

Photographs from Srinivas' visit

Impact assessment study done by Nisha Sankaran (Seva Mandir Volunteer- USA), Radha A. N and Sunaina Tiwari (Seva Mandir Volunteer- Gulbarga University - Karnataka).