Guest Speaker : Nafisaben Barot

Time : 9:15 a.m., Saturday, May 27
Venue : 6-120, MIT

About the talk

The talk will describe from perspective of women's movements, combating drought in the drought prone regions of Gujarat.

About Nafisaben Barot

Education BSC (Nutrition - M.S.University Baroda)

Experience

• Instrumental in building grass-root development teams and supporting strong community efforts (especially of women's movements),
  • to challenge the money lending systems run by exploitative money lenders
  • to create self reliant -decentralised water harvesting systems to end the ongoing water crisis in Guajrat
  • towards equality, peace and secularism.
  • towards changing the present water policies which keeps the people of the state thirsty.
• Associated with the following organizations -
  • One of the founders and executive trustee of Utthan -
  • One of the founder members of Mahiti - a grass root level organisation lead by the woman leader from the exploited community
  • One of the founders and executive secretary (Hon.)of 'Pravah' - a state level network on the issue of drinking water basically for supporting communities movements in self reliant water system and influencing the appropriate policy changes
  • One of the core members of Working Group on Women's Issues- Gujarat - a state level network initiated during the Beijing processes, to strengthen women's movements in Gujarat.
  • Has been on various State and central Govt.'s committees mainly related to ' Water' and women's Issues.
  • Has been associated with various global and regional networks
• Involved in imparting gender sensitive training on issues of environment, self help groups and micro credits, community organising and team building, lobbying and advocacy etc.
• Involved in theatre for more than 25yrs. Instrumental in creating some of the audio-visual material in Utthan , e.g. various video documentaries, skits, picture stories, plays etc. by providing conceptual and other relevant inputs.

About Utthan

Utthan (meaning progress in Gujarati), is an NGO Nafisaben Barot along with four other women founded in 1981 to work in coastal Bhal region of Gujarat, India. It works in resource-poor rural areas and seeks to ensure that natural resources are used in a sustainable manner that improves the socio-political situation of rural residents, particularly the most exploited.

Utthan's work has included the installation of lined ponds for water storage, building recharge wells, and working on rainwater harvesting as a sustainable method for rainwater cultivation. The rural residents assist in building the wells and ponds and village committees ultimately decide what course of action should be taken.

Utthan encourages community participation, especially by women. Their ultimate goal is to develop self-reliant local groups that can solve development issues on their own.