Livelihood Related Programs
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Our Livelihood Related Programs aim to strengthen existing community-based organizations and build more local institutions to enhance social mobilization. These programs mainly target those groups who have previously been excluded from ongoing governmental efforts focusing on livelihood security, such as farmers, women, people with disabilities, and local artisans.
These programs span such areas as sustainable agriculture, natural resource management, and income security for local farmers through the increased value of their food production.
A focal point for the upcoming years of this program is to investigate the latest cultivation techniques available to prepare the agrarian community for future climate changes.
Child Centric Programs
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Our Child Centric Programs are mainly related to maintaining two legal provisions of our country: free education for all people under 14 years of age and child labor prohibition. Our programs, which focus on children from birth to age 18, thrive on the principle of education accessibility for all children who have traditionally been left out of this free education system.
A major initiative of RCHSS to end child labor in our region focused on the children of the brick kiln industry. Our programs have succeeded in bringing over 12,000 children out of brick kiln labor and into the mainstream education system.
A focal point for the future of our Child Centric Programs is to introduce vocational skills training for children over 14 years old who reach beyond the age of free schooling.
Reproductive and
Child Health Programs
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The Reproductive and Child Health Programs focus on providing quality healthcare and raising awareness of major health-related issues affecting women, adolescent girls, and children from birth to age 5.
These programs include initiatives in child growth monitoring, establishing relationships to connect mothers and children with local health centers, educating adolescent girls on women's health-related topics, creating child development and nutrition centers, and teaching families to build nutrition gardens in their homes.
The future of our Reproductive and Child Health Programs is focused on our dedication to ensuring that maternal and infant mortality rates continue to decline and that each child exhibits healthy growth and developmental patterns.
WASH
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The Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) program focuses on maintaining hygienic practices of water use, especially in regard to safe drinking water. Other measures include promoting proper sanitation through the installation of latrines into villages where they previously did not exist and teaching children proper handwashing methods through interactive events.
The future of this program will be to promote open-defecation free villages and to continue to expand the program into new regions.
River Basin Focused Programs​
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Our River Basin Focused Programs were preliminarily concerned with flood relief measures, but over time our strategies have evolved to include capacity building and disaster preparedness efforts as a preventative measure to combat the issues of river flooding and droughts. The changing environmental situation of the West Bengal region over the past decade has been so drastic that RCHSS has taken aggressive measures to devise solutions to the negative impacts these changes have on our local rivers.
Our aim for the future of River Basin Focused Programs will cover the introduction of modern water resource management strategies to protect the river basin region against continued devastation due to the increasingly difficult drought-flood cycles of the river.
Environmental Programs​
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Since the earliest days of RCHSS, programs promoting environmental awareness have been of utmost importance to us. Today, over 1 million trees have been planted through RCHSS environmental programs. We are currently focusing on creating nurseries containing local food varieties, such as papaya, guava, mango, and beetroot, to address the issue of nutrition deficiency prevalent in the villages.
Another problem that is currently being addressed by our Environmental Programs is human-animal conflict arising from confrontations with elephants entering villages in search of food. We are in favor of peaceful coexistence, and our efforts aim to decrease tension among the villagers and provide the skills needed to effectively handle elephant emergencies in ways that ensure there will be no animal or human deaths.
The future of RCHSS environmental programs will concentrate on adapting to the severe impact of climate changes through conservation-focused agricultural practices.
Research Programs​
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RCHSS is a proponent of continual research advancements as a means of helping to shape a progressive future. Thus, we have always dedicated a portion of our efforts and resources toward supporting research and training programs. In addition to frequently hosting on-site training programs for various local groups, we have coordinated numerous research efforts since the foundation of our organization.
Our extensive history of research projects has spanned over three decades, and countless topics have been addressed at this time.
RCHSS has supported many local Indian and international students in the preparation of graduate-level thesis work. We have supervised Rural Management students in the composition of reports about the local villages. RCHSS has further supported student and volunteer research efforts by providing researchers with free food and accommodation for the duration of their stay with us.
We look forward to continuing our role in supporting research pioneers of all backgrounds.
Read more detail on our research work in our history.