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PUSHPA GOHE (38) is a rural woman with a difference. The woman has fought against the system to get her village Golhai Buzurg in Betul district what was due but normally denied. She mobilised a self-help group of the village against sarpanch and panchs and got allocation of wheat and cash under the Swarna Jayanti Gram Rozgar Yojana restored to genuine beneficiaries.

She took up the matter with the Janpad Panchayat CEO. She also mobilised villagers to oppose illegal mining of sand by a contractor: with help from another person of nearby Katasur village Pushpa prevailed upon block-level officials to release deferred wages of the villagers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

Pushpa Gohe’s fighting spirit can be  attributed to the Gramdoot project.  ‘Gramdoots’ are a select group of voluntary social leaders working to bring about change in the rural landscape through information dissemination on government schemes.

Gramdoots also seek to empower villagers to get their due. Pushpa and 570 others like her are instruments of silent revolution in 450 villages of Mandla, Dindori, Betul and Chhindwara districts. They work under a project launched in the year 2004 by the National Institute for Women, Children and Youth Development (NIWCYD) and eight other partner organisations under the Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) programme.

In the last three years, the organisations have developed a strong base of social leaders who help village-folk in various ways without any remuneration.

NIWCYD director Rajesh Malviya claims more than 75 per cent of the Gramdoots have excelled in their mission beyond expectation. 

“A gramdoot is selected unanimously by gram sabhas and acts as liaison between the community and the outside world” Malviya explains.  The gramdoots in the four districts have been successful in raising issues like implementation of NREGs, establishing village self-help groups, disseminating information on and getting government schemes implemented, initiatives on education, water and health aspects, taking issues to Janpad, block and district levels, ensuring participating in self-governance process, preventing child marriages and enforcing prohibition.