Shramik Bharti is Kanpur based NGO which work’s with both rural and urban communities. The areas where Shramik Bharti works is a plethora of diversity where on one end they work with communities living in urban slums of Kanpur which once upon a time was known as Manchester of East and remains once of the most industrialised cities of Uttar Pradesh. On the other end of the spectrum they have communities in rural areas of Kanpur which is characterised with large tracts of saline lands, ravine areas and also highly inaccessible pockets with extreme poverty. However the needs in their own manner of both these communities are the same. They lack access to capital for both consumption and productive needs, the access to states services and provisions especially in healthcare is almost negligible, there is utter lack of community organisations for influencing the policies having direct impact on their daily lives. The similarity does not end here, with changing economic scenarios the sources of livelihood are getting equally affected and both urban & rural communities have poor capacities for seeking and adopting newer and additional sources of livelihood. Women and children are the worst sufferers of these inadequacies with men often migrating to alternative locations and sources of livelihood. It is this with this perspective that Shramik Bharti works for empowerment of poor and underprivileged with special focus on women and children.

Mission:

Working for the empowerment of poor and under privileged, with special focus on women and children, Shramik Bharti facilities and fosters people’s democratic institutions. Committed to a human development approach, Shramik Bharti facilitates to enlarge people’s choices by assisting them in development of their capabilities and preparing them to have better control over their lives. Shramik Bharti is, therefore, a way of seeing and respecting people. Their programmes grow out of that respect. They have faith in idea of a truly democratic society, free from exploitations.

Historic Milestones

Building Relationships…1986-1989

The early years of their existence were dedicated to learning the peoples needs and identifying gaps in the society. Working with people they enhanced their understanding of the priorities of the community from their perspective and undertook interventions to gain their trust and support. Gaining experience at the grass root for strategizing larger interventions gained priority over other issues for the organisation and its functionaries.

Community Organisation…1990-1993

The formative years for SB saw them streamlining the organisation of their resources for synergistic effect and planning long term interventions with the community. Realizing that SHG’s were emerging as a potent option for poverty eradication and peoples empowerment, they undertook formation of SHG’s as one of their core activities. In addition to the rural areas, SB undertook SHG formation in Kanpur slums to facilitate other interventions of the programme. health and hygiene started emerging as one the core needs of their beneficiaries and sanitation gained importance in the community. With these perspectives SB undertook creation of sanitation infastructure and introducing health care practices in their operational areas.

Gaining strength…1994 onwards

Building strong models of community development in urban and rural areas, Shramik Bharti realized the need for dissemination of learning’s of these interventions to initiate a wider change process – of information sharing and networking. Demonstrating the cost effective approaches of people empowerment and creating network for catalyzing the impact created at grass root level, gained importance in their activities. The SHG formation led to SB undertaking micro lending and the organisation emerging as a one of the strongest MFI’s in the region. The partnerships with support organisations developed out of needs and requirements of the community. Accordingly waste land reclamation with focus on livelihood generation and enterprise development were integrated into programme focus.