Andhra Pradesh NGO Alliance (APNA)
20 Years of Struggle - 4 Years of Dialogue - 2 Years Sharing Knowledge - 3 Years scaling milestones
Our position on development of the poor and oppressed is not only theorical but based on years of experience. Since 1982, we have only taken up rights based struggles: for land, water, house sites on the name of women, freedom from bondage, child rights, struggles for justice under Atrocities Act. , participation in panchayat elections under Panchayat Raj Act
In 1986 we started the struggle for Right to Work
The struggle lasted until 2005 when the Central Government legislated NREGA. In September 2006, the Government requested YIP to conduct the very first social audit in Andhra Pradesh with the help of Aruna Roy. The audit showed up quite a few problems, but the major issues were fraud in implementation of the act and the rural poor were uninformed about their rights. In 2007, the government decided to focus on frauds only and increased the usage of Digital Technology and made Social Audits mandatory every six months. In Feb of 2008, the Principal Secretary of Rural Development approached us and asked us to demonstrate to the Government. how to inform rural poor about their rights and organise them to demand their rights. We undertook training and organising of rural in 21 mandals of Anantapur District for two years.
On 22 nd. September 2009 600 MGNREGA union members met with Mr. Raju Principal Secretary along with all senior officials of Anantapur ,and stated that the Government will adopt the YIP approach to enable the workers to demand their rights.
Mr Raju was transferred to Delhi but his successor Mr Subramaniam called a meeting of fifty rights based organisation in Feb 2010 and asked how YIP had been organising the rural poor. We explained that we hold rights training sessions for the rural poor, organise them into village level federations, and hold monthly meetings of each village federation to discuss and solve their problems. Impressed by our work and taking into consideration our recommendations, Mr Subramaniam passed the Government Order No. 80 to form a State level Partnership between the Government of Andhra Pradesh and NGOs. Thus APNA was born. Its purpose was for NGOs to train rural poor, then organise them, and lastly conduct their monthly meetings.
340 NGOs joined APNA by January 2011, and in March YIP demanded that the Government to pay the NGOs to conduct rights trainings. We succeeded in createing this unique partnership. APNA became a permanent institution to help the working families to access their rights with the NGOs playing the major role but this is not happening in any other State except Andhra Pradesh. We believe that there can be no development except through rights. I share with you my recent article in Civil Society Magazine published from Delhi on YIP role in creating APNA and the idea of a Government - NGO Partnership across the country for a better implementation of Rights. Please review the article and post your suggestions.
The Success Story (click on this link)
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