The Rural Development (RD) sector today faces complex challenges of growth, equity, climate change, and social & economic security of the poor and vulnerable communities. This context has impressed upon the RDprogrammes of government and non-government organizationsa growing need for intervention strategies that are reflective, robustly designed, and implemented through an innovative and adaptive approach. It is clear thatthere is an urgent need to address this capacity building challenge by preparing a cadre of rural professionals who are capable of engaging in the rural development sector specially at the sub-district levels; be it through NGOs, government institutions or as elected representatives of the PRIs and/or cluster level federation leaders.
IIHMR University and Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (BRLF) today jointly announced the launch of the first batch of the Certificate Programme in Rural Livelihoods the duration of which is of six months.The certificate programme is a residential course which offers a critical, cutting edge understanding of the rural livelihood sector in India and incorporates a strong field based learning approach. The programme combines appropriate knowledge and skill components through a unique yet inclusive capacity building initiative.
The programme focuses on the development of capacities of tribal youth from 10 states of the Central Indian Tribalbelt. Towards this end, BRLF and IIHMR University have brought together 15 leading organizations in the rural livelihoods sector to facilitate a multi-centre, multi-topic curriculum that covers different dimensions of rural livelihoods.For the first batch, 30 candidates have been selected from states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh. These candidates belong to Scheduled Tribes, De-Notified Tribes/Notified Tribes, and Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups/communities from across BRLF mandated geographies.
IIHMR University is India’s foremost university committed to the health and well-being of people everywhere. BRLF is an autonomous body set up by Ministry of Rural Development Government of India with an objective to facilitate civil society action for transforminglives and livelihoods in the central tribal adivasi belt in the country initially. This Certificate Programme is the first among many initiatives of the collaboration between IIHMR University and the BRLF.BRLF and IIHMR University will be jointly certifying this Programme.The programme features a rounded curriculum that explicitly recognizes the value of people’s knowledge and is enabled with cutting edge practice support tools.
President, IIHMR University Prof. VivekBhandari in his address during the Launch programme, said, “Through this partnership with BRLF, IIHMR University will greatly enhance its capacity to impact the rural development sector. Students of this programme will get the best of theoretical and practical knowledge, and exposure to proven livelihoods interventions from some of the most challenges parts of India.Pedagogically, the modules will be an embodiment of the concept of learning by doing.”
Addressing the audience President, BRLF Dr. Mihir Shahsaid, “One of the key mandates of BRLF’scapacity building initiative is to create a pool of rural development professionals for supporting various development interventions of Government, CSOs and communityat large. This initiative will be part of a series of capacity building programmes under the BRLF Capacity Building Initiative, designed and implemented as per the needs of target groups and of different institutions currently working in the sector (Government and CSOs). “
Dr. MihirShah shared that,“This course will be a game changer in the rural livelihoods sector since the design and delivery of the course will provide a unique opportunity to the tribal youth to learn of various livelihoods domains andaddress the issue of growingshortage of trained human resources in the sector.”Dr. Shah thanked the IIHMRUniversity and 15 knowledge partners under the CB initiative for making the certificate programme possible.He also extended his warm welcome to all nominating institutions who have sent their existing professional staff for Batch 1.
The certificate programmehas16 different learning modules in rural livelihoods domain. Participants of the programme will learn these modules across 12 learning locations in 7 states of Central Indian tribal belt. On completion of the course, these rural professionals will potentially engage at block levels as drivers ofpositive change within Civil Society Organizations and Government Institutions facilitating effective implementation of social and economic security programmes/projects for tribal rural India.
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