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  Praxis Department

Conflict Resolution Programme

Peace Through Empowerment

Reconciliation Expansion Project

Women's Interfaith Journey

Community Development

For more information contact:

hd1_hmiis@sancharnet.in 

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Background

The Henry Martyn Institute is actively involved in reconciliation and interfaith dialogue. A practical expression of our mission of generating better interfaith understanding and harmony is our Aman-Shanti projects in communally-sensitive neighborhoods of Hyderabad’s Old City.

HMI’s first community development centre was established in the Sultan Shahi neighborhood, where the Muslim and Hindu residents have suffered severely in recent communal riots. It is our objective there to promote reconciliation and peace through empowerment and co-operative participation in community-based welfare programmes. Our project consists of a primary school, a tailoring center for girls, a community health clinic, short-term literacy classes and a reading room.

Located at the crossroads of the two religious communities residing in the neighborhood, our house provides a place where Hindus and Muslims come together as staff, teachers, and students.

Goals of the Centre:

• To work creatively in riot-prone areas on ways to build supportive and sustaining relationships between communities through community development and empowerment leading towards a climate of trust and cessation of communal violence.

• To facilitate the formation of community-based ownership of community development programmes by promoting grass root leadership.

Programmes of the Centre:

Primary School –

• Around one hundred pupils attend regular classes from nursery to third standard

• Mid morning snack is served every day to the students

• Parents meetings are held periodically to discuss the student’ progress and community concerns.

Women’s Unit-Tailoring Centre:

Around seventy young Hindu and Muslim women take the tailoring programme each year to learn tailoring, hand and machine embroidery, knitting and mehndi (henna dye) designing. The students find the centre a place of their own where they feel free to express their feelings and learn new technical skills.

Group discussions are held with the students about their day-to-day concerns.

Community Health Clinic

For preventive care and treatment, outpatient checkups are offered every day. Specialized health camps for such health concerns as eyes, dental, ears, and gynecology, are held every quarter.

Preventive health care measures are promoted through health talks for the students and visits to different health centres.

Some young women from the community have been trained in aspects of community health so that they can learn about diseases in their early stages. After taking a special health training programme, those health volunteers are able with increased confidence to explain to the community the various specialties of the health camps and aspects of healthy living.

Literacy Courses

To promote education among all sections of society, including those community members who have very minimal literacy skills, the Centre offers government-certified courses in reading and writing Hindi and Urdu.

Reading Room

A mini library with daily newspapers are available at the Centre, which young people from the community come to read.

Youth Programmes

The Centre offers courses in spoken English and air conditioner repair to the young men from the locality.