Participatory Statistics to Measure Prevalence in Bonded Labour Hotspots in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar: Report of Preliminary Findings of the Baseline Study

The Institute of Development Studies has been carrying out a programme of research, learning and evaluation in relation to the Freedom Fund ‘hotspot’ in northern India, a project that seeks to reduce bonded labour in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The work for this baseline study builds upon scoping visits comprising interviews with NGOs, focus groups with community members, field observations, the participatory collection and analysis of 353 life stories to identify the most significant indicators of change, and the generation of a baseline of participatory statistics of 3466 households across 82 hamlets in locations covered by 14 NGOs. This will be followed by the rollout of a systemic action research programme which combines stakeholders analysing and developing solutions to their problems with follow-up participatory statistical analysis. We will conduct an end-line survey two years after the data collection for this study has been completed. The aim of the study was to estimate the prevalence of bonded labour in the selected intervention communities of the Freedom Fund hotspot in northern India. Prevalence data help mainly to understand the profile of families in bonded labour and any correlations with different variables. The analysis of life stories provided a better insight into the life situations of families in bonded labour and explored questions of why and how. With clear causal factors emerging from the life story analysis, the current prevalence study was able to focus on these important indicators. The team facilitated a discussion on the results at the end of the data collection process in each site. These discussions focused on the reasons for the differences in prevalence results using the tallied-up data to explore how gender, age and caste dynamics shape bonded labour, with most adults in bonded labour working inside the village; most boys in bondage working outside the village; and a group of families with all members in bonded labour working outside the village.Freedom Fun

Participatory Research, Planning and Evaluation Process in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar Hotspots Summary Results: Participatory Action Research

IDS and Praxis supported eleven action research groups in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The groups identified their research enquiries based on a joint analysis of the life stories at the Collective Story Analysis workshop 13–16 May 2015. The aim of the action groups was to develop ideas for pilot interventions, including encouragement and support of the researchers, but without additional project funding. This allowed people to explore ideas and to mobilise resources outside the operational programmes.Freedom Fun

Patterns and Dynamics of Slavery and Bonded Labour in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh: Findings from Life Story Analysis

This report summarises the findings of the analysis of multiple life stories collected across the Freedom Fund slavery hotspot in North India by NGO representatives at the Collective Story Analysis workshop 13-16 May 2015. The authors outline the major findings and key system dynamics that emerged in the story analysis. NGO representatives were asked to collect many hundreds of life stories between them. The life story does not depict every aspect of a person’s life, but rather important episodes and transitions in their lives that they want to talk about.Freedom Fun

Experience capitalization: Collective planning from the ground up

I'm based in Delhi and work for an international non-profit organisation called The Constellation. I encourage communities to engage in the Community Life Competence Process (CLCP). This is a process built around a learning cycle where a community takes action and learns from their own experience. The learning then becomes the basis for another round of action and, in turn, learning. The learning cycle can continue indefinitely

Impact evaluation of a community engagement intervention in improving childhood immunization coverage: a cluster randomized controlled trial in Assam, India

Abstract Background To improve immunization coverage, most interventions that are part of the national immunization program in India address supply-side challenges. But, there is growing evidence that addressing demand-side factors can potentially contribute to improvement in childhood vaccination coverage in low- and middle-income countries. Participatory engagement of communities can address demand-side barriers while also mobilizing the community to advocate for better service delivery. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of a novel community engagement approach in improving immunization coverage. In our proposed intervention, we go a step beyond merely engaging the community and strive towards increasing ‘ownership’ by the communities. Methods/Design We adopt a cluster randomized design with two groups to evaluate the intervention in Assam, a state in the northeast region of India. To recruit villages and participants at baseline, we used a two-stage stratified random sampling method. We stratified villages; our unit of randomization, based on census data and randomly selected villages from each of the four strata. At the second-stage, we selected random sub-sample of eligible households (having children in the age group of 6–23 months) from each selected village. The study uses a repeated cross sectional design where we track the same sampled villages but draw independent random samples of households at baseline and endline. Total number of villages required for the study is 180 with 15 eligible HHs from each village. Post-baseline survey, we adopt a stratified randomization strategy to achieve better balance in intervention and control groups, leveraging information from the extensive baseline survey. Discussion The proposed intervention can help identify barriers to vaccination at the local level and potentially lead to more sustainable solutions over the long term. Our sampling design, sample size calculation, and randomization strategy address internal validity of our evaluation design. We believe that it would allow us to causally relate any observed changes in immunization coverage to the intervention. Trial registration The trial has been registered on 7th February, 2017 under the Clinical Trials Registry- India (CTRI), hosted at the ICMR’s National Institute of Medical Statistics, having registration number CTRI/2017/02/007792. This is the original study protocol

From "learning from the field" to jointly driving change

The theme of the 8th edition of the Geneva Health Forum (GHF) was Improving access to health: learning from the field. While ‘the field' often denotes people,patients, communities, and healthcare workers, we challenge the notion and its usage. A group of like-minded conference participants set up a working group to examine the term ‘the field' and look at questions related to language, power, participation, and rights. By highlighting deficiencies of existing terms and jargon, we explain why language is a form of power that matters in public health. We describe global, regional, and national case studies that facilitate full participation to achieve more equitable health outcomes. By concluding with concrete recommendations,we hope to contribute to these shared goals: to correct power imbalances between health authorities and the people that they intend, and are expected, to serve. The authors are all members of the working group