Bassi Pathana Community Collaborative Development Project (BP-CCDP)
A visit by the delegation from University of Utah
This pilot project is an emerging collaboration between the Mehar Baba Charitable Trust, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Schoof of Public Health (PGIMER-SPH) and University of Utah Division of Public Health USA and community leaders and members of nine villages in the Fategarh Sahib district of Punjab. An exploratory visit in October 2009 by the delegation (led by Stephen C. Alder, PhD Chief of the Division of Public Health) from the University of Utah and a recent visit in October 2010 set the collaboration in motion by formalizing the partnership, identifying priorities and developing action steps.
The objective of the BP-CCDP is based on principles of collaborative community development with a focus on long-term solutions that promote community level self-reliance. The project will focus on medical education and research, sustainable village health development, and entrepreneurial cooperatives.
The BP-CCDP utilizes the strengths of all partners
- Mehar Baba Charitable Trust – MBCT has adopted 185 villages and has a track record of undertaking extensive community development work for over past 5 years, including women’s empowerment, vocational training, and health camps. MBCT is an on-the-ground partner in this project.
- PGIMER – School of Public Health – A prestigious Indian academic center with over 35 years experience in delivering community health programs in rural villages and is an institutional partner.
- Village leaders (Panchayats), health workers and inspectors, social workers, and other key leaders from the district have demonstrated interest, participated in orientation, and will ultimately inform the direction of the project.
- The University of Utah, Division of Public Health – Has a track record of implementing a community-based participatory approach to community development and offer expertise in public health and will provide annual on-site student teams to implement joint research and development projects.
Using principles from approaches such as Community-Based Participatory Research and building appropriately scaled coalitions, the Sustainable Village Program provides a systematic approach for promoting this type of community development. The Sustainable Village Program aims to promote community development by unlocking human potential using the triad of health, economics and education, in the context of local culture, institutions and infrastructure. The following steps outline the general approach used in initiating the collaboration process and beginning the development cycle:
Through this process, contribution from the Sustainable Village Program is aimed at leadership development and mentoring, with the ultimate target of local capacity building among both key individuals and institutions. Initially, Sustainable Village Program personnel help to define the project site, coordinate the collaborative partners and organize the board, and guide conducting and analyzing the community needs assessment and resource inventory. All of this is done in conjunction with host country leaders and local community leaders so that the process can be modeled and, over time, adopted locally so that it becomes self-perpetuating.
Underlying Principles
Sustainable Village Progam Principles
- Define the project site
- Create a collaborative board with representation from all participating partners – lead by member from host country with specific representation from project site community leaders and residents
- Conduct a community needs assessment and resource inventory across the project site
- Prioritize setting guided by collaborative board with specific emphasis on community input (informed by the results of the community needs assessment and resource inventory)
- Develop initial intervention targets and plan – with specific focus on community leadership and capacity building
- Conduct interventions with both process and outcome evaluation
- Review intervention progress – make adjustments as necessary
- Conduct final analysis of intervention impact
- Update needs assessment and resource inventory – repeat process of priority setting and intervention planning and implementation
→ Catch the latest updates on BP-CCDP
Extracts from University of Utah.
