Information & Services

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Background

In 2009, the Ministry of Health Promotion and Sport created the Healthy Communities initiative to help enhance the health and well-being of communities through inter-sectoral collaboration, partnership and community engagement. The aim of this initiative was to facilitate a streamlined, holistic and integrated approach to health promotion and chronic disease prevention. Although the partnership no longer receives funding from the Province of Ontario, local partners see value in the initiative, and continue to support the work through in-kind contributions. The Districts Health Unit provides both a coordinator and administrative support to the Partnership. The HCP coordinator works in collaboration with the health unit, community partners and with existing community resources to plan, coordinate and facilitate the work of the HCP

Social Inclusion and Universal Social Mobilisation

NRRM will ensure that states adopts saturation approach, where at least one member from each identified rural poor household, preferably a woman, is brought under the Self Help Group (SHG) network in a time bound manner. The Mission will adopt differential strategies for social inclusion and mobilisation of all identified BPL households into functionally effective and self-managed institutions, with particular focus on inclusion of vulnerable sections like scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, disabled, landless, migrant labour, isolated communities and communities living in disturbed areas. Using participatory vulnerability assessment and ranking methodology it would identify the poorest and the most vulnerable amongst the BPL households. Both men and women from identified households would be organised into institutions of the poor (including farmers' organisations, producers' cooperatives etc.) for addressing livelihood issues. These aggregates would graduate into higher level institutions supported by community resource persons (CRP), which will ensure the processes of inclusion and mobilisation.

Financial Inclusion

Experience from large scale projects shows access to repeat finance, at affordable price, for desired amount and customized repayment terms is crucial for poor and vulnerable group of the society, to meet their consumption, exit debt trap and investment in livelihood assets.Based on the eligibility criteria, the mission would provide financial support to the institutions of poor with intent to inject financial resources into the institutions of poor for meeting their credit needs for both for consumption purposes andalso for investment in livelihoods promotion. This fund would be eventually a corpus /capital resource for institutions of the poor. The poorest and the most vulnerable groups would be given priority for capital subsidy. Largely this fund is expected to be used for on-lending to the SHGs for providing financial assistance to meet their livelihoods other essential needs. Each state will strategize the routing of the financial assistance to the institutions of the poor both in the intensive and non-intensive blocks within the overall guidelines provided in the NRRM 'Framework for Implementation'.

Guiding Principles

1.Poor have a strong desire to come out of poverty & have innate capabilities to realize the same.
2.Social Mobilization& building strong institutions of the poor are critical for unleashing the innate capabilities of the poor.
3.Dedicated, professional, sensitive, and accountable support structure to initiate the process.
4.Access to credit, marketing & other livelihoods services to facilitate the upward mobility of the poor.