Rohtak

Rohtak district lies in the south east of Haryana State. It is bound by Jind and Sonipat districts on the north, Jhajjar district on the south, Jhajjar and Sonipat district on the east and Hisar and Bhiwani districts on the west side. Population of the district as per 2001 census is 1058683. The density of population is 466 per sq. Kilometre. There are 146 villages and 151 Panchayats on the district. The rural population is 531263 and urban population is 245703. The social situation of the area is one characterized by caste divide, dominated by landed Jats and high castes, with the landless dalits. Since centuries dalits have been subjected to exploitation by the dominant castes. The dalits are known under various caste names in Haryana like Balmikies, Chamars, Dhanaks etc. They live on the outskirts of the village and work in the lands of the dominant caste landlords who own much of the village land. The dalits are landless, illiterate and poor. Most of them are daily wage labourers. They are dependent on the landlords for their daily bread. The average family size is six. The literacy rate is very low. The girl children are mostly confined to their household chores and not encouraged to study. Women in the rural communities are still marginalized. They do all the house hold work as well as daily wage labour. However, they do not have any say in the decision making process both in the family as well as in their own community. Majority of them are illiterate, confined to household chores, child bearing and daily wage labour. The health situation especially with regard to reproductive health care is far from satisfactory. Another major issue that has resulted from ignorance is that many children are born handicapped; especially there are a large number of mentally/physically challenged children in the villages. Most of the families do not know what to do with such children and they end up as perpetual burden to families. Chetanalaya which has been working in Rohtak since 1994 through various relief and rehabilitation interventions started a systematic development process in about 54 villages in the year 2003 and now expanded the intervention through conducting training programmes and awareness programmes and have outreached to enormous number of 300 villages/pockets by 2012. Today in almost all these villages there are enlightened and empowered community organizations which came as by-product of our interventions, to claim the rightful place of neglected people in the mainstream of the Society. Later all the interventions were handed over to Prabhat Sewa except Chetanalaya Vishesh Gurukul at Bahu Akbarpur, Rohtak, a special school for the persons with intellectual disability run since 2012. It also provides therapy and vocational training to children with disabilities.

Nuh

Mewat district was carved out from erstwhile Gurgaon and Faridabad districts, which came into existence on 4th April 2005 as the 20th district of Haryana. The newly constituted district comprises of three sub-divisions namely Nuh, Firozpur Jhirka and Hathin. The district headquarter is located at Nuh. There are 532 villages in the district. Mewat district is largely comprises of planes. Inconsistency in Mewat topography is evident from its patches of land with hills and hillock of the Aravali Mountain on the one hand and plains on the other. Mewat, land of the Meos has its genesis in its tribal inhabitants, the Meo tribals, who are agriculturalists. The area is a distinct ethnic and socio-cultural tract. The Meos, who trace their roots to the early Aryans of North India, call themselves Kshatriyas and have preserved their social and cultural traits to a surprisingly large extent, unlike the other tribes of nearby areas. During the regime of the Tughlak dynasty in the 14th century A.D., these people embraced Islam but till today, they have maintained their age-old distinctive ethno-cultural identity. According to the Census of India 2001, the total population of Mewat district was 9, 93,617 of which 46,122 (4.64%) lived in urban areas and the major chunk 9, 47,495 (95.36%) of the population lived in rural areas. The main occupation of the people of Mewat district is agriculture and allied and agro-based activities. The Meos are the predominant population group and are completely agriculturists.. The upper hills are mostly barren. The agriculture in Mewat is mostly rain fed except in small pockets where canal irrigation is available. Agriculture production measured in terms of crop yield per hectare in Mewat is comparatively low. Animal husbandry is the secondary source of income. Those who live closer to the hilly ranges of Aravali also keep sheep and goats. Milk yield is not so low, but due to heavy indebtedness the income from the milk is much reduced, as many farmers have to sell the milk to the lender at lower than normal price. Mewat falls under the Sub-Tropical, Semi-arid climatic zone with extremely hot temperature in summer. Dryness of air is standard feature in Mewat except during the monsoon season. Mewat experiences a high incidence of thunderstorms and dust storms, often accompanied by violent squalls (andhar) during the period April to June. The annual rainfall varies considerably from year to year. The deep rooted caste system, that have been in place for the last so many centuries have divided the people into various classes and placed them at different altitudes of the social ladder. It has become part of culture that the marginalized are still under the conception that they are second class citizens doomed to be ruled by those in the upper classes. Despite the fact that a number of legislations have been made in the last sixty years of India as a republic, these divisions still exist. These people, mainly of the scheduled caste, the scheduled tribe and other back ward sessions are given many privileges and reservations as a constitutional mechanism to compensate for the centuries long deprivation and exploitations they had under gone. But these people are not aware and united to ask for the rights. Even though the Panchayati raj system (The Local Self-Governance Mechanism in India) envisages the participation of all sections of the population in the administration and planning, the unorganised poor, more often than not, skip the Gram Sabhas, etc. Even where the seats are reserved for them, the elected ones become mere puppets in the hands of the powerful. There are a vast number of Muslims in the villages. The literacy among Muslims, especially women are extremely low. Most of the women are confined to their houses. It is male dominated society. Women have no say in the family. Very often they become victims of social evils like domestic violence, child marriage, dowry, purdah system, illiteracy, female infanticide, child labour etc. The economic conditions of the project area are one of the worst in entire Haryana. The state of Haryana has one of the lowest male female ratios in India. The Nuh district is not an exception. Of all the social evils and social problems, gender discrimination is the worst and the most important to be addressed. Chetanalaya started its development interventions in Nuh in the year 2006. Within six years there has been a marked change in the socio economic living standards of the people. The villages under the intervention reach of Chetanalaya are in Nuh block of the Mewat district and they are Shahpur, Nangli, Nuh (centre), Sonkh, Tapkan, Palla, Rehna, Palri, Nalhar, Salamba, Aar, Tain, Malab, Dilhana, Bai, Nangla, Tadakpur, Gundwas, Badogi, Sikhnangla and Khorbasbai. Through the childline programme, Chetanalaya has created awareness on childline number to more than a lakh population and rescued thousands of children in distress. Chetanalaya also initiated an intervention for children with disabilities and provide home based education and rehabilitation to them. Thousands of people were motivated towards polio immunization contributing towards polio eradication programme. We are also involved with Community Based Rehabilitation of Persons with disability in the villages of Mewat Block.

Rewari

Rewari was accorded the status of a district by the Government of Haryana on November, 1, 1989. Its geographical boundaries have district Jhajjar in its north, Mahendergarh district in its west and district Gurgaon in its east & north-east directions. District Alwar of Rajasthan touches Rewari in the south-east. Prior to it, Rewari was a Sub-division and Tehsil head quarter of district Mahendergarh. As of 2011,Rewari city had a population of 143,021(compared to 100,946 in 2001 and 75,342 in 1991) showing 42% growth in 2001–11-decade against 34% growth in 1991–2001 decade. Males were 75,764 (53% of the population) and females were 67,257 (47%). The overall sex ratio (female:male) was 886 compared to national average 940, and in the 0 to 6-year age group was 785 compared to national average 918. Rewari had an average literacy rate of 78%, higher than the national average of 64.3% for entire population and 74.0% for population excluding 0 to 6-year age group in 2011.[24] Male literacy is 83% and female literacy is 73% (compared to 79% and 67% respectively in 2001). In Rewari, 11.3% of the population is under six years of age. A big part of the population is Yaduvanshi Ahir. Yadavs of Rewari and remaining Ahirwal are mainly landowning farmers. Hindi and its dialects Ahirawati and Haryanavi are spoken in Rewari. Chetanalaya is empowering the women residing in the villages of Rewari through self help groups. Children parliaments initiated in the area are developing the children towards accessing their rights.