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Regional
Resource Centre
The
Ministry of Health and family Welfare (MoHFW)
has been supporting NGO involvement in the
health and family welfare activities and
Reproductive Health Programmes since the
early 1980s. Several assessments have demonstrated
that a significant number of NGOs participating
in the mother NGO scheme lacked technical
and programmatic capacity in implementing
RCh interventions. To fill this gap, the
Govt. of India in MoHFW has decided to establish
institutions to be known as Regional Resource
Centres.
The
Regional Resource Centres (RRCs) set up
across the country and presently numbering
ten have been established with the objective
of providing assistance and support for
a range of programme management and technical
intervention areas to the State NGO Committee,
Mother NGOs/Field NGOs and Service NGOs.
The
Regional Resource Centre for the North-eastern
region,(catering to all the north-eastern
states including Sikkim) is Voluntary Health
Association of Assam.
The
mission of RRC-VHAA is :
To
facilitate and capacitate for providing
quality reproductive and child health services
through community and service based initiatives.
The
goals set forth by RRC-VHAA are as follows:
Strengthening
and broadening of alliances through dialogue
amongst different stakeholders to consolidate
VHAA's position as RRC.
Developing
and implementing appropriate strategies,
programmes to render RCH activities through
capacity building initiatives of the MNGOs.
Positioning
RRC as a platform/forum for assisting in
formulation of state(s) level policies,
advocacy and documentation of RCH related
issues.
RRC's
activities :
In tune with RRC-VHAA's
mission and goals it had set forth, the
RRC's immediate focus was to position its
strategic role in assisting the implementation
of the MNGO scheme amongst the different
stakeholders which include the government
officials in the different north-eastern
states, the NGOs and other stakeholders
involved in the implementation of the scheme.
As
part of its strategy plan, the RRC has started
conducting a series of GO-NGO partnership
workshops in all the NE states. Such meetings
not only serve the purpose of apprising
the concerned health and allied department
functionaries about the scheme and the role
of the MNGOs about working in tandem with
the state health mechanism, but also bring
both the NGOs and the government officials
to a common forum for a healthy exchange
of ideas/views towards the effective implementation
of the project.
The
RRC has already conducted a GO-NGO workshop
in co-ordination with the Govt. Of Sikkim
at Gangtok, Sikkim. Similar programmes are
in the pipeline for the other NE states
as well. 
That
the RRC within a short span of time has
been able to establish the right kind of
linkages and rapport with the state governments
is seen in the fact that some state governments
like in Assam, Manipur have requested the
RRC to conduct field appraisals of all applicant
NGOs for both the Mother NGO and Service
NGO schemes.
A
resource Directory has been prepared on
the different institutions in the north-eastern
region which deal with RCH and other relevant
developmental issues.
The
first issue of RRC's news letter "Sparsh"
has already been published and the second
one is in the pipeline. A compilation of
different journals, books, articles and
write-ups on RCH issues and similar relevant
matters is being given the finishing touches.
This compilation would help the MNGOs/FNGOs
to have better access to information and
improve their knowledge base.
Capacity
Building Initiatives, an important area
of work of RRC have taken off quite well
with a number of trainings already conducted
and more are in the pipeline.
»
RRC-VHAA has conducted workshops on Base
Line Survey (BLS) Data Entry Package.
» Workshop on Proposal
Formulation for all the twelve MNGOs from
all the north-eastern states including Sikkim.
» Amongst the MNGOs trained,
already eight of them have further conducted
the trainings for the FNGOs and the project
proposals are in the different stages of
submission.
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