Bringing skills and systems that help women, families and communities gain confidence and take charge of their own lives.
Project Location
Odisha and Jharkhand States, India
Professional Assistance for Development Action’s (PRADAN) mission is to enable the most marginalized people, especially rural women, to earn a decent living and take charge of their own lives. PRADAN works with forest dwelling communities, women collectives and women self help groups for ensuring secure land rights to promote livelihood security, self dignity, and social security for women and communities.
In the Indian state of Odisha, Cadasta partnered with the Indian nonprofit, PRADAN to map, document, and advocate for community forest rights. Pradan works with local communities in Odisha state that are eligible to apply for government recognition of rights to forest reserves through the Recognition of Forest Rights Act of 2006 and the Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRR). To do so, Pradan is using Cadasta’s tools to map and demarcate agreed-upon forest boundaries to develop a system of protection for the community forest areas. This approach was piloted in one community area and documented 127 individual farms and properties. Pradan now hopes to expand the project throughout the state.
