Prayog is the parent body of the Ekta Parishad network with offices in Raipur and Tilda, in district Raipur. Since 1982 Prayog has been working on land rights, and rehabilitation of bonded labour, and income generation activities. It organised harijan stone quarry workers in Baasin. It has six micro enterprises run by women. These include a rice mill, mustard oil expeller, khadi outlet and papad, bidi units.

It has been engaged in soil and water conservation in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, training in organic farming and medicinal plants in Majhgawan, promoting adoption of organic cotton in Nimar and establishing a honey training centre in Chambal.

The organisation has 83 field activists including six experts in village level economic programmes and a media coordinator.

Prayog has initiated a two-year programme for securing and institutionalising the rights of the marginalised community in Chhattisgarh. It proposes to do so through policy advocacy. Its target is marginalised tribals and dalits.

Objectives of the programme:

• To unite and widen grassroots mobilisation for claiming rights and ownership of marginalised community over land and livelihood resources
• To constitute and consolidate mutual help groups (MHGs) for socio-economic and political empowerment of women and community e.g. operating grain bank, promoting non-institutional savings, initiating village entrepreneurships, etc.
• To develop land and livelihood resources and build capacities for ensuring food security and livelihood of marginalised communities through marketing of non timber forest produce, adopting organic farming supported by marketing outlets, etc.

Major activities:

• Formation of Ekta Parishad village units to strengthen people’s social and economic status
• Action research to identify land related issues and intervention needed to resolve the issues
• Organising people’s forum, public hearings, partners meet, state level committee for highlighting issues at local, state and partner levels
• Formation and training for credit linkage, financing MHGs in villages for promotion of savings and entrepreneurial activities
• Organising rallies, conventions, sammelans, press conferences as pressure creating activities
• Intensifying contact with elected representatives to raise issues about land and livelihood
• Organising training for field activists on constitutional and para-legal issues relating to land and livelihood
• Supporting marginal families to develop their land (levelling, bunding, etc.)
• Training for marginal and small farmers on low cost agricultural technologies and allied agricultural activities such as honey collection, non-timber forest produce collection, cocoon collection, etc.
• Establishing grain banks for seed security of marginal farmers
• Organising exposure visit for selected farmers