Panchayati Raj system is one of the most powerful aspects of self governance. As rural Indian particularly rural Bihar is dominated by illiteracy, unawareness, ignorance, improper leadership and corruption the real fruits of Panchayati Raj system never appears and people never experience the joy of governing themselves.

BDVS realized this situation and planed to organize a three days workshop for dalit youth leaders on Panchayati Raj system.

Objectives

1. Create awareness on PR VS community development.
2. Facilitate the participants to understand the PR system (Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parisad)
3. Identifying the role of youth to enhance People's participation.

Subject Matter

The workshop was organized for dalit youth leaders of 25 different panchayats of Bihar where at least 70 youths had participated. These youths are the main leaders of Panchayat youth resource centers where at least 40 youths are the members. However this workshop reaches to more than 900 youths. The program was held between 23/08/16 to 25/08/16 at the administrative office of Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti. The main Program adviser was Fr. Anto Joseph SJ and the resource persons were Mr. Sinai and Mr. Sanjeet. The total sessions were organized to understand the PR system (Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parisad) through penetrating its different aspects. Additions to this there were some group discussions, video presentations, games and some energizers. We had conducted an initial test and at the end of the workshop another test to measure the learning of the participants which reflects that 95% participants have understood the topics and can disseminate the information to their group members. All the participants were very active in all the sessions of the workshop. This is a campaign on training dalit youths on Panchayati Raj so the second phase will be organized soon.