From the Orbit of Poverty to the Spiral of Growth Experiences in Community Based Habitat Development in Rural Orissa, India

By reinforcing the concept of community, a unique development process has been set off in villages of Orissa, one of the poorest states in India. The fundamentals of the programme require 100% participation from all villagers with clearly defined stakes and mechanisms for institutional and financial sustainability. The programme shows how something as basic as drinking water and sanitation is able to coalesce and bind divergent strands within communities, creating new relationship dynamics between men and women, and different sections of the communities, thereby helping to trigger new strands of development.