Human Research Development: A Case Study of an NGO in Assam

low cost solution in improving the use of local resources and in encouraging self-

reliance. Largely they have developed durable partnership with the Government.

Case Study of Society for North East Handmade Paper Development

(SNEHPAD)

Methodology

The author conducted an in-depth study on SNEHPAD by adopting a methodology

with an objective to understand the contributions made by SNEHPAD in the field

of Human Research Development and villagers’ perception. She developed an

interview guide to interact with the NGO functionaries and used a structured

interview schedule to gather data from villagers. The secondary data has been

collected from different literatures.

About SNEHPAD

SNEHPAD is an NGO, registered under the Society’s Registration Act 1860 in

the year 2004-05, rendering services for livelihood promotion, educational, health

development of the poor people of the Jorhat district of Assam, India. They have

been implementing different programmes in the field. Before implementation of

the project in the field, the NGO does a research work in the project area with an

objective to understand the socio-economic condition of the people, identify the

possessed knowledge, skill, capabilities of human being followed by identification

of resources of the project area. Recently SNEHPAD has made a research on

livelihood promotion in the Sonwal Village of the Jorhat district of Assam, India,

and the findings are discussed below.

Sonowal Village at a glance

New Sonowal area is situated at the Assam-Nagaland border and is approximately

30 km away from Jorhat town. The New Sonowal area consists of eleven villages

having 760 families and having a population of 3,814 approx. (data as of December

2010). Most of the people of the area are self-employed with a very low annual

income. This area has also been selected because some NGO based activities are

pro-active in nearby areas and also in some portion of the selected area. Out of

760 families only 56 families are engaged in Govt. jobs, 11 families are engaged in

private jobs, 499 families are self-employed on daily-income basis, 61 families are

engaged in business, 10 families have retired from Govt. employment while the

remaining 123 families are engaged in agriculture and allied activities. 88% of the

total population of the selected locality has per capita income below the National

Per Capita Income. Moreover, the incomes are seasonal for the 499 families which

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