Enhancing production of food and livelihood options
Capacity building, demonstrations and collaborative field trials on sustainable utilization of natural resources
Supported by: Christian Aid, London, ; Karl Kubel Siftung, Germany; Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India; Carlton University, Canada

We work with small and marginal farmers and sharecroppers with special focus on women and tribal communities in ecologically marginalized area. We help to design and develop integrated home garden so that the family gets nutritious food, herbal remedies for daily ailments and fodder. We also help the schools and ICDS centres to grow vegetables for a regular flow of vegetable in the mid-day meal.
We encourage locally suitable crop & agriculture practice, saving-sharing-exchange of seeds and traditional knowledge among farmers, harvest and use of rain water, community and household production and application of biological fertilizers & pest repellents prepared from locally available biomass. We discourage mono-cropping, overuse of synthetic fertilizers and any use of chemical pesticide.    read more...     Download Veg. Seed Register

We provide training and resources required for conducting collaborative field trials. We aim to diversify farming and integrate/accommodate various subsystems like fishery, livestock, poultry, perennial and seasonal crops, biodigesters etc. by land shaping for the purposes of waste recycling, disaster resilience, minimization of external input and better calorie flow within the farm.
We try to learn from the farmers and also from traditional & scientific knowledge systems.
We also try to generate supplementary income through natural resource based micro enterprises especially to tide over the crisis period of the year and also to check seasonal migration.

We shall be happy if farmers stop using pesticides, make their own fertilizers and pest repellents, shrug off all dependence on the market for agricultural inputs, become healthy and feel confident to try out new ideas that increase economic efficiency and reduce social conflicts and environmental degradation; if mother and children are healthy, active groups of gardeners help each other; if nursery schools have gardens around them and if there is less use of synthetic pesticides and medicines.

Assisting communities to conserve and regenerate common property resources
Facilitating group based management of grazing lands, ponds & wetlands, roadside & canal bank/riverbank areas, permanent fallows etc.
Supported by: Christian Aid, London; Karl Kubel Siftung, Germany; AEON foundation, Japan;
We work with landless families and small peasants with special focus on women and tribal communities in ecologically marginalized areas. We help by training communities to map all land and water resources around their village and identify unused/underused land/water bodies. We encourage communities to obtain consent from local authorities/private owners for utilization rights over unused/fallow lands through lease and rental arrangements.

We provide technical support to design and develop food forest in the ecologically marginalized area with strategic crops and fruit trees for supply of food during and after the disaster period. We aim to regenerate those lands through large scale soil water conservation, mixed cropping, agro-forestry systems etc. and thereby take effective steps towards reducing soil erosion, conservation of local biodiversity, carbon sequestration etc.

We expect that the people would be able to produce most of their firewood, fodder and small timber requirements and generate some amount of off season income through community based natural resource management and the improved habitat would be beneficial for small wild life.
We organize, especially women groups, to save grains in community grain reserves for stressful days.
We shall be happy if the poor families do not have to migrate in search of livelihood or mortgage their land or pledge their children's labour to meet their basic needs.

Life and livelihood oriented environment education
Promoting activity-based participatory reflective environment education among children and adolescents for environment protection
Supported by : IndienHilfe, Germany; Shaplaneer, Japan; Oxfam, India; WE21 Japan; ABA, Japan; NCSTC/DST, Govt. of India.
We work with the toddlers and their mothers from tribal and marginalized communities, school-going adolescents, groups of non school going adolescents from ecologically vulnerable regions, young volunteers, community workers, teachers and educators. We try to train up educators and teachers with various tools and concepts of group activity based, experiential, learner centric, reflective education, especially for application in the field of environment education.

We aspire to make environment education, even in formal school, life related and livelihood oriented We expect the children to be conscious about the local society and environment and to identify local socio-ecological problem and take initiatives to address those through traditional as well as modern eco-friendly low cost-no cost technologies.

We try to develop basic scientific and communication skills and introduce various tools for observation-collection-analyse-collation of information & experimentation among children.
We aim to develop eco-friendly natural resource based small enterprises in rural areas so that the children do not grow up to join the band of unskilled labourers in ill paid and hazardous professions. We organize the guardians and community to take proper care of their children for a holistic integrated child development especially in the early childhood days.
We shall be happy if these children impart similar training to the others and participate in the planning process and development activities of the village.

Sustainable Technology Transfer to Enhance Productivity for Ultara-Poor (STEP-UP)
The main objective of the project is to ensure to that 1900 ultra-poor households have increased sustainable income and increased food production by adapting environmentally sustainable agricultural technologies and improved marketing in 5 blocks of Murshidabad and Birbhum.
Supported by: European Union,
Target people: Extreme poor households with preference for tribal, dalits, female headed HHs, disabled and the elderly. 930 Households in Birbhum district. Parulia Gram Panchayet in Dubrajpur Block. Bharkata Gram Panchayet and Bhutura Gram Panchayet in Mohammadbazar Block. 827 households in Murshidabad district. Mahishathali Gram Panchayet in Bhagobangola Block. Nabagram Gram Panchayet and Narayanpur Gram Panchayet in Nabagram Block.

Climate Change Program (CCDRER Project)
The overall goal of the project is to reduce climatic disaster risks and enhance resilience of the coastal communities around the Sundarbans by building capacity of the vulnerable communities, local actors and stakeholders through sustainable natural resource management and disaster risk reduction for promotion of livelihoods as well as by advancing community adaptation to climate change.
Supported by: European Union, ORBICON
The CCDRER project envisages to work on the following major areas of concerns within the Sunderbans of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India.
 Risk and vulnerability including DRR in the coastal mangrove ecosystems and the communities around the Sunderbans of both Bangladesh and India.
 Food, fodder, livelihood insecurity causing seasonal and permanent migration.
 Severe water scarcity for drinking, irrigation and fisheries due to salinisation because of sea level rise, tidal surges.
 Increased risk of high tidal inundation, salinity, cyclonic storm / tidal surges for the livelihoods of the local people, land infrastructure etc. leading to direct loss of agricultural land, pond and other community assets and human settlement.
This 48 months project was scheduled to start from March 2011 but due to some unavoidable reasons it has started from October 2011. BCAS is the lead implementer in the project in Bangladesh and India. DRCSC is the implementing partner of BCAS in West Bengal, India. The project is funded by EU (DCI-ENV/2010/221-426).

Creating awareness about issues of development & people's rights
We work with NGOs, CBOs, local-state-national level networks, movements, government departments, agencies and individuals.
Supported by : DFID, UK; Christian Aid, London
We organize awareness events, development dialogues, and provide various services from our library-cum-resource centre to strengthen the role of civil society. We aspire to be a transparent and corruption free country by proper utilization of resources & information and proper implementation of pro poor acts and schemes.

We want the urban consumers to be able to make a right and responsible choice in their decisions regarding consumption and life style. We publish and promote targeted printed, audio-visual and web materials on development and rights issues.
We shall be happy if the rural and urban poor are conscious about their rights and take necessary action to protect these.

Capacitating small organisation and individuals
Developing skills on natural resource management, non formal education, documentation, rural entrepreneurship development, organization building, participatory methodologies etc.
We work with small local organizations, clubs, farmer & women groups, panchayat & govt. departments and individuals with a purpose.
We help and support grassroot organization and individuals working on various issues of development and maintain documentation centres, information centres, seed centres & nurseries, revolving funds, grain banks, bio-labs, print publication & audio-visual production units, non formal education centres etc. We encourage farmers experienced in applying sustainable agriculture techniques to develop themselves into resource persons or trainers. We promote participatory learning through field based action research, trial, exposure, networking activities, newsletter, workshops etc. We provide training on sustainable agriculture and natural resource management techniques.

We expect that the local level NGOs would function as Area Resource Training Centres or Zonal Resource Training Centres that would have the capacity to provide well-informed and equipped trainers as well as the infrastructure required for conducting training on sustainable agriculture for farmer groups, grassroot organizations and village-level individuals.
We shall be happy if all farmers and gardeners who have undertaken training willfully practise sustainable agriculture, develops innovative models and trains the other farmers and gardeners in the village in SA techniques and motivates them to adopt these.

Training Assignments
Different training assignments have also been done with grassroot organizations like NISTHA, HASUS, ADL, BCC etc. We have also helped Loreto, Anandolok to make school gardens. Training assignments have also undertaken to train the SHG supervisors / group leaders of blocks of Bankura district. We are training up educators and social workers from Save the Children, Kolkata and TSRD.