Media Release

Mangalore, Feb 10: The Mangalore Unit of the Religious Congregations held a two-day workshop on the Right to Food Campaign, recently, here. About 53 delegates from various religious congregations attended the workshop leading to concrete action plans.

Fr Nithiya, a Capuchin priest and Sr Mariola from Bethany Congregation conducted this workshop on how the marginalised can get their entitlements from government. After the orientation talk on “Human Rights and our Religious Commitment” the trainers focused on the schemes on food security and how the marginalised could make use of redress mechanisms and get their rights. They convinced the delegates on how they secured benefits for thousands of people by using the Supreme Court orders in the past three years in 20 states.

The nine schemes they focused on were: public distribution system, old age pension, maternity benefit scheme, national rural employment guarantee scheme, annapurna, antyodaya annayajona, integral child development scheme, midday meal scheme and national family benefit scheme.

On the final day, the delegates got divided into seven groups to effectively cover the marginalised people of various parts of Mangalore region and focus on people by priority issues. The religious working in specific area joined together to empower the marginalised effectively. They have planned to network with religious superiors and educationists, media, lawyers, government officials, PTA and reliable NGOs for an effective output. The groups have planned to have review of their specific activities on monthly basis and move ahead in serving the poor and the marginalised. The president and vice president of the Mangalore Diocesan religious unit Sr Cicilia Mendonca BS and Fr Henry CSSR assured the delegates that they would go ahead with full confidence enabling the people to claim their Rights.