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1 CELEBRATION KIT

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3 PROJECT UPDATE SCRIPT A PowerPoint presentation to go along with this update can be downloaded at lwr.org/bihar. Use this script to guide you through updating the congregation on the great work they ve helped make happen through Partnership Bihar with Lutheran World Relief. You can choose some of the key highlights to share in a temple talk or sermon, or create a video or PowerPoint presentation using images from the Partnership Bihar photo library provided by Lutheran World Relief. Personalize your presentation with the ways in which your congregation is engaging with the project. PRESENTATION SCRIPT Today we are celebrating the accomplishments of our Indian partners in Lutheran World Relief s Partnership Bihar Project. LWR launched the project last October to create year-round food security and sufficient nutrition for 4,000 farming families. These families struggle to produce enough food and enough varieties of food to feed their families well throughout the year. There are also little or no surplus crops to sell for cash to cover other needs such as healthcare or education. The families also lack an understanding of their nutritional needs. But this project is changing all of that! Let s take a look at what Lutheran World Relief, the farmers and our congregation! have achieved so far. TEACHING WOMEN TO BE BETTER FARMERS Most of the men in the rural villages migrate to the cities for work, leaving the women behind to take care of the farms and family. Partnership Bihar focuses on training these women farmers in three key areas to bring new life and health to their farms and their families: Diversifying their farms to include more nutrient-rich crops Using improved farming techniques to increase the yield capacity of their farms, giving them enough harvest to feed themselves but also a surplus to sell for cash Understanding the nutritional needs of their family and how to meet those needs with what they grow on their farms Continued...

4 CREATING A STEP-DOWN APPROACH TO TRAINING To reach the women with this essential knowledge, 160 women are being trained as Village Level Trainers (VLTs), who will each reach out to the other women in the villages and train them, in what is called step-down training. VLTs specialize in one of three areas: agriculture practices and farm planning, livestock care and management, and nutrition. Depending on their area of expertise, the VLTs are training women in the key knowledge components of the project. TEACHING BETTER FARMING TECHNIQUES AND LIVESTOCK CARE The VLTs have been busy! The agriculture trainers have already conducted 23 step-down trainings, teaching 550 women farmers about how to grow sweet potatoes and a bean called horse gram, both crops that contribute to the nutritional health of their families as well as serve as a cash crop to sell. The livestock trainers have held 84 trainings for 1,200 farmers on livestock care and management. REACHING UNSERVED AREAS WITH VITAL VETERINARY SERVICES Additionally, 20 of the livestock trainers have also been given and trained in using a paravet kit, which includes medicines, basic medical equipment and supplies for the trainer to perform minor surgical procedures on livestock since professional veterinary services are not readily available in the more remote villages. Also, three storage and transport systems for cold vaccines have been put in place to ensure vaccines can maintain an appropriate temperature as they are delivered to the location where they will be administered. This is key to ensure the vaccines maintain their effectiveness. FARM PLANNING FOR BETTER NUTRITION The nutrition trainers have met with 45 farmers, helping them plan which crops to plant in time for the next rainy season to ensure they can meet the nutritional needs of their families with the produce of their farms. The training focused on the four main food groups and what crops would fill the requirements of each. Continued...

5 CREATIVE APPROACHES TO TRAINING Illiteracy is prevalent in the villages, making the transfer of knowledge from the VLTs to the farmers a challenge. To overcome this, a series of IEC (Information, Education and Communication) materials were produced for the trainers to use in their training sessions. The IEC materials use illustrations and images on flip charts and posters to convey information about farming techniques, livestock care and nutrition. Additionally, a simulation game featuring two fictional characters called Soni and Madhav is used to teach women how to assess the current nutritional status of their family members and what the contributing factors are to any nutritional deficiencies they experience. PROJECT CHALLENGES Along with all these great strides in Partnership Bihar, there are also challenges that we can lift up in prayer for our partners in India. Due to strongly held cultural norms, women do not have a voice in household matters related to spending choices and family well-being. This inequity strongly influences the nutrition status of the family. Women have limited choice in planning their family s diet and, according to culture, women eat at the end of the meal when very little food remains. This contributes to a high incidence of malnourishment among females of all ages. Even during pregnancy women do not get enough to eat because of myths suggesting that increased food intake will produce bigger babies and more difficulty in child birth. As a result, low birth weight is a common outcome of the area. And, despite the fact that women do the bulk of the farming because men are working in the cities, women are not respected as farmers and not given a voice in decision-making as it relates to the family s farm. A cross-cutting theme of Partnership Bihar is to minimize the gap between men s and women s knowledge in farming practices, and influence a cultural shift to raise the status of women as equal partners in decision making on matters related to family health and farm management. Continued...

6 Use this or your own prayer to close the update: Good and Gracious God, You are the sower of good seeds. Plant in us seeds of love, seeds of hope and seeds of faith. We lift up our Indian sisters and their families to you today as they struggle to create the fertile soil for their seeds, seeds of nourishment and sustenance. We pray especially for the women as they face cultural limitations in reaching their potential as farmers and family care-givers. We pray that you will help to open minds and hearts to new social norms, ones that will see women as equal partners with their husbands in matters of family health and farm management. Help our Indian partners know that our hearts are with them and we continue steadfast in our commitment to this project. All these things we pray in Jesus name. Amen Review the Farmer Profiles and share some of their stories as part of your project update to the congregation. Flip chart illustrations are a common tool in teaching the Bihar farmers about crop diversity for better health. Invite artistic members of your congregation to help create visuals for your update in the style used for the Partnership Bihar training tools. (See lwr. org/bihar for examples of the training illustrations.) Remember to take photos of your congregation members as you gather to celebrate the progress your partners in Bihar have made. All photos can be sent to CArmstrong@lwr.org. This activity can also be modified to include more people in the discussion as a family or intergenerational activity.

7 PRESCHOOL/ELEMENTARY ACTIVITY The LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Psalm 85:12 (NRSV) For a family to thrive, they need a varied diet that includes nutrient-rich foods. Spend some time with your youngest Sunday school students exploring how Partnership Bihar is helping families in India improve their health through an improved diet. SETUP Before the activity, prepare two plates of food: one plate with nothing but a mound of plain white rice, and a second plate with rice as well as a few different types of cooked vegetables such as spinach or kale, lentils, eggplant, and tomatoes. DISCUSS Start the discussion by asking the kids what some of their favorite vegetables are, and why it s good for their health to eat lots of different types of vegetables. What would happen to their bodies if they didn t eat lots of healthy vegetables? Now bring out the plate of rice and vegetables. Ask the kids to identify what types of vegetables are on the plate. Then compare that with the plate of only rice. Ask the kids to decide which plate looks like it would taste better and be healthier? (You may have some anti-vegetable kids in the group who would prefer the plain rice you may need to guide the discussion to be more about health and less about taste appeal!) Continued...

8 Explain that your church s support of Partnership Bihar in India is helping families grow more vegetables so they can eat a healthier diet and also have some extra to sell. With the money the farmers get for their vegetables they can buy other foods for their family (like eggs and meat), clothes or medicine, and pay for school fees so their kids can go to school. If the farmers can t grow bountiful quality crops, they won t get enough money to pay for those important things. Finish off the activity sampling some of the vegetables you prepared. PRAY Close with a prayer thanking God for giving them good food to eat and for helping their friends in India grow lots of vegetables to help them be strong and healthy, and to have the money they need to take care of their families. Share the Farmer Profile of Hemati Murmu as an example of how families in Bihar struggle for access to a healthy variety of foods. Flip chart illustrations are a common tool in teaching the Bihar farmers about crop diversity for better health. Encourage the kids to create their own illustrations showing how a diet with a variety of vegetables will help children in Bihar grow strong and healthy. Remember to take photos of the children in your congregation participating in this activity to share with your partners in Bihar. This activity can also be modified to include more people in the discussion as a family or intergenerational activity.

9 ELEMENTARY/MIDDLE SCHOOL ACTIVITY But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. John 15:8 (NIV) Partnership Bihar focuses on training women farmers in three key areas to bring new life and health to their farms and their families: Diversifying their farms to include more nutrient-rich crops Using improved farming techniques to increase the yield of their farms, giving them enough harvest to feed themselves but also a surplus to sell for cash Understanding the nutritional needs of their family and how to meet those needs with what they grow on their farms To reach the women with this essential knowledge, 160 of them are being trained as Village Level Trainers (VLTs), each who will reach out to the other women in the villages and train them in what is called step-down training. This is an efficient way to share knowledge with a large number of people. VLTs specialize in one of three areas: agriculture practices and farm planning, livestock care and management, and family nutrition. Depending on their area of expertise, the VLTs are training women in Continued...

10 the key knowledge components of the project. In the end, 4,000 farmers will be trained! As a fun way to illustrate the compounding effect of step-down training, play this fun game based on the popular Blob Tag game. The kids may already be familiar with this game from church camp or Vacation Bible School. INSTRUCTIONS Choose one student to be it he or she represents the VLT. The other players will be farmers. They can scatter about the playing area which represents their village. On the signal, the VLT will train the farmers by tagging them. When tagged, a farmer joins hands with the VLT and together they go to train other farmers by tagging them (only the VLT or the last farmer on the end of the chain can tag other farmers). As more farmers are tagged, they join the chain by holding hands with the farmer on the end. The chain of trained farmers grows bigger and bigger until all farmers have been tagged. Once all the farmers have been tagged, the entire village has been trained in agriculture, livestock care and family nutrition. They are well on their way to better health and a brighter future! This is a fun game so play as many times as you want. Just choose a new VLT, scatter the farmers through the village and go! If you have a large enough group, establish more than one VLT and see how many farmers they can each train and add to their chain. Remember to take photos of the students as they play your partners in India will enjoy seeing the fun the kids are having as they learn about Partnership Bihar. Adults can play, too! Invite them and make this an intergenerational activity. DISCUSS Follow-up with a discussion about how the entire community benefits when farmers are producing abundant crops and families are well-nourished. If there wasn t a Village Level Trainer, how would the farmers learn about new farming methods or how to take care of their livestock? How would they know about good nutrition for their family? If the farmers weren t reached through the step-down training model, what would the future hold for them? How would the continued lack of knowledge about better farming practices and family nutrition affect the farmers and their children? PRAY Close the activity with a prayer for Village Level Trainers, that their efforts will be effective in teaching better farming techniques and family nutrition to the women in their village.

11 OLDER YOUTH ACTIVITY For to all those who have more will be given and they will have an abundance Matthew 25:29 Explore with your older Sunday school students or youth group what challenges women in Bihar face as they struggle to care for their families and their farms, and how Partnership Bihar is working to turn that around by empowering them with knowledge, skills and confidence. When a family s farm can t produce enough to support them, the father is often forced to migrate to the city for work. He may be gone for months at a time, earning only a little money to send back home. That leaves his wife to care for their family and make do with what little income they have, and also to care for the farm and livestock in the absence of her husband. Yet, due to strongly held cultural norms, women do not actually have a say in many household matters. And despite the fact that women do the bulk of the farming because the men are away working in the cities, women are not looked to as farmers and not given a voice in decision-making as it relates to their family farms. Women also lack a say in how the family s money is managed, and many don t even have basic math skills. To help the women overcome these many challenges, they have organized themselves into Self Help Groups (SHGs). As a SHG the women pool their money and create savings accounts so members can take loans when necessary, protecting them from having Continued...

12 to borrow money from high-interest lenders. The women also learn numeracy and financial management skills. For many of the women, participating in a SHG is the first time they ve been in charge of their own money and can make decisions about how to save, plan and budget it. The SHGs meet regularly, creating a platform for Partnership Bihar trainings in agriculture, livestock care and family nutrition. INSTRUCTIONS To learn more about how the SHGs work and help empower women financially and culturally, organize the students into teams to play through the SHG Activity included in this celebration packet. (Note that there are supplies to gather and some prep work to do before you can play the game.) DISCUSS Play through one round of the activity, which may take about 30 minutes to complete. Then discuss what the students learned about how the SHGs can lead to a better life for women, and for their families. How is the earning potential for her family improved? If a woman is better equipped to make financial decisions and set aside money for emergencies and expenses like medical care and education, how does her family benefit? If women learn better farming techniques and can increase their income from the farm, how does that raise their cultural status? If their husbands no longer have to migrate to cities for work, how does that make the family stronger? The students may have felt discouraged during the game as they struggled to accumulate enough points. Discuss this to help them understand the incredible challenges people face to raise themselves out of poverty. Did any of the teams go bankrupt and have to start again? How did they feel to have to start over again from scratch? Did they feel frustrated when circumstances out of their control like bad weather conditions or rising costs of agriculture inputs pushed back their progress? Share the Farmer Profiles of Shobha Devi and Champa Murmu as examples of how Self Help Groups are helping women in Bihar develop money management skills and save for their future. Remember to take photos of the church youth participating in this activity to share with your partners in Bihar. This activity can also be used with older youth and adults together as an intergenerational activity, or used with an adult group such as a Bible study group or adult forum. PRAY Close the activity with a prayer for the SHGs and your partners in Partnership Bihar as they strive to make families stronger by giving women the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to reverse the effects of poverty on their families.

13 SELF HELP GROUP ACTIVITY Self Help Groups (SHGs) are an important part of the work you are supporting through Partnership Bihar. Through SHGs, women work together to: Pool money and create savings accounts so members are able to take loans if necessary, protecting them from having to borrow money from high-interest lenders Improve literacy Develop business skills Learn agricultural skills to grow more and better crops, which support increased income and better nutrition for their families GOAL In this activity, your congregation members will experience how a SHG operates and what it means for a SHG to be successful. DESCRIPTION Teams of three to seven members will act as SHGs and attempt to score points in three categories. The game ends when a team reaches 10 points in each of three categories: Literacy & Livelihood Training, Agricultural Skills, and Family Stability. Brenda Kimaro for LWR SHGs strengthen women s ability to provide for their families and prevents men from having to migrate to find work. Women and men also begin to play an equal role in household decision-making. Continued...

14 RESOURCES FOR EACH TEAM Collection box Pair of dice Deck of action cards* Bank of play money Story card* FOR LEADER Dry erase board or chalkboard (or something similar) to use as scoreboard, with the following written on it Team Name Jamui Banka Dumka Araria Kishanganj Literacy & Livelihood Training Agricultural Skills Family Stability * The deck of action cards and a copy of the story card can be downloaded at lwr.org/bihar. INSTRUCTIONS FOR LEADER Prepare the scoreboard in advance. Divide your group into teams of three to seven people. Provide each team with the resources listed above. Assign each team a name from the list above. Each team represent one community reached through Partnership Bihar. Introduce the concept of a SHG (see description above). Provide each team a story card that describes the needs of their community. Each SHG team rolls the dice. If a team rolls doubles, the team receives their Leadership Training card. After a team receives their Leadership Training Card, the team can appoint a Treasurer, who will keep track of the team s money. Teams must continue to use their turn to attempt to roll doubles and receive their Leadership Training card before moving to the next step. After a team has received their Leadership Training card, they use their next turn, and all future turns, to draw an Action Card. Teams will follow the instructions on the Action Card to earn points. In addition, each team earns $5 for every turn. When a SHG team s total point value across the three categories equals 10 they begin to save $10 a week. When their point value equals 15 they save $15 per week. When their point value equals 20 they save $20 per week. If a team goes bankrupt they must start again by attempting to roll doubles on each turn to regain their Leadership Training card. Teams should continue to take turns until a team reaches 10 points in all three categories. All other teams will get one more turn to reach 10 points. If other teams reach 10 points in all categories, then the team with the most money wins. PROCESSING QUESTIONS 1) Did you see ways that our three goals (the scoring categories) were interrelated with each other? Can you do one without the other? 2) For the team that came in last, what did it feel like to be struggling while watching other teams thrive? Why were you struggling while others were thriving? 3) What did you first think when the Help Another Group card came up in your deck? 4) Did you learn anything about the complexity of lifting a community out of poverty? If that s true what does it mean for us as followers of Christ with the calling to serve the poor?

15 Loren Hyatt for LWR CELEBRATION ACTIVITY If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. Isaiah 58:10 (KJV) These are exciting days for Partnership Bihar and it s time for your congregation to celebrate! Celebrate all the progress that has been made since the project s launch, and celebrate the bright future of your Indian partners as they carry forward in their activities. One goal of Partnership Bihar is to nurture a relationship between your congregation and the Indian partners. Here s a fun idea to bring attention to the project in your congregation, encourage members to hold it in their prayers, and create a symbol of support to be shared with the project partners: With illiteracy rates high in the remote villages where Lutheran World Relief works, the transfer of knowledge from the Village Level Trainers (VLTs) to the farmers can be challenging. To overcome this, training materials using illustrations and images on flip charts and posters are used to convey information about farming techniques, livestock care and family nutrition. Continued...

16 Why not implement this same approach in teaching your congregation members about Partnership Bihar?! INSTRUCTIONS In a high-traffic area of your church building (preferably in a place people pass by on their way to worship) create several of your own training posters that depict the project images of abundant farm plots with a variety of vegetables growing and flourishing livestock; women farmers working in their fields; children playing and going to school; and mothers cooking healthy meals from fresh farm produce. Enlist the help of artistic members to use whatever art medium they would like. It s time to have fun! (Lutheran World Relief provides a large library of photos that can serve as inspiration for your illustrations. You might also get ideas from reviewing the Farmer Profiles provided by Lutheran World Relief.) Draw focus to the project with an update during the worship service a temple talk or during the sermon. There is a lot of information from the Project Update Script included in this kit you can use for content and don t forget the Project Object can make a great object lesson for a sermon, too! Remind the congregation that the farmers in the project not only need and appreciate the financial support your congregation is providing, but also their prayer support. Include the project in the prayers of the congregation, but also ask the members to pray individually as well. Distribute pre-cut papers in the shape of vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers and gourds (large enough to write a few lines of prayer on) and ask the members to put their prayer in writing. Following the service, ask them to stop by the project posters and create a bountiful harvest of prayers by adding their vegetables to the display. (Leave some extra vegetables available at the display for other prayers to be added as people pass by.) This project poster display can be a one-time activity or something that gets added to as the project goes on. It s up to you! Once the display is complete, take several good quality photographs that can be shared with the partners in India. Be sure to also include photos of your congregation members working on the display and participating in the other activities in this Celebration Kit! The photos can be shared electronically, printed or even published in a photo book. Your Partnership Bihar contact person at Lutheran World Relief can assist you with getting the photos delivered to the India program staff to share with the partners. They ll appreciate your creativity and the prayers! Need some inspiration for your Partnership Bihar display? Check out the Farmer Profiles for personal stories of the women whose lives are being impacted by your partnership. Check out Lutheran World Reliefs Partnership Bihar photo library as a reference for creating your project poster illustrations. Your partners in India will love to see what you ve done to celebrate Partnership Bihar in your congregation. Take lots of photos of your poster display but also of the members to share with them. This activity is great for all ages! Everyone can contribute their prayers to the display.

17 PROJECT OBJECT: TREASURY BOX When it comes to implementing trainings and teaching new skills, the Partnership Bihar project leverages Self Help Groups (SHGs) that are already established in the project areas. The women in the SHGs pool their money and create savings accounts so members can take loans when necessary, protecting them from having to borrow money from high-interest lenders. The women also learn numeracy and financial management skills. For many of the women, participating in a SHG is the first time they ve been in charge of their own money and can make decisions about how to save, plan and budget it. The SHGs meet regularly, offering a platform for Partnership Bihar trainings in agriculture, livestock care and family nutrition. A Self Help Group uses a simple metal box similar to a cash box you would find at any office supply store in the US for the safe-keeping of their accumulated savings. The group elects a treasurer who keeps the treasury box in her home, while another member of the group holds the key. A simple school notebook is used for record keeping. (Check out Lutheran World Relief s Partnership Bihar photo library for images.) Continued...

18 INSTRUCTIONS Pick up a cash box from your local office supply store or maybe you already have one in the church office and use this as a symbol of the new opportunities that the women of Partnership Bihar will have through your partnership with them and Lutheran World Relief. As the women produce a more bountiful harvest and have surplus crops to sell for cash, they will be able to save that money for future needs or emergencies through their SHG. In a box very similar to yours, these women will build their future. You can include your version of a treasury box in a display about Partnership Bihar, or use it as a visual aid in a temple talk or sermon. Use it to take a noisy offering during Sunday school or as a special offering during service, and include the proceeds in your support of Partnership Bihar. In fact, you may choose to purchase more than one cash box to use them in multiple ways at the same time! Share the Farmer Profile of Shobha Devi as an example of how the Self Help Groups are helping women strengthen their families financial futures. Remember to take photos of how you use this Project Object to celebrate Partnership Bihar in your congregation.

19 CELEBRATION KIT FEEDBACK Lutheran World Relief strives to provide your congregation high quality transformative engagement. After using this Celebration Kit, please take the time to collect feedback on the following questions and then share with us through our survey at Thank you! 1. Rate the elements of the packet: Younger Children Activity o Loved It o OK o Not Great o Didn t Use It Elementary & Middle School Activity o Loved It o OK o Not Great o Didn t Use It Older Youth Activity o Loved It o OK o Not Great o Didn t Use It Celebration Activity o Loved It o OK o Not Great o Didn t Use It Project Object Treasury Box o Loved It o OK o Not Great o Didn t Use It Project Update with slides o Loved It o OK o Not Great o Didn t Use It 2. If the goal of these activities was to bring the people of my congregation into a closer relationship with our partners in Bihar, which two of the included activities delivered on that goal the best? Why? 3. Same question as above, but which one activity would you say delivered on this goal the least? Why? 4. If the goal of these activities was to help deepen understanding of the ways that Partnership Bihar is working to increase food security for families in India, which two of the included activities delivered on that goal the best? Why? 5. Same questions as above, but which one activity would you say delivered on this goal the least? Why? 6. Share with us one story about how your congregation has engaged with the Partnership Bihar project using material provided by LWR? 7. What are the 1 3 most common questions you get from members about the project which have not been addressed in materials provided by LWR which we could address in future resources? 8. Anything else to share?