Effectiveness of Ward Citizen Forum and Citizen Awareness Center
A Case Study in Jogimara VDC of Dhading District
October 25, 2011
Jogimara Village Development Committee (VDC) of Dhading has formed nine Ward Citizen Forums
(WCF) one in each Ward and one VDC level Citizen Awareness Center (CWC). Each Forum
comprises of 20 to 25 members and they were selected through organizing onsite mass meetings. Due
to diverse geographical settings, entire 50 settlements of the VDC were not represented in WCF and
CAC as said Mr. Iswari Pokhrel, VDC Secretary of Jogimara. The WCF comprises of women, dalit,
poor, disables, civil society, elites, and community forests user group members.
With an aim of exploring effectiveness of the community based organization, I interacted with some
of the WCF and CWC members, Social Mobiliser and Secretary of Jogimara VDC in Jogimara on
October 25, 2011. According to Ms. Pramila Dallakoti, a Social Mobiliser in Jogimara, both WCF
and CAC are active and holding meetings regularly. Reflection classes are being conducted for the
CAC members twice in a month.
 The frequent meetings and discussions of WCF and CAC have become instrumental for bringing
out deep rooted socio economic issues in surface and helped exploring solutions. Some of the
demands driven achievements of the community based organizations in Jogimara VDC are
described here under in brief.
o Mitthu Bishowkarma “Mitthu Didi” 62, a resident of Jogimara VDC got citizenship
certificate recently with the support of CWC. She was without her husband many years and
his whereabouts was also unknown to villagers. In the absence of her husband in person, it
was very difficult her to get recommendation letter from VDC to District Administration
Office for issuing citizenship certificate. Due to lack of citizenship certificate she was not
eligible to receive Senior Citizenship Allowance. The CWC had advocated in favor of her
and convinced the VDC Secretary to give her recommendation letter. Finally, with the
support of VDC, she got citizenship certificate now. Now “Mitthu Didi” has become eligible
for enjoying the government scheme of Senior Citizenship Allowance. Thanks due to the
CWC and the Social Mobiliser Ms. Pramila Dallakoti for their effective work.
o Jogimara VDC is planning to declare their village as open defecation prohibited zone soon.
To support the mission of the VDC, with the initiation of CAC, Jogimara VDC has allocated
a parcel of public land for a dalit settlement to construct a public toilet recently.
o A Magar Community dominated settlement of Ward number nine of Jogimara VDC was
facing difficulties of accessing drinking water facility until a few weeks back. When they
were organized into a WCF and put forwarded their demand in writing to the VDC, RIMS a
local NGO and Jogimara VDC together have decided to extend financial support of Rs.
15,000 and 25,000 respectively. With this support, the local communities have been able to
manage drinking water in their own village now.
o With the support of CWC many other social issues have been settled amicably. Realizing the
importance role of the WCF, the VDC Secretary had vowed that he would invite
representatives of CWC and CAC in upcoming local bodies planning process. There are
other lists of successful stories which need to be explored and brought out in public.
 There are some issues too which were noted while interacting with Social Mobiliser Ms. Pramila
Dallakoti and Jogimara VDC Secretary Mr. Iswari Pokhrel. As settlements are distributed sparsely,
formation and holding regular meeting of WCF is a challenging task. Those people and even
settlement which do not own the WCS and sometimes express dissatisfaction over the
mobilization process of WCF. Thus far, Social Mobilisers are introduced as a staff of NGO instead
of VDC/DDC’s part. The VDC is yet to fully recognize that SMs are their helping hand for
mobilizing local communities.
Lesson Learned
 Role of Social Mobilizer for mobilizing WCF and CAC is important for empowering target
communities. Therefore, it is important to upkeep their motivation of work in the days to come.
One way towards it would be considering them as an integral part of local bodies instead of
recognizing them as NGO staff.
 WCF, which is predominantly represented by women, dalit and disadvantageous communities,
are instrumental for bringing voice of the target communities in the local bodies decision making
process particularly in the situation where the local bodies are running without elected
representatives.
 From the environment management point of view, existence of WCF that represents all sectors of
a society and their involvement in planning process will definitely help mainstreaming
environmental criteria including climate change and disaster risk responsive activities in local
planning and budgeting process.
 There must have other successful initiatives across the country which needs documentation and
dissemination.