Sabal has been promoting the plantation of more and more fruit saplings across its 108 project villages to ensure nutrition security among the Korku tribes. Compared to the last years initiative this year the team planned to plant 3 times more saplings under the “Go Green; Go Nutritious” plantation drive so that every household has at least 2 – 3 varieties of fruit saplings in their backyard to meet the unfulfilled nutrition that are only met through fruit consumption.

One of the recent initiatives of Sabal partner – Dayasagar Social Center (DSC) helped us to harness the benefits from schemes of the Maharashtra government where they aspired for 13 crore plantations in the month of July 2018. In this regard, the Sabal coordinator Mr. Sumit Chauhan interfaced with the Social Forestry Department officer Ms. Thakur and submitted the application requesting for 1000 fruit saplings which was later refused as the scheme was entitled to distribute the saplings only through Panchayats and other government functionaries to the villages. Concerning the refusal, he further went and met the Regional Forest Officer and also BDO (Block Development Officer) and shared about the initiatives held and how it is supporting the malnutrition affected community, but all his efforts went left unheard and unattended.

Mr. Sumit did not lose hope and went to the district office at Amravati and met the DFO (District Forest Officer) and shared about Sabal and how we are supporting the 2341HHs with a population of 13,582 of 15 villages to fight against malnutrition by promoting food and nutrition security. The DFO was very much impressed by the initiative and assured to support with the maximum plants for the Sabal programme.

He immediately issued a letter and provided a copy to Mr. Sumit to receive 1500 fruit saplings from the forest nursery which included (175 Mangos; 350 Custard Apples; 200 Java Plums; 400 Guavas; 200 Lemons; 25 Almonds) helping Sabal to save Rs. 60,000 (@Rs 40 per sapling).

The sapling distribution will focus on the four primary target beneficiaries of Sabal which includes – families with U5 children; lactating and pregnant mothers; adolescent girls; AWC (Anganwadi Centres) under Sabal villages. The team will also ensure that the plantation is done at the secured place in the backyard and are protected from the livestock with the help of tree-guard and fences developed with the help of locally available resources such as bamboos and acacia (babul tree) branches.

Mr. Sumit Chauhan, Coordinator DSC excitingly expressed – “we realized how we can do more without just relying on funds; I have got more confidence in interfacing with the Government now”. “We are now planning to tap more of such government schemes and programmes and also motivate the community to do so” – he added.