Wisdom of Life

Testimonial

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I, Sri Madan Pradhan (50), am a resident of village Gujapanga in Kandhamal, where I live with my family of six members including my school going fourchildren. Being a daily wage labourer, some days I go without work, making it even more difficult to run my family. Falling under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category, I had never availed any public benefits owing to lack of information about the schemes and entitlements.
One day, I accompanied some villagers to the legal aid training organized by Justice, Peace Development and Communication, in my village, though only with half the interest. The advocates shared about various Government schemes for BPL families, such as the Indira AwasYojana (centrally sponsored housing scheme), Madhubabu pension scheme, Widow Pension scheme, Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Mo Kudia scheme etc. Upon learning about the Mo Kudia housing scheme of the Government of Odisha for BPL families, in the joint name of spouse, I sought legal guidance from the lawyer after the training programme concluded. After listening to my case and finding me eligible for the scheme, I was assured pro-bono assistance by the lawyer. I was assisted in submitting my application to the Block Development Officer (BDO) of Raikia. I was promised support from the administration and eventually, Rs. 75,000 (Seventy Five thousand) was sanctioned to me under the scheme.
Had it not been for the legal aid training I doubt if I’d ever been able to claim the entitlement. Moreover, the training and real time handholding instilled hope and confidence in me. At present, my family is happy to live in their new house.

Legal-aid and information helped my family secure a new and better house

It was yet another scorching day in one of the villages of South Tripura, Kathalia Cheera. Down with high fever, Anojoy Chakma, a 7-year-old boy was brought to the community health volunteer (CHV) Ms. Shyamalaxmi Chakma by his elder sister, as their parents were out in the jhum since early morning.

Shyamalaxmi conducted Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) on the ailing boy only to confirm Pv positive malaria. As Pv drugs were not available with the CHV at that point of time, she thought to refer the patient to the Primary Health Centre (PHC).

However, another thought crossed the mind of the dedicated and compassionate volunteer to take an extra stride. She thought, “If I refer the boy to PHC, the treatment would be delayed because the parents are out in the field and would be home by late evening; thereby PHC would be reached the next day only”. She took the boy to the PHC herself along with the RDT kit and thus ensured timely treatment and saved his life.

After a week, Anojoy is back home cured, and is happy and playful as any normal boy of his age!
Under Integrated Malaria Control Project-II, Caritas India is scaling up effective preventive and curative interventions in the seven North Eastern (NE) states in India and covering 48 districts and 5663 villages to save lives from Malaria.

PROACTIVENESS OF CHV SAVED THE LIFE

Rupais the second among seven daughters in her family. She hails from a village namedHarincolin inPurnea district in Bihar. With no stable family income and many mouths to feed, education was of secondary importance to her family. With her dedication, Rupacouldcomplete her education upto grade eight. However, the poor socio-economic circumstances of the family forced her into marriage.In the year 2013-14, when the vacancy for the post of a teacher arose in the Girl Child Educational Empowerment Programme through Caritas India, Rupaapplied and qualified for the same. Association with the programmehasmotivated her to continue her studies. Resultantly, despite the oppositionfrom her family and relatives, andbesides having a child, she made attempts to get enrolled in Grade IX. She put up valiantly with several systemic hurdles and disdainful attitude of the officials towards her when she sought a written permission from the DEO (District Education Officer) for her admission as the date of admission had lapsed. Finally, she received the written permissions and is continuing with her studies, whilst also serving as a teacher under the Educational Empowerment Programme. In this course, she not just struggled for her right to education, but also right to life with dignity and refused bribe that was demanded of her during the process.

Story of Rupa

She said that she is a unmarried women and taking care of her paralyzed father and Mother since 7 years. She is the only Bread Earner of the Family. During Flood she and her family suffered too much because she is only person have to take care of her Family. Her house also partially damaged during Flood. She also request for the Repair of her House to Caritas India. She said that after getting support From Caritas India – Shelter kits , Food kits and Wash kits she get emotional because no other Ngo or Govt Department has supported during the Flood.

She found very helpful by receiving all the 3 kits because she is not able to purchase. She Thanks Caritas India and Start Network for Supporting her and Her Family.

Sabitri DasSiliguri Basti

Ganga Barela, of village Sankota, practices farming on her family land. Earlier, due to high agricultural input cost of chemical fertilisers, her family was finding farming an inefficient vocation, thereby retracting from it. She brought the issues to the Jeevika programme team in her village, who with timely handholding, counselling and capacity building enabled her to take up vegetable-cultivation with cost effective agriculture practices. With a series of motivational discussions and required facilitation, Ganga decided to start mixed cropping cultivation and also adopt bio-fertiliser process. She sowed seed of ladies-finger and tomato in her land with support of her spouse and took good care of the field. Her hard work resulted in a handsome produce, which brings an additional income of rupees five hundred to her family. The amount varies from time to time and this has inspired other women members of the Self Help Group to resort to mixed cropping through Bio- fertilisation.

As an expansion of the initiative, Jeevika Haat, weekly market is organised on Fridays whereby the people from twenty five villages gather to sell and purchase goods. Jeevika Haat is a response to the difficulties faced by people in transportation to reach the nearest market place in Tiwni village in Umariya district. The process took almost a year, and now people have come up with around twenty shops connected with twenty five villages at a common nearby location, earning an average income of rupees two thousand a month.

Ganga Barela

Mrs. Sabitri Chawra,express that she lived in Natun Basti, Thepelaguri, they suffered a lot during the flood that submerged the entire Village. This village is near to Kapili river, which is just about 800m away, from the village. This family had received flood response relief from Caritas Germany on 12th June 2022 at Thepelaguri. This helped them a lot to tackle with the problems arising during and after the flood. The outcome of the flood relief was very good as well as pleasing, because they could equip themselves with the materials for safety and household/domestic use. After all it helped them lot to protect them. Earlier, before receiving the relief, the family had no access to any of these materials (Tarpaulin, mats, groundsheets, hygiene items, etc) as they are too poor to buy the things. And during flood they had to stay roadside without any of the sheltering materials. And it was a very difficult time for them. But as they had received the materials from Caritas Germany as a response to flood relief 2022, it helped them a lot during the second phase of flood that occured just after few days of relief distribution. The flood totally destroyed their house. Most of their household things were lost in the flood. However, somehow they managed to carry away the shelter kit (tarpaulin, mats, mosquito nets) along with them as they moved to roadside. But the saddest part of this family is that their house got completely damaged. And the Mother and eldest son of this family are mentally challenged. The mother carries a child of about 8 months old along with her. Hence, now, they had no house to shelter themselves and they are residing at nearby monk-ashram near komorakata D-reserve. At present their situation is very crucial as they are suffering from lack of food and drinking water

Mrs. Sabitri ChawraJugijan

Ranu Pandit is a widow leaving in Radhanagar. Ranu Pandit lost her husband 6 years ago due to a deadly sickness. Since then she is been working hard daily as labour and maintain her family. Ranu Pandit has two young daughter, both of them are studying. During this flood her house was severely damaged since it was a kaccha house. She and her daughter had to take refuge at nearby relief camp. But the relief provided by caritas India helps them to overcome the situation after the flood. They received all the items – Hygiene, food and Shelter Kits. They are very much thankful for the team as well as caritas India for helping them in this situation.

Ranu PanditRadhanagar

A little hero, Singrai Murmu, 13, emerged as a change agent in the U3 programme. Despite his young age, he is passionate about protecting nature and is determined to make a difference. His journey to protect the environment is both inspiring and educational, and it serves as a reminder that even the smallest actions can lead to significant change.

Singrai’s family survives on 1 bigha of land; his father is a marginal farmer and often works as a labourer in various agricultural fields to earn as much as he can to support and provide for his family.

It all started when Singrai learned the importance of environmental protection in public meetings organised by the U3 programme, where he used to accompany his parents to these meetings. The U3 programme works towards fostering and securing self-sustaining climate-resilient and climate-adaptive agriculture and livelihoods through community-owned processes in West Bengal, Karnataka, and Telangana.

Whenever Mrs. Padmabati Routh, a community educator, arranged for a meeting, he would come along with the participants and listen to the speaker carefully. He showed his involvement in every meeting he attended and was inspired to save nature and preserve our natural resources from being destroyed.

Singrai didn’t stop there. He convinced his friends to join him in his mission to protect the environment. Together, they started planting trees in their community, and they put up placards on trees to stop deforestation and tree-cutting. They educated their neighbours about the importance of protecting nature and inspired them to take action as well.

His love for nature kept growing, and he got involved in sapling restoration. He cultivated the habit of sapling restoration, and wherever he would go to play with his friends, he would collect saplings from places with infertile soil and plant them in a proper place so as for them to grow and nourish. He eventually gathered his friends to go with him on his path to saving nature. The group of five children would make posters to spread awareness among the community and his fellow classmates with slogans such as “Save life, save plants” and ‘ No plant, no life on earth’.

He also requested that all his friends make more awareness-building posters and join in the rallies, cancer campaigns, World Earth Day, and green campaigns conducted by the programme. He actively participated in all the events to help influence and draw other children closer to working together and to let the community know about the devastating results of living without nature. Recently, he took the initiative, along with his friends, to hang some posters in the forest to spread awareness and prevent people from cutting trees. Through this action, he wanted to make people aware of the consequences of disrupting mother nature and the benefits of preserving and saving her from destruction.

He is the only junior volunteer on the team, and he continues his work whenever he gets time and involves his other friends in it.

Singrai’s journey is a testament to the power of one person’s actions. He may be young, but his passion for protecting the environment has inspired those around him to take action as well. His story is a reminder that we all have a responsibility to protect nature and that even the smallest actions can have a significant impact.

Young climate warriors’ commitment to protecting the environment

Bipul Das an Unmarried man from Hojai, Assam, lives in a Small village named Siliguri. Bipul is a physically Challenged person, both the legs are paralyzed since birth. He lives with 9 members in his Family. But the flood affected the entire groups of Villages including Siliguri and unfortunately he and his family had to take rescue at nearby relief Camps.

As soon as the flood reduced, the caritas India team started a relief operation at nearby villages including Siliguri. The family of Bipul Das was provided with all the kits namely: Hygiene kits, Food kits and Shelter kits.

He thanks Caritas India for supporting and Helping with the quality and quantity relief assistance.

Bipul DasSiliguri

Mrs. Parboti Chawra from Thepelaguri, said that, they lived and is living a misery life; they could not even afford to buy mosquito net, soaps, mats, tarpaulins. But as they received it from Caritas Germany as a relief they felt very happy because these things were highly necessary for her family, as they had no source of income to buy the materials, she said. She also mentioned that, the relief kits helped them replace their old torn mosquito net with new one, used the hygiene materials for two-three days. But unfortunately, again, the second phase of flood (16th June 2022) submerged the village more destructively then the previous flood which occurred just a month ago. As a result, they had left the village and gone to higher surface land area to keep them safe.

They carried Caritas Germany relief materials like tarpaulin, mats, mosquito nets and some soaps along with them and spent the night in tents. She said that, these materials really helped them in second phase of flood, to shelter and protects themselves. The saddest part is that they have, almost nothing left in their home now, neither food nor the materials to cook food, all these things had flown out over flood water, she mentioned. Thus,

She told that the materials greatly helped them in second phase of flood, as they could equip and use the kits to make tents and other use. Furthermore, she said that it was a great initiative by Caritas India, that they have provided these particular things, in view, as a future perspective for further use in times of need. The outcome of the flood relief was very good as well as pleasing, because they could equip themselves with the materials for safety and household/domestic use. After all it helped them a lot to protect themselves from rain and sun during second phase of flood, and also, after they are back home from camps, the kits were helpful to them because there is no proper place at home to sleep just because of wet and muddy surface. So they made tent out of relief kits and are spending their night.

Parboti ChawraThepelaguri
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