Wisdom of Life

Testimonial

Rinku Kumari d/o ArunSaday and Pavitri Devi and Leela Kumari d/o Shiv Saday and Savitri Devi are from RantiMusahartola in Madhubani district of Bihar.They are the first ones to have cleared matriculation in their tola and are studying in Grade XI. When asked about their hardworking daughters, parents of both girls couldn’t conceal the pride and happiness they felt and exclaimed that their daughters were continuing their studies further. The girls too expressedtheir jubilation and determination to not think of marriage until they completed their education. The girls have taken up the initiative of teaching the younger children of their tola and encourage them to go to school with them. Their dedication towards highlighting the importance of education paid off when they realized that a hundredMusahar children from their tolawere enrolled in local Government schools as a result of their efforts. Both Rinku and Leelahave become the role models in their tola.

Rinku Kumari

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

Cotton Ch Momin visited several Govt. hospitals in East Garo Hills in Meghalaya and traditional practitioners to find relief for his ailing wife from severe allergy with high fever but could not succeed. Affording private hospital and treatment outside the state was beyond his capacity.

After being hassled and failed, he decided to treat his wife by giving home-made traditional medicines prepared from herbs and extracts. The results were slow but encouraging and within few months she recovered completely.

Momin started his traditional medicine practice from there and now he can heal disease like jaundice, epilepsy, broken or fractured bones, fever and dysentery through traditional herbal medicines. Basically, a farmer by occupation, he can treat many other diseases in Gitokgre village in East Garo Hill of Meghalaya through traditional medicines.

Initially, he was known to very few people in his village as he did not want many people to have known him as a traditional practitioner. But after the leadership training of awareness programmes of Farm Northeast-II, his mindset changed.

He is now active in agriculture, farming, organising meetings, programmes and much other work. He is also a president of the farmer club and a traditional practitioner to promote medicinal practitioners in the area. He has become the main resource person in the area for sharing his knowledge in terms of traditional medicines and is encouraging and motivating other practitioners in the area.

Apart from being a traditional practitioner and a farmer he has taken a loan from fisheries department and started fishery in a small pond. Though the return is less it adds to his profit. He motivates other farmers to take up fishery and earn their livelihood through various means.

“I do not charge for the treatment but when someone gives me forcibly, I had to respect their feeling”, says Momin. Traditional healing has become one of the sources of his livelihood. He expressed his gratefulness to the FARM Northeast-II programme for changing his thinking and knowledge to boost his confidence. He is more than happy to share his knowledge with others who is willing to learn.

Traditional Healing: An extra source of Income

The Nagas, both men and women farmers from the Peren district of Nagaland came together to cultivate a popular variety of pulse called Naga Dal. They practiced cultivation of Naga Dal in a selected plot near the village. The result was an astounding yield of 640 kilograms of Naga Dal on the 3 acres of land. The produce is sold in the market for Rs 80-90 per kilogram and the proceeds are shared between the members. This initiative has motivated the people to widen such collective cultivation.

To read motivational stories of change and empowerment visit our exclusive blogon the project at:
http://backtofarms.blogspot.in/.

Beginning of a Change in the Naga Valleys

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

Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction a program supported by Caritas India in North East India and implemented by Women’s Development Centre (WDC), Guwahati, in 15 villages under Morigaon district has a lots of story to tell. Of these clubbing strength of the farmers is one among the stories. With the help of WDC the villages have constituted what they call a farmers’ club in an effort to move a step to keep the program moving on with the support from NABARD and government schemes even after the project is closed.

Farmers’ club is a registered body under NABARD where about 10 farmers of a village come together and undertake trainings, activities and planning to augment their farming methods and status after consensus. They can access government schemes and benefits with the aid of this farmers’ club. In the CMDRR project, WDC had initiated formation of such farmers’ clubs to so they can bridge the gap between the Government and the farmers and the latter can access opportunities, more so in the event of a disaster like floods. They conduct trainings, awareness etc. in their villages by informing WDC that acts as a node between the village and the concerned experts/trainers.

The members of the farmers’ club discuss with other people in the village regarding their needs and problems. A total of 13 farmers’ clubs have been registered under NABARD in Morigaon in 15 project villages. These farmers’ club acts as a bridge between the village people and the government and also functions as a Task Force Group in the event of floods.

Jawaharilal Hazarika, president of Nabakharbori Krishak Sangha farmers’ club happily narrated the benefits that the farmers’ club could bring in to the villages after its formation. “We receive heavy floods every year and suffer huge loss of agricultural produce. With the help of the club we have brought free seeds for the village, and procured pump sets on a heavy discount. This is a great help for us as now we have the power to reach the government and access opportunities”, he commented.

Apart from trainings, the farmers’ club performs another significant function- preparing the Plan of Action (POA). Morigaon has 632 villages and 85 panchayats. In this context, a farmer’s club becomes a decentralized structure of taking the concerns of the villages to the Gram Panchayat. While a Gram Panchayat conducts 4 (effectively 1 or 2) meetings every year, a farmers’ club meets regularly once or twice a month and as and when required and discusses their issues together with the rest of the village. Women are an integral part of the process. As put by Kanchanmoni Gohain, District Development Officer, NABARD, “Co-ordination is more important than assistance in the farmers’ club that can result in linkage with many agencies”.

Clubbing strength of the farmers

Ms. Runu Murmu, a woman farmer from the Jorhat district of Assam took to organic agriculture after receiving training from the facilitating partner organisation. She inspired other women in the village to practice organic agriculture, and formed a group of women farmers. This group is practicing collective as well as individual cultivation.

Ms. Runu Murmu, (35) has emerged as one of the women farmer leaders in Panjan village of Titabor Block under Jorhat district of Assam. Her husband, a private school teacher is the sole bread earner of the family. With four children, two sons and two daughters, Runu’s early married life was confined to household chores with small kitchen gardening. In the initial stage of her kitchen gardening in a small piece of land of about a bigha, she used chemical fertilizer and pesticide expansively to yield high and rapid produce for the family’s consumption.

However, after attending farmers’ club meetings and a number of training programmes organized by Seva Kendra Dibrugarh (SKD) her interest in organic farming, integrated pest management and traditional knowledge increased. This knowledge enabled her to start farming on wider scale to earn additional income with which she could enrol her children in formal schooling. Runu discontinued using chemicals and pesticides in her garden since 2014, and instead switched to using compost and manure. She planted seasonal vegetables like jika, cucumber, ladies finger, ginger, rice gourd, bitter gourd, beans, pumpkin etc., while also practicing multiple and seasonal cropping. Through information provided in the trainings, Runu has networked with the local shopkeepers to sells off her surplus produce at a wholesale price and earns about INR. 10,000 per month. Promising agricultural production has motivated her to add another plot of land to her existing cultivable land. Today, she stands an inspiration to many women and men farmers in her village.

“Organic products saistho karone bhaal aru income barhe, aamak aji aidor e keti kora ussith-saistho aru poribhekh karone,”(meaning that the organic products are good for health, environment and income, and should be the way in which agriculture should be practiced) says Runu.

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

I, ChandrakalaDigal, aged 55, wife of Late Gimango am a resident of village Padrikia, in Kandhamal, Odisha, where a majority of the inhabitants are Tribals (Adivasis). After my husband’s demise, I took charge of running my family single headedly by taking up daily wage labour. With school going three daughters and two sons, the wages I earned were far from sufficient to take care of our rudimentary needs. When the riots broke out in the district following the alleged assassination of a Hindu leader, the right wing fringe groups started attacking and vandalizing the houses belonging to the people of Christian faith. Since I belong to the Christian community (Tribal Christian), I feared for our lives and rushed towards the relief camps set up in Raikia much later, where I stayed with my family for six months. During this time, I learned that all our houses were burned down by the rioters. After returning home, I found out that my name was missed out in the official assessment on damages and losses for compensation. This shook me to the core as I was unable to resume work and had nothing to ball back on to sustain my family with a square meal also.

On 15th November 2012, I happened to attend a legal-aid training camp after returning home, that was organised in Raikaby some voluntary organisations. Empowered by the information gathered at the training programme by the lawyers, I filed a grievance petition to the administrative block office of Raikia, challenging exclusion from the assessment and demanding compensation for the damage of my house. On 17th November, I consulted with the legal aid lawyer and was assured pro-bono support to follow up with my grievance petition. Filing of grievance itself wasn’t an easy task for me and took me three attempts to get through due to the absence of the concerned block officials. At last, investigation was assured by the Block Development Officer and repeated follow ups were conducted by the lawyer. Finally, my house damage was enlisted, which secured me a compensation of Rs. 10.000 (Ten Thousand rupees) under the partial damage category. This financial support enabled me to reconstruct my house, while I also sought legal assistance for applying for widow pension. Thanks to all these voluntary efforts of the lawyers that we are able to return and live in our own house.

I reached the doorsteps of justice

Minu Das is a married Woman from Siliguri lives with 5 members with her family. Minu is a Physically Challenged woman. Who faces lots of problem in her society and Family. She is a 50 years old lady with physical problem, she unable to walk since her legs are paralyzed.

During the flood she and her family faced great problem in her daily livelihood. They had to take refuge at nearby relief Camp. During the Relief Assistance operation by Caritas India. They got a

great privilege in improving their lives. She received all the Kits: Hygiene Food and Shelter kits.

Minu Das give thanks Caritas India and the team for providing us such great help for improving our situation. This relief assistance is very much helpful during this flood situation

Minu Das

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