Wisdom of Life

Testimonial

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Dilaram Rajbhar a Widower who lives in a small village named Matikhola; Hojai, Assam is severely affected by both the flood waves occur this June. Dilaram Rajbhar is aged 74 years and has two sons. Dilaram one son is physically challenged and other one is working hard to maintain his family.

His house is a Kaccha and is partially damaged by the flood.

The financial Condition is not sound of his family so they could not much overcome from the damaged.

But the relief provided by team caritas India had a great impact in their current condition. They were provided hygiene, food and shelter kits against the damage they had faced.

He thanks Caritas India and Team for these valuable relief assistance materials. These will help us to improve our living

Dilaram RajbharUttar Matikhola

A ‘Musahar’ girl from Bihar broke the age-old barriers of education deprivation. Literacy rate among musahar’s is only 3 percent and falls below 1 percent for the women who are subjected to exploitation, violence, and sexual harassment since ages.

Reena, a shy and simple musahar girl from Bedwaliya village was no different when aspired to get educated to lead a better future.

Even after all the hardships she managed to get promoted to class 6 but her joy ended when due to sudden sickness and lack of public health services had to dropout from the school.

The next entire year was even more difficult for Reena and her family as she neither could attend the school nor able to assist the family in earning their livelihood. Once a little better, her family did not send her to school in order to make up for the income lost during her illness.

Reena is now coming to an age where most of the girls of her age get married but due to lack of finances she had to continue working to bear the expenses of her marriage. By the time Hamari Pathshala reached her tola, almost three years had passed since she had been to school and she had forgotten what she had learnt.

Today, Reena is married and taking bridge course to cover the gap in her studies for appearing in Bihar Board Open Schooling and Examination. The counselling and educational support provided by Caritas India Hamari Pathshala project made this possible for Reena and many other musahar girls. The project gives special focus on the development of teaching modules and training of facilitators to improve the system of education in the targeted community.

Reena and many others are receiving educational benefits and able to teach other children of her community. She wishes to continue her studies even after her marriage till her “Gauna” (a practice when the bride is finally taken to the in-laws’).

Supported by Millennium Alliance, the project with 18 months of its intervention has infused positive communication and reinforcement to build self-confidence and independence in musahar community towards education.

The project has reached out to 392 musahar girls from which 129 girls were mainstreamed into local schools. The intervention has helped 165 girls to avail RTE benefits such as school uniform allowance, books and scholarship.

REENA IS 15 YEARS OLD NOW

“Magha na barse, bhare na khet. Mata na pasre, bhare na pet” (It is said that without good rain, land can not be irrigated properly. Similarly If a mother doesn’t serve then it cannot satisfy the hunger). Said Shyam Bai.

Keeping this in mind, Smallholder Adaptive Farming and Biodiversity Network (SAFBIN) program was launched in the year 2018 to ensure local food and nutritional security for small farm families. Giving a major focus on a gender-inclusive approach, SAFBIN encourages male farmers to create an opportunity for women to be part of the learning process. As a result, 446 women have enrolled as trial farmers to take the small-scale resilient farming practices forward in an expressive way while 826 are getting benefited indirectly. While discussing the integrated small-scale farming system in smallholder farmers collectives (SHFC) planning meeting, smallholders especially women members gave more emphasis on the local food and nutrition security.

“Action is the foundational key to success” finds resonance with Shyam Bai Yadav (45yrs), a resident of Bagrohi village of Shahgarh Block of Sagar district Madhya Pradesh India. The majority of the people residing in this village belongs to the small and marginal farming community. Their main source of livelihood is agriculture.

Shyam Bai lives in a small house with her family who barely met their food requirement 3-4yrs back. Having 2.5 acres of land with the predominant conventional farming system in rainfed conditions it was not so easy to have sufficient food for all year round. Like other rural women, Shyam bai was among to suffer not only from economic poverty but also deprived of many essential entitlements due to lack of proper information and knowledge. Along with her husband Halke Yadav (50yrs) she had to work extra time as agriculture labour to feed her children. Soon after she became a member of smallholder farmers collectives, she oriented with various agroecological practices and botanicals preparation from their farm waste and resources.

“She often comes with me to work in and quietly learning the process of botanical preparation, application, and a few other agro-ecological practices. This has helped me in a great way to keep these practices applied on time even if I am not at home,” shared Halke Yadav, Husband of Shyam Bai.

With this enthusiasm, she could increase not only the farm components from four (4) to six (6) but also increased in type of crops and varieties which make her farm more resilient to cope up with climate shocks. i.e. field crops (wheat, black gram, green gram, lentil, peas, jwar, flax seeds, mustard), cattle (cow and buffaloes), small ruminants (goat), fruit trees (mango, guava, lemon, papaya, drumstick) mushroom, and almost 10-12 types of vegetables. Apart from this, she also gained hands-on experience in making vermicompost, Matka khad, Cytozin practices, Dasparni ark, Lamit ark etc.

Following the low-cost agroecological practices and other measures, she could manage to have sufficient food for round the year her family. She is now a lead trainer among women who keeps orienting in SHFC meetings by sharing her journey and motivating women to make their farm more diversified.

“Yes, there is an improvement in the nutrition status of my family, though it is not possible for me to measure it. However, the diversification of the food basket and the regular intake of green & fresh (nutrition-rich) vegetables have improved our health. Delightedly she said. 

Smallholder Adaptive Farming and Biodiversity Network (SAFBIN) program is co-funded by Caritas Switzerland and Caritas Austria and implemented by Caritas India through its implementing partner organisations Jabalpur Diocesan Social Service Societies (JDSSS) and Manav Vikas Seva Sangh (MVSS) Sagar in Mandla, Sagar and Vidisha districts of Madhya Pradesh in India.

Promoting Gender-Inclusive Future through SAFBIN

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