Chandrama, the Prime Mover of Reducing Tribal Women’s Drudgery
Chandrama Patra, the second daughter of her parents, after completion of her High School Certificate Exam in 2004, was sitting idle at home in Thakurmunda. She got married to Kailash Chandra Sethi of Talapada village under Thakurmunda block in 2010. Her family comprises of six members – her husband, a son (Suvankar studying in Std.2), a daughter (Subhashree – 9 months old) and father & mother-in-laws.
In Talapada village, “Maa Sukheswari Self-Help Group” was formed by 12 young women for livelihood promotion with the facilitation of CYSD and Chandrama was one among them. Being active in the group, she was attending all meetings and various training programmes organized by CYSD. Out of her own interest, she used to maintain all SHG records in perfect manner. By observing her enthusiasm and area of interest in livelihoods promotion, CYSD Livelihood Team selected her to become the SHG Organizer to look after around 20 SHGs including her own SHG activities.
Meantime, the economic needs of Chandrama’s family grew up day by day and to mitigate that crisis, Kailash started a Common Service Center (CSC) i.e. Jana Seva Kendra at Talapada, but the business could hardly meet their entire requirements. In October 2019, Kailash availed an opportunity to become one of the distributors of LPG under a HP Gas Dealer based in Thakurmunda. The area being tribal dominated with affluent natural forests, at initial stage, the number of consumers were very limited. Normally, in forest area people do not show interest for use of gas due to availability of fuel wood within their reach. In Thakurmunda Block, people use traditional biomass as their primary cooking fuel. But they have little knowledge that wood fuel usage is associated with various negative effects on people’s living condition. The emitted smoke is one of the major health threats. That too fuel provision generates significant costs and puts drudgery burden on women. On the other hand, massive extraction of trees leads to deforestation, which in turn not only affects global habitation due to a loss of carbon sinks, but also induces regional and local environmental impacts, including land degradation.
Chandrama could internalize that forests are the key to survival of human, animal and plant life around the world. They are the source of food, medicine, fuel, and provide clean air and combat climate change by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Several times she attempted to bring a movement through the women SHG members to break the chain of deforestation. When her husband became a LPG distributer, Chandrama’s efforts were easier. She got engaged in managing the LPG business and motivated the group members for getting gas connection. Initially, the process was very slow, but it increased gradually. Now, around 450 cooking gas consumers are connected from twelve villages of 3 Panchayats through Chandrama’s distributorship and some more in pipeline.
From the source of gas distribution, they earn a monthly income of 5500/. More importantly, now the community people are very happy by receiving LPG at their door steps, which provides them an option of clean, smokeless and healthy cooking. In due course, they are realizing that the practice of using cooking gas is not only contributing to save the trees and forest, but also acting as a strategy to mitigate climate change risks.
Through receiving continuous encouragement and support of her family and capacity building training provided by CYSD, Chandrama got ample chances to work independently for the socio-economic development of her family. Now, she is well known in her locality and a prime mover of tribal women – creating interest and awareness among them not to use forest fuel any more, stop deforestation, reduce drudgery burden of collecting fire wood from forest and learn to live with dignity.
The idea of promoting horticulture based durable livelihoods assets in the cultivable wasteland through MGNREGS and Special Central Assistance (SCA) to Tribal Sub Scheme (TSS) has been quite useful as the financial stress is not imposed on the farmer’s family. Rather the wasteland becomes productive and fertile through the constant application of bio-fertilizer and operation inter-culture. Most importantly, farming activities inside the fenced patches ensure immediate cash income for the families. The support of MGNREGS in terms of labor component is an additional earning medium and the farmers can also take up intercrop in the beginning years of intervention. `
This year, through the agriculture cluster approach, 20 acres of wasteland has converted into cultivable land and used for mango plantation in Brahmaguda village of Kenduguda GP in Boipariguda Block of Koraput district. In this program, around 20 tribal households were covered. A total of 51 job seekers were ensured employment wherein 22 women and 3 migrant laborers got eight weeks’ work engagement leading to leverage of wage to the tune of rupees 5.07 lakh, of which 1.49 lakh under SCA to TSS and 3.58 lakhs under MGNREGS. The major portion of the wages utilized by them was in the agriculture field for procurement of inputs, like paddy seed and fertilizers. The program certainly helped the farmers to come out of their distressed financial situations.
CYSD continuously working on issues related to Child Rights and Protection. In almost two decades of its intervention CYSD has been persistent in working towards increased protection from, and effective redressal of, all forms of about, neglect, exploitation and violence for children, especially girls. Moreover, it is working for building internal and external “Child Safe” environments. Our focus lies on improving knowledge, attitude and practice of the children, parents and community on child abuse, female foeticide, child marriage and gender based violence and voice for a stringent legislation and policy on child protection. The initiative also fosters community based child protection and its effective integration into the state / national level child protection system. Special attention is given to increase protection from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence for girls from vulnerable and excluded communities. The objectives of programme intervention are to :
A large number of children are still outside the fold of elementary and early childhood education. There is a wide gap in children’s access to learning facilities in terms of gender, caste, class, ethnicity, and religion. Retention & drop outs, meaningful school participation, learning by children, primarily from the weaker and disadvantaged sections of society, especially the tribal, remains an issue of serious concern.
5% Corner Pit Model: This is a model of in-situ rainwater harvesting suitable for medium uplands, in which every plot has its own water body, the area of which equals 5% of the total area of the plot. The pit is able to hold rainwater that otherwise flows out of the plot as runoff. The water held in the pits irrigates the plots during water scarcity.
Entrepreneurship is also one of the core areas being promoted by the organization to enhance the income of the people. NTFP as well as non-farm based enterprise are taken up by the community members. Non-farm based enterprise include goatery, duckery, blacksmithy, vegetable vending etc. In the NTFP sector, aggregation-marketing model is being promoted at the producer group level. Producer group members are sensitized on different aspects of collective marketing model and its benefit. Market exploration and information sharing is taken up on a regular basis to enable the producers/ collectors to sell their products at a higher price. As a result of this, collective marketing is being done for mango, tamarind, jackfruit and vegetables.Enterprise promotion on pilot basis is being done for medicinal plants including Amla and Tulsi. Linkages have been developed with Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) and Tribal Development Cooperative Corporation Ltd. (TDCCOL) for capacity building of community resource persons on value addition of NTFPs. Tie-ups with private companies for marketing of products are also being made. The producers are also facilitated to participate in “PARAB” and “Adivasi Mela” at the district and state level respectively for showcasing and sale of their products.
In order to enhance the livelihoods of the community members in a sustained manner, it is not only necessary that they are capacitated on improved agricultural practices but preservation, management, and regeneration of natural resources including land, water, and the forest is equally important. Keeping this in mind, the organization promotes activities like land development, creation of irrigation infrastructures, and horticulture promotion.
Agriculture is one of the primary sources of livelihoods of the tribals, the effort is being taken by the organization to improve the agricultural practices resulting in an increase in productivity of crops and thereby ensuring year-round food security and enhanced income. Improved practices such as line sowing, System of Rice Intensification, use of organic manures and pest management practices, improved variety of seeds, mixed cropping, crop rotation, crop diversification, community farming, kitchen gardening, etc. are being promoted. Convergence with mainstream agencies and schemes are being done for better quality inputs, farm implements, extension services, etc. Some of these include RKVY, NHM, OTELP, Agriculture and Horticulture Department.
Community-based institutions form the base for promoting livelihood interventions. The basic community-level organizations at the village level are the Self Help Groups, producer groups, and the Village Development Committees at the micro watershed level. Besides, community organizations like Vana Sanrakshana Samiti (VSS), Common Interest Groups, User Groups and SHG federation at the cluster level are also promoted. The focus of the activity is to empower women members to take a lead role in livelihood activities, to assert their rights over productive assets, and access inputs and services related to livelihoods from mainstream agencies