Not much ago, say half a decade before, if any govt. official or politician visited Khamarbadmal, people would ask him to construct a road. Now, they would ask for a water harvesting structure. In this tribal village, NEED and not SCHEME is now the basis of planning – thanks to a local initiative, which tried to do what is important, often, conveniently ignored – involving people in planning their own development.
Only fifty kilometers from the district headquarters, Khamarbadmal village is located in Jujumura, one of the most underdeveloped blocks of Sambalpur district in Orissa. There are only thirty three families in the village, out of which, twenty are scheduled tribes, four scheduled castes and the remaining nine are backward classes. Forest occupies more than sixty per cent of the total geographical area of the village. Thus, it plays a major role in sustaining the people’s livelihoods.
The land holding pattern in the village indicates that, out of thirty three house holds, twenty one are small farmers, one is landless and the others are marginal farmers. Recurring droughts have ravaged the society. People have lost the spirit to cope with their lives. It was at this stage, Manav Adhikar Seva Samiti(MASS), an NGO based at Sambalpur, intervened. “Owing to very low literacy rate and high incidence of poverty, organizing people was the most difficult task initially”, recalls Chittaranjan Hota, the Project Co-ordinator, MASS.
When enquired, the villagers talked about lack of roads, schools and electricity. Interestingly, they never talked about the drought which was forcing them to migrate out each year in search of livelihood options. No one talked about reviving agriculture and fighting health problems. Another major issue prevalent was ‘high rate of indebtedness’ among the poor. The local money lenders who exploited them so much that whatever little earning they were able to make would go to the money lenders. Put in this vicious circle of exploitation and drought, the villagers were low on self confidence and looked hopeless.
Women make the first move
In this context, community organizers from MASS went and talked to the women. “Why not we sit and think?”, the women were asked. As soon as the women met for the first time to discuss their issues, men started to tease “maejhi meeting, mar phaeting” meaning ‘now that women are meeting, fighting will start’. Braving these taunts, the women started meeting frequently. The issue they first took up was indebtedness. This led to the formation of a Self Help Group (SHG).
The SHG formation took some time – almost four to five months owing to initial hurdles. However, with constant counselling and the good results they experienced, the women took initiative to keep the SHG going. When the savings grew and the women started repaying the loans taken from money lenders, the menfolk realized that something is really happening. Properties earlier mortgaged to money lenders were gradually recovered. While the families benefited economically, the socio-cultural bonding in the village got new impetus. Gradually, the men started helping their women to attend meetings, trainings and do other works related to SHG.
From ‘consumption’ loans and loans for repayment, the SHG started providing ‘production’ related loans to its members. The entire process was transparent, the members themselves arriving at decisions, guided by facilitation of MASS. Subsequently, the SHG was linked to the SGSY scheme of the government. In fact, their efficient working evoked appreciation in the form of merit certificate from the District Collector. This made them happy. Meanwhile, the administration, hitherto unconcerned, started noticing and appreciating their work. Under the SGSY scheme and through additional support from the NGO, the group started goat rearing and things started to look promising.
Crisis management
Soon, members faced an unexpected development. The goats started dying owing to a ‘mysterious’ disease. The SHG sought help of the veterinary doctor who too was helpless. All the goats died. They were shocked. Meanwhile, they had to pay back their loans. With the help of the MASS, they planned a way out. They decided to pay back the bank loan by availing revolving credit support from MASS while earning through selling forest based produce like mahua, rolling bidi, Kendu leaf collection, leaf cup and plate making. This income helped them to repay the loans.
Tackling health problems
Gradually, the SHG, with the guidance of the NGO, started to become a little more confident in monitoring and review processes. In one such participatory assessment, it was realized that maximum number of loans were being availed for health emergencies. As their village is remote, there was no doctor available. Being poor and awareness being low, they were being exploited by the quacks for minor health problems. The process they adopted, in general was, trying a home remedy, then Gunia (traditional healer), then quack doctor. Before going to the doctor finally, they were spending a lot of money for their treatment. Also, sometimes they were loosing their lives. Mortgaging land and getting indebted to tackle health problems was common.
Assessing the health needs of the area, MASS facilitated a health education-training program among the poor, illiterate women of the villages. Selected Women from the village and neighbouring villages attended these trainings.( these were selected by villagers themselves).
Through street plays, story telling, songs, teaching and games, the primary health care education was imparted. These trained women were identified as Village Health Workers (VHW). They could learn about different health problems; the causes, treatment and mostly the preventive methods. Then the VHW would go and educate the other villagers on these aspects. Gradually, they were able to deal with common ailments like diarrhea, malaria, cough and cold, worms, sun stroke, etc. As incidence of malaria, diarrhea and TB are the measure of health status, the VHWs took up special training on how to deal with these aspects.. Also, they are able to seek advice from qualified practitioners, when necessary. On the other hand, they have suddenly become enemies of the quacks. This was a challenge they overcome collectively. The positive outcome has been reduced health expenditures of the poor families.
Addressing livelihoods
This hilly, forested area, which did not suffer drought just few decades ago, is now recognized as a drought prone region. Though health education helped them in dealing with certain needs, their livelihoods were increasingly being threatened. The people had very limited understanding on the problems, the consequences and the approaches required to tackle them. For instance, they had no skills to use the local natural resources like land, forest and water for improving their livelihoods. While they lost touch with the past, the present top-down approaches of development have failed them. Repeated droughts were forcing them to migrate out and leave trails of distress back home.
“Initially whenever we asked them to narrate their primary problems, they would discuss about road, electricity, community centre, playground, etc.” recalls Sukanti Parwar, a community organizer with MASS. Though they migrated every year, suffered the pain of being forced to go out in search of employment, they would not consider that as a problem and were not paying attention to why they had to migrate in the first place.
MASS took the initiative to help people ‘re’search their traditional know how on drought management. The Participatory Rural Appraisals they themselves carried out baffled them. Their own forgotten knowledge to deal with droughts came out in the open. Faith in their own experience and knowledge was revived. This was done through lot of meetings and series of consultations in the village. They not only identified their problems, the causes and effects but also prioritized them..
.The change was visible. From roads and community centers, issues like drinking water, availability of fodder, declining livestock got prioritized. They started believing that hybrid crops and high input chemical agriculture was enhancing their vulnerability. Combating drought was their prioritized task. Then traditional water harvesting techniques were identified. With little support and maximum participation of the communities, various kinds of land-water treatments were undertaken in the village. The village started to revive its traditional agriculture practices.
Now, just after two years of intervention, the village has been able to check distressed migration to outside. The lone landless person of the village, Anthony Bhengra, who was ranked as the most vulnerable person during the participatory planning exercises, helped by the villagers, started cultivating on a piece of waste land. Anthony now says “my dream to become a farmer could be fulfilled only because we villagers were helped to plan our own development”. Now the village has its own village development committee aiming to tackle drought substantially in a decade’s time.
Ranjan K Panda
