Education and Alternative livelihoods
21.Feb.2005After having found over the last weeks that there are some issues regarding relief material reaching dalit villages all along the coast, we had already planned to concentrate on those. Additionally, the dalit villages consist of landless labourers, who have no way of going back to their livelihoods, since the lands they worked on were salinated. Therefore, we have been concentrating on related issues.
This weekend we were only 3 to finally leave for the coast.
Our Agenda
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We reached Thirukkadayur on the 19th of February. We had two major points on our agenda for the weekend:
- Check a sample of the night schools being run around the area and find out:
* If the enthusiasm is long-term/still ongoing;
* What the needs/requirements of the teachers are;
* What the requirements of the entire initiative are.
- Check for alternative livelihoods for the ag-based villages, specifically with reference to micro-enterprises:
* What are the possible small-scale industries/business that can be set-up;
* What are the activities the villagers are interested in;
* What are the business and market feasibility issues.
The villages around the Thirukkadayur area are now being addressed by no NGO in particular but by the Democratic Youth Federation of India.
Since we had a DYFI volunteer, Mr.Selvam taking us to a set of night-schools in the evening, we first started off with a few ag-based villages to find out about the small-scale business possibilities.
Dalit Villages
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We visited 3 dalit villages: Pillai Theru, Chinnamanikkappangu and Karan Theru. We spoke to the villagers and found that there is this organisation called EFICOR which is providing labour temporarily to the villagers, 4 days each week. They get to work in the salinated fields, clearing debris there and also in the streets of their own village, making water-ways, etc. EFICOR has told them that there
would be work for another 3 months at least.
There are temporary shelters in all the three villages. Chinnamanikkappangu even has had thatched houses and toilets built by either EFICOR, SDC or some other organisation. This is better because the government-built houses are of some rexin kind of material which practically cooks the inhabitants, even in the February Sun.
Complaints
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The dalit villagers are full of complaints about the fishermen who live in the adjoining sea-side villages. They say that they (the fishermen) think they (the dalits) should not be entitled to relief material, compensation, etc. since they did not have much, or in some cases any, loss of life. Also the dalits think that the fishermen are getting overcompensated for the loss of their
boats, nets, etc. (we know this isn't the case).
The dalits (SCs) also feel that the BC-people do not allow NGOs to bring relief material to their village. In one instance, they said that some vehicles were forced to go back for fear of getting stoned. In another, they claimed that relief material was getting diverted and the fishermen were selling rice "in the West".
There were bitter complaints in Kumarakudi about the village officer who hasn't visited vadakku theru since a day after the tidal wave.
Micro Enterprises
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The micro enterprise idea was Terry's: he had already contacted a friend of his who has been involved in such activities in Bangladesh. This person: a part of the bank called "Gramin", had sent us a set of tips about how to start off this process and the first step was to ask the villagers what they wanted.
The villagers were rather enthusiastic about the idea of starting small-scale businesses. We told them to have a meeting, get a list of activities that they think are feasible and are interested in and let us know the next day.
I should say that there were really some great ideas. The most preferred idea was to rear milch-cows or goats. The argument was that they have been farmers all the while and would be comfortable. They were ready and willing to form a society and share the work and profits between them.
Many of them also claimed to have lost cattle to the tidal wave and not having been compensated for it, although both those claims probably need to be confirmed.
Quite a few of the women either claimed to be already trained or wanted to get trained in tailoring and to be given a tailoring machine and a ladies' bicycle each.
Many people also wanted to do retail vegetable/fruit business, either from a small kiosk or using a bicycle.
Some very valuable and out of the way ideas were: arranging for a brick-factory which would employ 300 people; auto-rickshaws for some; diesel mechanic shop; computer/internet-browsing centre; making thatches using coconut leaves; making and selling ceramic/cement vessels; soap manufacturing and sales.
We have a list from each village with suggestions from each family/individual which we propose to use as a first step to talk to banks/organisations who can come forward with small, repayable loans to these people. There is, of course, a lot of groundwork to be done and support to be gathered before this heads somewhere, but we think we have taken a small step in that direction.
I also tried to make it abundantly clear to the villagers - their enthusiasm for this was unbounded and I didn't want to give them false hopes - that this might be a lengthy process spanning months and they shouldn't expect something the next weekend.
Night Schools
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Mr.Selvam, who seems to have played, and is playing, a huge part in the night-schools initiative, took us to the various centers in Kumarakudi. Kumarakudi, consists of various parts: vadakkuth theru(North Street), therkkuth theru (South Street), mEla theru (High Street), the rather creatively named "pudhu roadu theru"(New Road Street), etc.
Each of these areas has two or more teachers identified and these people get all the kids together and teach them sometime between 5pm and 8pm. We found that the classes went on for at least 2 hours. All the teachers have either finished 10th standard or 12th standard, in some cases they are doing their 11th or 12th standard right now and they prepare their evening lesson hurriedly after coming back from school themselves everyday!
Apart from this, they have classes from 10am to 1:30pm and again from 4pm to 7:30pm on both Saturdays and Sundays.
The kind of initiative and enthusiasm these kids, for they are all nothing more than kids themselves, show in teaching the children has to be seen to be believed. Most of the teachers are girls, some of them have their own child or children sitting in the front row of the class. One lady, having no other place to conduct the class, takes it in her own front-yard.
Requirements
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When asked, all except one who has done his DMIT, said that they didn't care about getting salaries and they just want the children in their village to do well in studies (doesn't mean that we have to stop thinking about salaries for teachers already!). DYFI seems to have done a wonderful job in spreading the message about the importance of education.
Sadly, none of the classes have any of the basic necessities required for conducting lessons. All the teachers expressed the need for:
- a shelter for housing the students
- a tubelight for the shelter
- blackboards, chalk-pieces and dusters
- notebooks, bags, pens/pencils (one village had them)
- slates for the younger children
- a water-tank next to the class
Of course, they did ask for a lot more, viz., tiffin-boxes, but the ones above are priority.
Shelter
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We started enquiring about how a shelter can be built. We found that the village-heads in Kumarakudi vadakkuth theru were ready with the land for it.
Finally, after going through a learning process, the price of the shelter turned out to be a little more than Rs.3800. However, the material is ready, the construction has started and the children would have a new school-house this week, which is what is important.
The driver of our taxi, who was just that to begin with, got converted into a volunteer by the time we had our initiation to the night-school. As soon as the teacher, Arulselvi, a 12th std student, pointed out the near-darkness of the place, he promised to get the tubelight for the class on his own.
On Sunday he bought the tubelight set and installed it himself in the village. Now he wants to donate tubelights to the entire set of 34 night-schools in the area! He has also said that no matter what the size of our group over the coming weekends, he would arrange for a suitable vehicle and either find a driver or drive it himself.
In any case, he would accompany us as one of the volunteers.
All the 34 night-schools in the area have these necessities. To get these, it would cost about Rs.1,70,000. If you are willing, you can consider this as a call for donations for this purpose. From what we have seen, we can say that there is enough drive in these people to keep the initiative sustained. However, some basic things are needed. We will show accounts for each paisa spent on this.
Higher Education
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There were a few people who came to us and asked for help for their sons or daughters who were studying and there is a fear of their studies/higher-studies going to be stopped because of the loss of crop or arable land.
We saw the fields more than 4 km away from the shore and we also saw the salinated fields. The paddy, which was nearly ready for harvesting and would have produced a neat crop in mid-January and early-February was washed over by the sea. Now it looks as though burnt! People who were relying on the 30 to 40K which would have come from those crops in order to keep their son or daughter in their MSc course, nurse's course, etc., are now left with the prospect of having to stop their studies.
For one or two people we have taken all the details of the college, course, etc., down. If anybody is interested in sponsoring people's studies, we are willing to collect information about more such people so that these can be verified with the colleges/institutions and something can be done. Let us know.
Another Baby-81 Story
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While in Kumarakudi, we visited a baby. His dad was visiting somebody on business and lost his life while on the beach in a different village. He (the baby) and his mom were visiting his aunt in another village when the waves came. His mom pulled out a wooden draw of a cupboard, put him in it and held the draw on top of the cupboard. Both she and her sister got washed away and lost their lives. The draw floated along on the tidal wave until it hit a thorn-tree and broke. There he was found an hour after the waves receded, by his cousin (the aunt's son), partly inside the broken draw, partly hanging by his sweater from the thorns.
After the cousin admitted him in the city hospital and visited him the next day, he informed an aunt on his father's side both that the parents had died and that the baby was alive. When they rushed to the hospital on the 2nd day, he was missing!
They talk of an ordeal after which they traced the baby who had been 'sold' to another couple. Then after petitions, intervention by local politicians and 3 days of running up and down, the baby was returned to them.
Since then they have had offers of adoption but they have staunchly refused saying that the baby belongs to their family and there he would grow-up. Though they seem to be not that badly off, they did complain that though there was widespread coverage, including by Sun-TV, they hadn't got a single paisa. We bought a box of Cerelac, a
couple of Johnson's Baby Soap and a bottle of Woodward's Grip Water for him.
Though he isn't named yet, Selvam wants him to be called "Alaiarasan" since he escaped the waves.
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Well, that was all we were able to do in the 2 days that we had. We're hoping to progress on some of the ideas we collected in this trip before we head out again the next weekend.
best regards,
Sundar.
