Archive for Community Support
Kaspada village from Vikramgad region, is known to have scarcity of water due to its geological conditions i.e. rocky terrain and bed of rocks in majority of terrain around. Though there is water available in river for around 3 months of monsoon, their primary source of potable water remains wells made by government.
There are three usable wells in village. Generally, these wells start getting dried-up around Feb/Mar every year. With this trend, in the past, local government had to provide village potable water with the help of tankers every 2 days till it rains and wells get recharged during the month of June or July. Until then, people even have to walk down 2km to nearby village for drinking water during peak summers – at times, which also becomes issue of conflict between two villages.
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Majority farmers in the region take only one crop of rice from June to Oct/Nov every year and migrate to other regions for earning. This impacts their kids’ education, their health, elders and overall family. In last 4-5 years, we have been working with the farmers and have been encouraging them to take-up additional 2 or 3 crops in the land – for improving livelihood and arrest the migration of working people from family. Couple of villages who had availability of water, have come-up and have started taking various produce such as, onions, garlic, leafy vegetables, bottle gourd, brinjal, lady-finger, ginger, guar, chili, and mogra flower, mango, etc cash crops after their rice season.
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After completion of one batch of training at Khandeghar, few women from Khanipada (sister village of Khandeghar) had shown interest in starting training centre in their own village. We agreed and moved some sewing machines from Khandeghar centre to start another centre at Khanipada which is around 1.5km from Khandeghar. Meeting with women and few interested men happened on 11-Mar-2023.
Since August 2021, we had taken up training of females for tailoring using sewing machines and so far, we have trained around 75-80 females on the same in three villages – Janathepada, Khandeghar and Khanipada. While it was like a learning new skill for some, few of them realized that as an option to earn livelihood as well. Four such females from Khandeghar (and Khanipada) came forward to indicate their inclination for the same. We encouraged them by giving them a subsidy in purchasing sewing machines of their own – i.e. they can get brand new sewing machine from Suhrid Foundation if they can contribute partially towards the same. The partial contribution was symbolic so that they own it with pride and also make a serious attempt to generate livelihood using the new sewing machine.
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After seeing very positive response from women of Janathepada on their interest in learning tailoring, we realized that we can extend this to other villages as well. We discussed possibility of the same for Khandeghar. Our nursing staff from Khandeghar clinic spoke to females of the nearby hamlets. The response was amazing and more than 40 females had shown keen interest in learning the skill. WIth 5 sewing machines , we started this training center on 7-Dec-22.
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In the month of April 2022, 5-6 of these females purchased sewing machines themselves and have started doing their small-time business with that. We had given them 30 meter cloth so that once their formal training is over, they can make something sensible and usable from that.
Now they feel empowered enough and want to buy some material and sell stitched articles in their villages, on their own. We are really pleased with an idea that they decided on their own in investing in purchase of the machines (though second-hand) themselves and now gathering strength and courage to start some small business. To start with, they would stitch articles, pack it well and sell it through one small Kirana stall in their village. It is a very encouraging success story. We would also like to help them reach to larger selling market and lower cost purchase cost of raw material.
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Suhrid Foundation worked with 5 farmers on trial basis for getting second crop after their rice crop in October. We decided for onion, sunflower, multiple veggies (brinjal/egg-plant, bhindi/lady-finger, bottle-gird, spinach, etc). We purchased onion saplings and seeds required for this purpose. We also purchased material required for making organic fertilizers/nutrition (known as Jivamrut). Farmers were explained entire life-cycle of the crop. Once a week and later on once in 15-days visits were done to review and guide farmers. The results were very encouraging. Farmers had vegetables for themselves and their neighbors. We also purchased few things from them.
Farmers have agreed to do serious attempt by doing cash-crop (primarily vegetables) along with rice – so that enough rice for family is made and remaining space (if any) is used in improving livelihood further. We would reconnect with farmers in second week of May 2022 for further planning.
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In an area of helping tribals to earn livelihood, we have taken up project of empowering women – by way of teaching them stitching/ embroidery skills. 45 females from Janathepada responded to our propositions to learn some skills. It was planned to work for improving their skills, which can effectively be useful to women of Janathepada to even earn livelihood subsequently.
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Similar to year 2020, year 2021 also created a grim situation for tribals in the Vikramgad region. Most of our other initiatives related to education and community support were curtailed, except medical support through our Community Healthcare Center. This was functioning completely through the lock-down period. With lock-down restrictions not being completely lifted and industries […]
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Year 2020 had been very challenging due to the pandemic. All the schools in the country were closed. Vikramgadh – our catchment area – was quite isolated in the initial period. The precautions at the village level were good. Villagers believed more in isolation. They realized the havoc any such pandemic can cause to their […]
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Suhrid foundation started its operation in 2012 with health care of tribal people as the primary objective. During the last seven to eight years of our association, we did lot of community related work viz reconstructing dams, de-silting river, the wells, infrastructure development for the school, tree plantations, and guiding tribals to work towards improving their livelihood. Kaspada was in the forefront where these activities were carried out because of a better connect with the people. We decided to build community healthcare center in this village. We got lot of support and encouragement from the villagers in the entire process of setting up this center.
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