We joined a group of relief providers and set off for an unknown destination deep within the Sunderbans in end June, over a month after Aila struck the area and paralysed life for numerous villages and communities in the Sunderbans. We contributed some money towards the cause, and wanted to be caring enough to ensure that the foodstuff reaches the people that need it. But we were then thinking of a one-time support.
It all changed when we reached the destination where these villagers lived. We saw the condition of Chargheri & other southern villages of Satjelia. Each of the then-unformed PAKT group showed vocal / silent support to continuing the effort to supply basic food assistance to these severely affected people. To give them something to fill their bellies after their livelihood was put on hold for 2 years, and ALSO to show them a ray of hope, "to reassure them that not everyone beyond that floating horizon of the tidal waters has forgotten about them" (as we put it in our first blogpost).
We went to you with an extended plan to support these people for next few months with food relief. The basic plan was to pick up a social unit of people and supply them with bare minimal nutrition for the next months, at least till Sep'09. All of us subsequently speculated on the specific locations to lend our services to, and agreed that the devastated families of Chargheri & other four villlages (Santigachhi, Bidhan Colony, Lahiripur, Porosmoni) were as much deserving of assistance as people of other Aila-devastated areas in the Sunderbans. Then we discussed the number of people we had to support as a social unit and the quantity of rice per head that we could supply on an extended basis (was it too less to have any meaning?). We formed PAKT and re-visited the original speculative head count and rice quantity against the funds that we practically expected from within the group (PAKT) and their well-wishers - all of you - based on personal commitments and responses.
When we found that the funds were falling short of the target, we re-appealed to all of you and you responded by further replenishing PAKT funds so that commitment to supply food till Sep '09 could be met. We also asked you to join us and help us serve these people, and again got positive responses from you.
We needed to make our distribution system robust and organised, eliminating chances of deserving candidates losing out to strongmen who nudge the weaker folk out of the queue to grab more relief. Purbasha, a local eco-tourism group, offered some manpower assitance during our visits and also helped us collect local information. Thanks to Kaustuv's planning (and insistence) we implemented an extremely successful, uniquely numbered card based system for the families we identified as being 'covered' by PAKT.
Subsequently when we found that these people were going to have to fend for themselves after September, we went to them and asked them what they felt is the way forward. We did not think continuing with relief or extending it beyond September '09 as the right way forward. Fortunately, that was also the feedback we got from a lot of the locals. They wanted to start doing something for themselves.
We tried to build on that good spirit and willingness shown by the local people towards rehabilitating themselves. We found support from two NGO's, PRISM and Swanirvar, in arranging for the most effective self-rehabilitation that we think is possible for a multitude of farmers struggling with salined lands. After some preliminary background work, PAKT have arranged to train the local farmers in a manner so that they can grow their own vegetables come this winter. That will help these farming families to sustain themselves as well as to certainly reduce their expenses on expensive vegetables bought from market. The farmers will also have to take additional responsibilities and share their newly gained alternative crop related knowledge with other farmers in their villages who could not be accomodated in the external training.
We have also placed 4 needy local people at some hotels around West Bengal for jobs. More jobs are possible if more locals show their willlingness to move out.
The people of Chargheri and the other 4 villages still need to be supported before we can stand back and say that "they are rehabilitating themselves". The crop training (3rd phase) for another 25 odd farmers begins tomorrow. We then plan to distribute relevant seeds to ALL farmers (farmers with formal training as also farmers getting "second hand" training from formally trained farmers) before mid October so that the vegetable crop can be sown at the right time.
We are trying to look for more self employment options for these people in the field of cottage industry products. Exploring training of locals (especialy women) in those directions is certainly not far from our minds but choosing the right local skill is of paramount importance for making the products saleable in the market.
We plan to distribute blankets for these families ahead of the winter.
Tomorrow (19th Sep '09) is going to be our 8th trip to the location where PAKT have been distributing rice at Sunderbans since end of June '09. This is planned to be the last visit where PAKT provide food materials to the local people. We have been declaring this intended closure of relief on 19-Sep-09 over the past 3 visits to the recipients so that it does not come as a shock to them. We have also seen enough enthusiasm amongst locals with the alternative crop training program to believe that they (the local farmer community) see a lifeline in it, that they are willing to cultivate their new techniques on whatever land they can find untouched by stagnated brackish water. The relief had to come to an end, and they are accepting it as a reality at the right time.
While PAKT will continue visiting the area for other rehabilitation efforts mentioned above, the food relief part of Help Suderbans Initiative ends tomorrow. When we distribute rice for the last time at Chargheri in about 13-14 hours from now, we hope to get a further confirmation that the people in general are taking this closure without bitterness, and that they are already looking beyond waiting at queues with cards in hand to witness sacks of rice being stacked under a PAKT banner every fortnight. This sustenance of hope at the end of relief phase is what these people will desperately need to keep themselves afloat in their coming 12-15 months of struggle. Relief will now have to be replaced by self-belief, for which PAKT has been trying to arm them with knowledge to tackle their present state.
We needed a lot of funds to pull off the food relief phase. All of this has happened because of YOU. No words are apt enough to express our gratitude...or its magnitude, nor do we feel any pressing need of that being qualified or quantified. It is festival season here in West Bengal, and may your support / blessings / assistance / prayers / words of encouragement / love be as much with us as with the people we are all committed to continue supporting on their path to rehabilitating themselves.
PS: We may still come back to you for some more help for support of the rehabilitation process. We expect to have proved worthy of your trust so far, and hence we will not hesitate to ask for your (further) help if and when it is needed.
Showing posts with label Bidhan Colony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bidhan Colony. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
7th Trip in pictures
Reaching Chargheri Primary school for initiation of alternative crop training program
Inaugural session of 3-day alternative crop training program for local farmers, starting 05-Sep-09
Local farmers interacting with the trainers during the inaugural session
Chargheri Abaitanik Prathomik Bidyalaya: the venue of inaugural training program for local farmers on alternative crop productionThe still pictures from 7th trip (including food distribution camp and crop training) can be found in the following Picasa albums:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kaustuvlive/SunderbanAilaReliefWorkPhaseVII#
http://picasaweb.google.com/angshu2909/ChargheriTrip7Pix#
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Exploring Chargheri and Bidhan Colony
In most of our earlier visits we barely found time to distribute the food and rush back for the return journey. This time Debajyoti da and myself snatched ourselves out of the distribution and tried to carry out a survey to assess some of the ground realities as on date.
This exercise took us to some new localities in Chargheri and Bidhan Colony. Sharing with you some snaps and videos of these places (links in red):
People working on earthwork for the bund
These people are cutting earth from the spoiled agricultural lands to build up / repair the bunds. I hope that is advisable to be done on agricultural land, and does not damage long term prospects of the productivity of this .
Hopefully we will see them cultivating alternative crops on these fields this coming winter after due training. Certainly the normal crop, rice, is set to return within 2 years. Now does this earth cutting from surface of these fields hurt any or both of those prospects? I wish I knew...
A shot of Chargheri on our way to Kakmari Bazar
[not much to add to that snap - we have earlier published a number of pix like that one]
House damaged by Aila but saved from collapse due to presence of 'konchi' (bamboo) reinforcement in mud walls
We found only two "pucca" buildings on the route from distribution point to Kakmari bazar which was close to 2 km away from distribution point (We made this journey via an unpaved and undulating dyke where walking barefoot can cause foot pain to unaccustomed feet - ask me!). None of these were residential houses. We saw evidence that water had reached above window top level in many of the intact houses. The houses that had bamboo stick (‘konchi’) reinforcement in walls managed to keep standing (even after mud was washed away) via support from the bamboo sticks. This house (in above pic) with ‘reinforced walls’ told the story clearly: in the picture we can see that the ‘konchi’s are showing up to man height with no mud around them – and ABOVE it the konchi’s are disappearing into mud still left intact.
Some of the standing houses have been repaired back with thatched roof and applying mud back on the walls. The houses that had walls of pure mud are all erased.
"Aise ujde aashiyaane tinke ud gaye"
This is how some of the occupants of those erased houses are living now.
They are literally living on the road....
The boundary point of Chargheri and Bidhan Colony
[hope that fishing net used as a fence is not the administration's brainchild while marking the boundary...]
The primary school located OUTSIDE the old bund
The old bund near this school was seriously damaged but the school would have been inundated in Aila even if the bund were intact. This primary school in Bidhan Colony is strangely outside of the main bund / dyke and it is at quite a low level as well. In other words, it was always exposed to forces of nature and tidal variations as the bund does NOT protect it.
This omission of a government primary school outside bund premise may look like a surprising flaw in layout of the bund, but we need to remember that pieces of land keep surfacing in these areas every year due to silting. It is quite possible that this school is located in a land area that surfaced AFTER construction of bund. It can (un)safely be expected that there are many such areas across these region. Hopefully the new 'Ring bund', currently under construction, will bring these buildings within the ambit of safety.
The new "Ring Bund" under construction
[This picture is taken facing the river and the old bund is behind the photographer Debu da when this picture was taken. We can see the primary school being covered by this new ring bund.
This video, shot from atop the old bund, shows the above photograph being taken and also indicates the topography near the school]
Bund damage near Kakmari bazar southside approach
[The above video, along with this snap by Debu da, bears testimony of the magnitude of nature's fury faced by these bunds on 25th May 2009. Even after nearly 3 months of restoration work the bund still looks like having been hit by a disaster in very recent past. ]
Kakmari bazar
PAKT discussing with people at Kakmari bazar
Kakmari bazar video 1
Kakmari bazar video 2
On the return journey from Kakmari to distribution point, we met Shri Girindranath Paik and Shri Ajit Kumar Biswas. Both are from Chargheri.
Girindranath Paik is a familiar face at relief distribution (he generally has something to say or some request to make). We met him on the way back and he dragged me to his house. Apparently the water logged lands seen behind the hutments in this snap are land belong to him.
Ajit Kumar Biswas' story is a little intriguing. Ajit is apparently a graduate who has not managed to get a coveted government job. He has a small piece of land and used to cultivate it before Aila. But the returns from his small piece of land were insufficent to support his young . He used to supplement his income by giving tuitions. Even Rabindranath Gayen, the respected primary school teacher of Bidhan Colony that we met during survey at Kakmari bazar, used to be his student. He is apparently well liked by people (certainly by Girindranath Paik) and also does some book keeping for shops. He wished to opt out of the area if he gets a job outside, as both his vocations have stopped now. He stays in a makeshift hutment reconstructed from his damaged mudhut. Like many other families, both he and his wife do menial labour on earthwork related to bund repair these days in order to sustain themselves.
Ajit brought me up to the fact that the dewatering of fields has taken place only at specific areasm lostly near the periphery of the island (we used to see it happen at our distribution point) but many fields in the interiors are still flooded with brackish water. The small sluice gate does not help at all as it prevents effective flushing out of the brackish water in a heavy rainfall.
Critical concern: We have requested assistance from PRISM in order to arrange for alternative crop training in fields damaged by brackish water with an aim to have some vegetables grown on these fields by this winter. We are driving to expedite this training. But the least that is required for some of these farmers we are trying to help is the stagnated brackish water to be removed from their fields. We are talking to people related to administration but we still do not know how to solve that critical first part (i.e. dewatering agricultural lands that are still under water) in our attempt to get these people back on fields.
This exercise took us to some new localities in Chargheri and Bidhan Colony. Sharing with you some snaps and videos of these places (links in red):
People working on earthwork for the bund
These people are cutting earth from the spoiled agricultural lands to build up / repair the bunds. I hope that is advisable to be done on agricultural land, and does not damage long term prospects of the productivity of this .
Hopefully we will see them cultivating alternative crops on these fields this coming winter after due training. Certainly the normal crop, rice, is set to return within 2 years. Now does this earth cutting from surface of these fields hurt any or both of those prospects? I wish I knew...
A shot of Chargheri on our way to Kakmari Bazar
[not much to add to that snap - we have earlier published a number of pix like that one]
House damaged by Aila but saved from collapse due to presence of 'konchi' (bamboo) reinforcement in mud walls
We found only two "pucca" buildings on the route from distribution point to Kakmari bazar which was close to 2 km away from distribution point (We made this journey via an unpaved and undulating dyke where walking barefoot can cause foot pain to unaccustomed feet - ask me!). None of these were residential houses. We saw evidence that water had reached above window top level in many of the intact houses. The houses that had bamboo stick (‘konchi’) reinforcement in walls managed to keep standing (even after mud was washed away) via support from the bamboo sticks. This house (in above pic) with ‘reinforced walls’ told the story clearly: in the picture we can see that the ‘konchi’s are showing up to man height with no mud around them – and ABOVE it the konchi’s are disappearing into mud still left intact.
Some of the standing houses have been repaired back with thatched roof and applying mud back on the walls. The houses that had walls of pure mud are all erased.
"Aise ujde aashiyaane tinke ud gaye"
This is how some of the occupants of those erased houses are living now.
They are literally living on the road....
The boundary point of Chargheri and Bidhan Colony
[hope that fishing net used as a fence is not the administration's brainchild while marking the boundary...]
The primary school located OUTSIDE the old bund
The old bund near this school was seriously damaged but the school would have been inundated in Aila even if the bund were intact. This primary school in Bidhan Colony is strangely outside of the main bund / dyke and it is at quite a low level as well. In other words, it was always exposed to forces of nature and tidal variations as the bund does NOT protect it.
This omission of a government primary school outside bund premise may look like a surprising flaw in layout of the bund, but we need to remember that pieces of land keep surfacing in these areas every year due to silting. It is quite possible that this school is located in a land area that surfaced AFTER construction of bund. It can (un)safely be expected that there are many such areas across these region. Hopefully the new 'Ring bund', currently under construction, will bring these buildings within the ambit of safety.
The new "Ring Bund" under construction
[This picture is taken facing the river and the old bund is behind the photographer Debu da when this picture was taken. We can see the primary school being covered by this new ring bund.
This video, shot from atop the old bund, shows the above photograph being taken and also indicates the topography near the school]
Bund damage near Kakmari bazar southside approach
[The above video, along with this snap by Debu da, bears testimony of the magnitude of nature's fury faced by these bunds on 25th May 2009. Even after nearly 3 months of restoration work the bund still looks like having been hit by a disaster in very recent past. ]
Kakmari bazar
PAKT discussing with people at Kakmari bazar
Kakmari bazar video 1
Kakmari bazar video 2
On the return journey from Kakmari to distribution point, we met Shri Girindranath Paik and Shri Ajit Kumar Biswas. Both are from Chargheri.
Girindranath Paik is a familiar face at relief distribution (he generally has something to say or some request to make). We met him on the way back and he dragged me to his house. Apparently the water logged lands seen behind the hutments in this snap are land belong to him.
Ajit Kumar Biswas' story is a little intriguing. Ajit is apparently a graduate who has not managed to get a coveted government job. He has a small piece of land and used to cultivate it before Aila. But the returns from his small piece of land were insufficent to support his young . He used to supplement his income by giving tuitions. Even Rabindranath Gayen, the respected primary school teacher of Bidhan Colony that we met during survey at Kakmari bazar, used to be his student. He is apparently well liked by people (certainly by Girindranath Paik) and also does some book keeping for shops. He wished to opt out of the area if he gets a job outside, as both his vocations have stopped now. He stays in a makeshift hutment reconstructed from his damaged mudhut. Like many other families, both he and his wife do menial labour on earthwork related to bund repair these days in order to sustain themselves.
Ajit brought me up to the fact that the dewatering of fields has taken place only at specific areasm lostly near the periphery of the island (we used to see it happen at our distribution point) but many fields in the interiors are still flooded with brackish water. The small sluice gate does not help at all as it prevents effective flushing out of the brackish water in a heavy rainfall.
Critical concern: We have requested assistance from PRISM in order to arrange for alternative crop training in fields damaged by brackish water with an aim to have some vegetables grown on these fields by this winter. We are driving to expedite this training. But the least that is required for some of these farmers we are trying to help is the stagnated brackish water to be removed from their fields. We are talking to people related to administration but we still do not know how to solve that critical first part (i.e. dewatering agricultural lands that are still under water) in our attempt to get these people back on fields.
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