Agency: SHARE (Society to Heal Aid Restore Educate)
Location: Ratnagiri and Thane Districts
- The Konkan: the narrow coastal Konkan region of Maharashtra.India is boaund by the Western Ghats on one side and the Arabian Sea on the other. The sloping land has shallow soil, beneath which is hard rock. The Konkan area receive torrential rains during monsoon season. The shallow soil gets saturated with water and the wells overflow. Any rain after this overflows into the sea. Once the rains are over the underground water lasts just a few months then the villages are without water.
- 50% of the land is barren and 25% of the villages suffer water shortage which lasts for about 4 months of the year.
- Rain Water Harvesting (RWH)- a practice relevant in ancient India-Every structure is rooted in the principle of conserving rain water where it falls according to local neds and conditions for the purpose of storing water for ready use and charging into soil for later on
- Macro Practice - Community Development - focus is on sustainable development and self empowerment. maintained by the beneficiaries
- 70 villages have been helped
- Lack of water impacts women's mental health who bears the brunt of shrinking water
- Men go into the city for employment thus contributing to the rising incidence of HIV/AIDS cases
- Unable to cultivate more than one crop- rice during the monsoon season
Rain Harvesting Project
- A participatory approach of all the concerned parties- the entire village community (shramdaan/unpaid voluntary labor, land knowledge of village water sources), the NGO- SHARE (Infrastructural support, monitoring), the technical support team (represented by a consultant- Dr. Ajit Gokhale, Natural Solutions, and SHARE's civil engineer), and the donor organization has been advocated for rain water harvesting projects which involve a variety of skills, disciplines and competencies.
- The village community provides labor for all unskilled tasks free of cost on a voluntary basis- called shramdaan which enhances community participation and ownership.
- Professional social workers and paraprofessionals (men who are trained and employed by SHARE) addressing the shortage of water resources.
- Partnerships with The Sophia College; Eureka Forbes, Rotary Inertnational, Red Cross, Volkart Foundation, Tata Trusts, India Consulates
Agency:Amar Kutir Society for Rural Development
Location:Sriniketan, West Bengal, India
HISTORY AND BACKGROUND
Amar Kutir society was developed in the early 1923 by Gandhi and Susen Mukhopadhyay, both freedom fighters for Indian independence. Initially, Amar Kutir functioned as a safe refuge for political prisoners fighting against British occupation of India. In this refuge, political prisoners were taught skills like block printing, handloom weaving, and other artisan handicraft skills. In 1928, the British government deemed Amar Kutir society an illegal operation and Susen Mukhopadhyay was jailed. After being released from prison, Mukhopadhyay and several other freedom fighters reinstated their constructive social work at Amar Kutir. This society helped to organize the peasants movement in Birbhum, West Bengal in August of 1942, preceding Indian independence. After India gained independence from the British, Amar Kutir served as a society became a cooperative to rejuvenate and develop rural handicrafts in the ideals of ‘self help’ advocated by Rabindranath Tagore. There has been focus on leather goods, but the cooperative also produces batik, handloom, handstitch, pottery, metal work, jewelry and beading, pith craft, and bamboo work. In 1992, the Government of India funded a leather goods training center to distribute and market outlying village handicrafts from 700 artisans.
GOALS OF AMAR KUTIR
Along with economic development, Amar Kutir was formed on a foundation of developing sustainable rural development, the philosophy and ideals of one of the influential founders, Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore’s vision was to develop a cooperative society that would promote and mobilize rural communities needs through sustainable agricultural, horticultural and animal husbandry practices, and by developing business interests of rural villages like handicrafts and artisan products. These are Amar Kutir Society's Objectives (as published):
• To organize and establish craft training cum-production centers, cottage and small industry of different trades, crafts to make a number of villages self-sufficient and independent ones
• To organize, arrange and establish producers marketing centers
• To promote for and assist in establishing village thrift fund
• Cooperatives banking, risk benefit schemes for the benefit of landless, small and marginal workers
• To provide guidance in the use of available resources, scientific information, handicraft promotion for the entrepreneurs
• To promote self-help groups, develop thrift savings and link micro finance for handicraft development, enhancement of self-employment opportunities through sustainable income generation programme
• To start, maintain and finance model agricultural farming and ancillary activities viz. poultry, piggery, dairies, fishery, etc. on mutual self help and collective bases (Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hasta Shilpa Vikas Yojana (AHVY), 2005).
PRODUCTS
The cooperative products include leather work, handstitching, block printing, batik work, pith craft, handloom weaving, metal work, and jewelry. Handicrafts are sold from the craft shop on site, as well as at periodic exhibitions throughout India, and are distributed through regional fair trade distributing organizations.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERNSHIP WORK
The options for internship work at Amar Kutir are limited by the language barrier. The SHG manager, Tufan, was my placement supervisor in conjunction with Dr. Ghosh. We had had some difficulty communicating because his English is limited, and it is more difficult for Bengali’s to understand the American English accent. My role there was to create and conduct evaluations on the 40 self help groups (SHGs) that were formed in 2005 by Amar Kutir. My job is to evaluate the functioning of these groups, find out what resources are needed to help them function more effectively, and then connect these groups to the support services of Amar Kutir. Amar Kutir offers these groups artisan training, access to raw materials, marketing, and other social services like microinsurance plans and group facilitation. My work requires a translator, and for this the social work students have been very accommodating. I would recommend that future students try to coordinate primarily with social work students from the university to avoid miscommunications and set backs.
Other internship possibilities at Amar Kutir are in development and marketing schemes. I will try to start a website for them while I am here, but my computer skills are very limited. Someone with strong technological knowledge could help them to develop a good website and connect them to different fair trade organizations. At this time, they are awaiting their fair trade license. Amar Kutir has just implemented a social security system and employees now will receive a pension after they retire at age 62 (I think). Other social benefits may be developed, like a childcare center, scholarships/education fund, if the society is interested. Their goals and objectives also include rural development, such as animal husbandry, fishing, sustainable agricultural development, and forestry. These areas are still underdeveloped or not developed at all. It may be a possibility to try to connect Amar Kutir with the Visva-Bharati University’s Rural Extension Program to try to develop some of these industries, but I don’t know how feasible this would be.
Recommended Reading Links
Handy, F. & Kassam, M. (2006). Practice what you preach? The role of rural NGOs in
women’s empowerment. Journal of Community Practice, 14(3), p.69-91.
Gaiha, R. & Kulkarni, V. (2002). Panchayats, governments and the rural poor in India.
Journal of African and Asian Studies, 37(2), 38-82.
Lahiri-Dutt, K. & Samanta, G. (2006). Constructing social capital: Self-help groups and women’s empowerment in India. Geographical Research, 44(3), 285-295.
Turner, F. J. (1996). Social Work Treatment (4th Ed.). New York: The Free Press.
Elmhirst Institute
Elmhirst Institute of Community studies was established in 1983 in Santinaketan by Tagore and Leonard Elmhirst, a well known British agricultural economist and philanthropist. Elmhirst set up the Institute of Village Reconstruction. The primary objective of Elmhirst is to effectively contribute to the overall efforts of social and economic development of the rural people of India. Elmhirst is an NGO with a variety of services that focus on the overall development of women and children.
Current Projects:
Workers Training Center: Providing training on Integrated Child Development to Anganwadi workers.
Family Counseling Center: Resolving family conflicts, especially marital counseling
Short stay home for women in distress: This program is for poor, neglected and distressed women and children who have been maltreated by family and the society. The primary objective it to restore their physical and mental health in order to make them self-sufficient with counseling and well as formal and informal training
Cultural Projects: This project promotes Rabindra culture and the practice of cultural events of rural west Bengal
Food Processing: A project for training rural women to make jam, jelly frit drinks and condiments in order to make themselves dependent
Drug De-Addiction and Rehabilitation: This program is a 15-bed drying center to help addicts through recovery.
Integrated Nutrition and Health Program: This program’s main goal is to improve the standard of health and nutrition of mother and child, and research development.
Day center for the Aged: The programs serves older adults in poverty and provides treatment and services to best meet their needs.
Reproductive and child health: This program helps mothers through their pregnanises in order to prevent child mortality. Services include family planning and post delivery infant health.
Creche: This a preschool program for children in tribal villages while their mothers are at work from 8-2.
Mobile Dispensary: This is a mobile dispensary to provide medical services to poor people in remote villages
STD/HIV/AIDS: This project main objective is to target sex workers and their clients and spread awareness about how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
I chose this project mainly because I wanted to work with sex workers. This program is well developed and they are defiantly reaching the sex workers. They employed sex workers who want to get out of the profession to help them reach prostitute in the villages. Employing the sex workers has allowed the social workers to reach thousands of women who are now receiving medical treatment, free condoms and counseling on STD’s.
I came to India very motivated to do micro work and concentrate on counseling. After realizing that is it impossible to conduct counseling when you don’t know the language, I decided to look into helping these women get out of this profession. Many of these women are trafficked or forced by their husbands to conduct such acts. Others are in extreme poverty and they tried it once and now can’t get out because they were stigmatized and no one will hire them in the community. My project, which is a little ambitious, is to try to help these women start a self help group and start their own business like, sowing or cooking. It is defiantly a challenge but I want to try it. The biggest challenge is the language, along with the stigmatization and time limitation.
Be aware that the internship structure is very fluid and informal- the language barrier interferes with ability to work directly, you will have to take a lot of initiative and be comfortable organizing projects independently with the support of Dr. Ghosh and your supervisor
Recommendations at Placement:
Things to bring:
1. a portable fan
2. lots of bug repellant
3. laundry line and clothes pins
4. flip flops
5. shirts with sleeves, pants, no revealing clothing
6. toilet paper or wipes
7. it would be nice to bring little things from the states to give as presents when you leave- everyone here loves anything from the US
8. Buy a bengali book to study before you go- everyone appreciates any attempt at speaking the language
9. Bring an international cell phone, Dr. Ghosh was able to give us his SIM card to use it here
10.Bring warm clothes, sweater, jacket, fleece pants- when you arrive in Jan/early Feb it will still be cold- especially in the mornings and at night, and if you go to Darjeeling it will be chilly
11. sheets (for the overnight trains)
12. flashlight
13. vitamins (you will probably not be eating much meat, so protect against iron or protien deficiency)
14. Music, DVDs, and playing cards
15. Watch and alarm clock (even though people are generally late to everything in India)
16. Lots of sunscreen, by mid-March its hot!
Be careful not to drink the water- or eat street foods at least for the first month
If you need a non-urgent medical procedure- go to Woodlands Hospital in Kolkata (Calcutta)
Don't bring too many clothes, because you will most likely be wearing a sari or selvaro (sp?) to work if you are working in the villages
Eat with your right hand, wipe with your left (thats the custom here, so if you are a lefty, start practicing..)
If you try the paan (betel seed wrapped up in a leaf eaten after meals to help digest) don't swallow the juice, spit it out
Remember to take off you shoes before entering a house/office
Don't touch anyones feet, that's a no-no
If you ride a bike, it would probably be best to rent a bike for the time you are here, or else set up a system with one rickshaw driver for the whole time where the prices are set and they can be "on-call"- haggling with rickshaw drivers, and rickshaw drivers who don't really know where they are going has been an issue to be avoided- rickshaw rates should be around 10 Rs per kilometer
See if you can get a map of Santiniketan/Sriniketan/Bolpur when you get off the train at Bolpur- although its almost impossible to find street names it will help to orient you
Always bring the hotel/housing name of your residence with you when you leave so that the rickshaw driver will know how to get you back, this is also important when travelling to different places
A bakery called Sugar and Spice has good sweets and small pizzas
other good restaurants: Khurimari, Chutti and Mark Meadows (although a little pricey for Indian standards), and there's a really good eatery by the Sriniketan bus ten stand that sells excellent momo's (tibetan dumplings) for about 50 cents a plate
Yoga is availabe daily in morning and late afternoons (except Tues), if you would like to take classes Dr. Ghosh can arrange that
BE PREPARED FOR:
1.a lot of animal suffering/being mistreated- you may consider being a vegetarian permenantly after seeing the meat markets
A lot pollution (not as much in Santinikentan- but in Kolkata and other cities)
2. Poverty- very difficult to see, important to be emotionally and mentally prepared for this shock. There are also many beggars, we were told not to give to beggars on the street because it may attract swarms of children-
3. Traffic- just don't look
4. If you exercise or run outside, you will attract strange looks- it is okay to do, but don't go out past dark
5. Curfew- its generally not a good idea to go out past dark, nothing really happens (unless its an special event) in the evenings and its not really safe
6. Also you cannot get a rickshaw after 8/9pm, so if you are going somewhere at night, make sure you tell the rickshaw driver to stay and wait to take you back or you will be stranded
7. Tipping is not common here for service industry stuff, but happens at restaurants, generally around 10 percent
8. Toilets are generally squat latrines, so travel with hand sanitizer and tiolet paper or wipes
If you are a woman
Do not show your bra strap
Have someone help you put your sari on for the first ten times
If you wear a sari you have to wear the midriff undershirt and the petticoat- you won't get away with just a regular shirt and skirt underneath
Your not supposed to show your ankles or legs in the villages
If you use tampons, bring them- they only have pads here
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