Helping hand- harboring hope

Women headed families / single women household families are different from poorest of the poor in terms of their needs and constraints. Absence of male support and having to live with other families or alone imposes special constraints and make them particularly vulnerable, as they get older for lack of assets.

When Sarbani Devi, 50 from Pithertoli village became a widow, the burden of looking after her family consisting of her three children came on her feeble shoulders. The small piece of land her husband owned did not help her survive through her financial needs. She used to depend solely on collecting and selling the forest produce like Mahua, tamarind, Lac etc to make a living.

“I struggled a lot to feed my children. On many days I used to starve and give leftover food to my children so that they don’t go hungry”, recounts Sarbani Devi.

She was merely curious when she attended a meeting conducted by Caritas India partner Naya Savera Vikas Kendra as a part of its Agrarian Prosperity Programme three years back in the village. One of the interventions of the programme was to offer livestock assistance to Single Women households. Understanding the poor plight of Sarbani, the villagers nominated her name for the same.

“When Naya Savera & Caritas India staff asked whether I was interested in rearing pigs for a living, I was very glad. Until then, nobody had come to offer me a favor. So I was too happy to take it up,” says Sarbani.

Initially she received 2 pigs through the programme. To equip her with livestock management skills, she taken on exposure visits and training on livestock raising from Caritas India partner Naya Savera Vikas Kendra. Now she has five pigs. After the first one gave birth, she sold them for Rs.13, 000. She regularly buys feed for the pigs, gives them proper shelter and keeps them healthy and disease free. Besides the pigs, Sarbani has bought 2 bulls and 7 goats from the profit she earned.

Since her other sons are married and settled elsewhere, all her hopes are pinned on her youngest son Jagdish Singh who is studying in high school in Palkot.  She wants to support his studies through her income and dreams of a better life for her son.

Changing the Face… of PDS

Bodadih is a small tribal hamlet located in Dahupani Panchayat, Palkot block of Gumla District, Jharkhand. For years, the villagers here had to travel by foot to Kurum village, about 4 kms away to fetch their monthly rations from the Public Distribution Shop there.

Sushma Devi, a community woman “We had to walk for hours crossing mountains and streams to reach Kurum village. It took us an entire day to get our ration supplies. Sometimes, we came back empty handed too as the shop used to be closed.”

When Sushma and other women in Bodadih were mobilized into Self Help Groups as a part of the Agrarian Prosperity programme by CARITAS India partner Naya Sawera, they put forth their constraints over accessing PDS at the Gram Sabha. As part of its revamp of the nation’s public food distribution system, running of village ration shops by women's self-help groups has been sanctioned by the government of India to break the monopoly of private agencies and empower rural women. 

Sushma’s SHG named Tara Mahila Samuh was selected by the villagers to open a PDS outlet in Dahupani village, close to Bodadih. The women decided submit their application for running PDS to the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) at Gumla. However, the SDO would not meet them. Sushma says, “We had to go more than twenty times to Gumla to meet the SDO, but he simply would not meet us. We were frustrated and clueless.” Finally, with the backup of Naya Sawera staff, the SHG women met him and submitted their application. As misfortune would have it, their application was rejected. But Sushma was resolute. She says, “We were very angry, but we didn’t give up. We filed a second application and submitted it to the SDO.” This time when they met the SDO, he shot them with bunch of questions to know their capability in running the shop.

Hilaria Keedho, one of the SHG members says, “The SDO looked at me and asked me what the color of a 1000 Rs note was. I smiled and told him that it was red. I knew he was testing us.”

After a year of constant follow up, the group was finally granted the license to run the PDS outlet in Dahupani. Their joy knew no bounds. They purchased 12 quintals rice and 500 litres kerosene using the money they had saved in their SHG. Additionally, the group had also incurred expenses for labour and transportation bringing the total amount to Rs. 24,000/-. Rati Kharia, one of the villagers in Dahupani offered them a room inside his house to store the supplies.  The shop opens twice a month- 15^th for rice and 25^th for kerosene. They sell rice at Rs 20 per Kg and Kerosene at Rs.10 per litre. It is now one year since the PDS facility was set up.

Sushma says, “We have invited the SDO to our shop. When he visits us, I’ll tell him even we women can run a shop. We faced your challenge boldly and proved our potential.”

From pigs to bigger things in India

At just 18 years old, Shiva Ram Kisan has experienced more of the ups and downs of life than some people will in a lifetime. He lost his mother when he was only 5 years old and his father when he was 14.  Loneliness, poverty and an empty stomach were no strangers to him.

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