Development Matter - April 2009

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Feature:MDGs in Practice

Reach.. Touch.. and Teach..!

CBOA – DHAN Model Community School

R. Govindarajan*

Background:

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ducation is the universal right to all the children of school going age. It has been widely recognized and accepted by all the countries and world level organizations. But getting a good education is a dream in many of the remote villages. DHAN Foundation through its intensive work of imparting quality education to the poor and disadvantaged students in Tamil Nadu, had come up with an idea of initiating a ‘Model community school’ which will provide quality education for the students in the rural areas with the medium of instruction in English.

Emergence of model Community School: Gangai Federation a Self Help of Group of DHAN Foundation is consulted to implement this education programme since the area in which Gangai Federation works is well known for farming and hand weaving. This federation is working with many economically poor people especially in remote rural villages. At the same time Canara Bank Officers’ Association (CBOA) also had a long time desire of starting a school to impart quality education to unaffordable people. Their motive is to serve for the poor community in the field of education. They already purchased a land of three acres in a very remote village called Melavellore, Sivaganga district.

DHAN’s idea, Gangai Federation’s Support and the Canara Bank

Officer’s Associations’ desire, all the three come into a line of action. All the three joined their hands for a good cause and started working for it. The location of the school is very remote and highly potential area where nearly 650 school going children in the age of 3 to 12, and there is no English medium school within the radius of 10 kilometers except the government schools.

CBOA is ready to give the land for the use of starting the school with the acceptance that all the other technical support and administrative aspects in running the school will be done by DHAN Foundation. Gangai Federation is ready to start a school in their administrative area. After speaking with the federation leaders, the education team started working on how the school is going to be initiated. They contributed their savings to have a temporary school building.

The school is situated in Melavellore, a very remote village which is educationally and economically backward. The area have very less transport facility with morning one bus service, afternoon two bus services, and one in the evening to that village. The school is catering the educational need not only to this village but also to 16 nearby villages of the same category. The school has van facility to bring the children from their house and drop them back in the evening with maximum care.

CBOA – DHAN Nursery and Primary School: DHAN Foundation formed an Education committee headed by Mr. Ramkumar, Programme Leader, Mr. Raghavan, an educational consultant, and teachers the front

* R. Govindarajan, Principal, CBOA-DHAN, The Model Community School, Melavellore, Sivagangai District

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bodies such as Community – school forum in villages have created federation ownership which in future would metamorphosis into community ownership of the school and generate community support for it. Attempts to strengthen the school as an institution would be accompanied by parallel changes in the existing structure. Appropriate changes would therefore be made at the system to be responsive to the needs of the school, have respect for the autonomy of the school, and play a supportive rather than punitive role.

Our Educational Policies: runners in the field of education to implement the programme. A model community school with the name “CBOA – DHAN Nursery and Primary School” concept initiated to serve in the field of education.

One side the technical part of starting a school was going on and on the other side physical progress of school building work was initiated. The federation leaders and the associates joined their hands and come forward to advertise about the new school in and around the villages. First they started with the village where the school is located.

A boy named “Selva Kumar” is the first admission for LKG at Melavellore Village, son of a poor coolie man and the mother goes for farming work. It was decided to give preference to the federation members to get the quality education. Federation members in the area also had a desire of sending their children to the federation initiated school. CBOA officials and DHANites were involved in the advertising process and increase admission children for school.

Millennium Development Goal in DHAN’s Education Programme: DHAN Foundation’s new civic initiative in the field of education is “CBOA – DHAN Model Community School”. With a view to sustaining the overall development by eradicating poverty in different dimensions in the global countries, all the member countries designed 8 development goals along with 18 time-bound targets and 48 indicators for measuring the progress. Out of 18 targets with a view to attaining the goal of universal primary education, the enrolment rate should be increased to 100 per cent and the drop out rate to be wiped out by 2015.

Significance of model community school: The school would be viewed as embedded part of the community. A continuous, mutually supportive school – community interaction / dialogue is practiced. The processes of micro-planning and community mobilization are planed by the federation to strengthen the schoolcommunity link. Formation of

Following are some of the ideas related to our educational policies being evolved and followed: School as a planning unit: School would be strengthened as an institution in order to make it truly effective. The school shall be a full fledged institutional entity with its own goals and not a mere recipient of orders from “the above”.

Consequently, planning and management at the level of school would be encouraged.

Decentralization of Educational Administration : DHAN Foundation endeavors to decentralize the educational system in such a way that it empowers the stakeholders and local bodies. In general, the participation of parents, communities and grass root level local bodies is encouraged through formation of Parent Teacher Association.

Quality in delivery of primary education: The emphasis is now on improving quality of education imparted in the schools. Improved and child-friendly text books were

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prepared, teaching and learning materials were prepared, action research by the teachers are done regularly to identify the hard-spots in learning, improving the system of lesson-transaction within the class room. The teachers are exposed to the process of change, revival and renewal. Solutions are arrived immediately. The school is the focal point providing the requisite growth environment not only for the students but also for the teachers.

Introduction of English: English is introduced as a subject and medium of instruction to prepare the children to face the challenges thrown up by the changing environment. The existing staff are trained and oriented to shoulder this new responsibility. This endeavour is encouraged through multi-grade teaching under situations where there is a paucity of teachers.

Capacity Building of teachers: Besides in-service training, induction and in-school training are provided on regular basis. Trainings are mostly need-prompted and based on feedback received from the schools.

The talents and attitudes of teachers would be collated to promote their inherent talents through training. The whole approach is to train the teachers and manpower development is motivated, inspired and participative.

Community mobilisation and support: Community mobilization is not confined to merely admitting their children at the village level.

They are a part of inspectoral/ supervisory level in the administrative hierarchy of CBOADHAN School. The community is fully involved in all issues relating to

developing the school plan for the village, understanding the problems of the girl child as well as issues of retention and repetition in the school in their village, providing health and nutrition support which is a form of learning preparedness for the children in the village. The Parents Teacher Association provides the window between the schools and the community. Recognizing the role that women can play in the education of their children, mother- teacher associations would be encouraged in addition to PTAs. Monitoring and Evaluation: Collection of data is done on a continuing basis at the grass-root level. This enables to have a variety of informed choices before embarking upon any policy initiatives in CBOA-DHAN school.

Nearly 80 students from various villages are admitted because of the continuous effort of all viz., CBOA officials, DHAN staffs and the federation members.

Syllabus design and finalization: In our school it was decided to have a syllabus which is different from usually followed books in all the matriculations schools. Syllabus was developed by education experts in such a way the content is relevant to the student’s situation.

While designing books the following are kept in mind: z

Familiar words.

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Easy to pronounce.

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From student’s life situations (E.g., Cat, Ball, Van, etc.)

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Maximum three letter words.

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With mono syllable or bi syllabic words.

Phonics used to teach English as a subject: for example to read the word ‘cat’ the syllable taught is “c” to pronounce as “ic” and “at” as “at” ic + at = cat.

Tamil a vernacular language is also taught in our school. For that book was designed from a child’s own situation. Mostly two letter or three letter words with apt pictures printed in books for easy learning.

School development: Children from the villages Melavellore, Ambalathadi, Kattaman kottai and other nearby villages are enrolled in our school. We had 23 children during our inauguration and the strength of the school slowly increased to 48 at the end of the year due to the nominal fee structure and the quality of education provided through innovative method of teaching.

Out of 48 children we had 50 % of them are from Kalanjiam Family, 30% are from poorest of the poor, 10 % are from daily labors remaining 10 % are from other categories.

Slowly the strength increased to 80 in numbers during the next academic year (2009 – 2010). At the same

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know the value of each number and the number is incorporated well in the mind. By counting and repeated activities children are able to learn numbers quickly and keep it in mind forever.

time curriculum development also had taken place for the children to have more exposure. Every week teachers sat together and discussed the plus and minus of the present syllabus and explored the means to improve it. Constant observation on children gave more idea in enhancing the syllabus. In our school we have extra curricular activities for the children to develop their interest in drawing, coloring, art from waste, etc. Evening last period is utilized for exercises, running practice, ball games, and so on. Children are coming from various villages with the help of our van.

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Our approach in Teaching:

Life Based teaching and learning is going on in our school. Every life situation is converted into lessons.

In books designed by us have only words and pictures which are very familiar to them in day to day life.

Parent’s expectation is their child going to school must talk in English, must recite A,B,C,D,; One, Two, Three, etc. and write alphabets and numerals. Hence we came out of the conventional way of teaching and learning process which believes in rot memory and thrusting information. We evolved our own methods of education which is child friendly and easily grasping and retaining it forever.

The methods we adopted are: z Teachers sit along with the children while teaching. z Pleasing approach.

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Positive reinforcement (You can do, do it, well, good, very good and etc.,) Teacher – children relationship is strengthened as we give attention on individual child, to improve their individuality.

No corporal punishment.

No imposition.

No stress on writing.

Oral communication is encouraged.

We emphasis on understanding the concepts rather than writing or reciting.

Activities are used to teach Mathematics.

Our teaching method: In Mathematics we teach numerals. For teaching numbers we have numbers and counting together.

First we teach numbers from 1 to 5, next to know the value of each number, children are given some cards, beads, lunch bags, books, chairs and things which are available in their class room (around them).

By counting activity they come to

Specially drawn charts are used for teaching fruits and vegetables.

When the children see vegetables and fruits they observe the color and name of a vegetable from their mother. We draw chart showing a fruit shop or vegetable shop, from that chart we teach them vegetables and fruits.

To teach vehicles we draw a chart of road showing many vehicles and show children various vehicles.

There is a plan of taking their family photo to teach them “My Family” concept. Everything with the help of a picture and word help the child in capture the idea behind. Colorful picture captures the attention of the child and helps in registering the word in mind. Beyond all these things due to our climatic condition prevailing in our country, we told the children not to wear shoes, socks, belt and tie. We believe that the uniform dress is to remove the economic inequality which may emotionally disturb the children. So the children of CBOA – DHAN wear uniform dress and nothing more. We are trying to avoid usage of slate and chalk as a healthy measure. As the children have the tendency of eating chalk piece which is made up of lime powder. (“kuchhi” in Tamil). Each and every thing we do is for the benefit of the children.

Impacts created: Through our model community school we created the following impacts:

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Children are using more words and reading the alphabets in KG level itself.

More confidence in dealing with numbers instead if rot memory.

Nominal fee structure which is even affordable in installments.

Community participation in school decision making process.

Parent’s active participation in Parent Teachers Association.

CBOA-DHAN school provides a meaningful education to the children.

Our teaching method gives a strong base to develop a child into a holistic development in learning.

Mr. Santhana Murugan, a Parent of Balakumar says, I am working in a hotel as server and my family is living in Thiruppuvanam, a village near Madurai. I have two sons both were studying in a school near our home.

For both my kids I had to pay school fees, every year I had to spend money for stitching uniform and spend separately for buying books.

I had to spend Rs.20,000 for education and transportation expenses.

I came to know from neighbor and my wife’s friend that Kalanjiam proposed school started by DHAN Foundation is situated in a remote village called Melavellore, 10 kilometers away from my house. I thought the school would charge more, but out of curiosity, I enquired about the school and fee structure.

It was a pleasant surprise to me to hear the school uniform was much less than the previous school. I decided to change the school and

enrolled my son in CBOA-DHAN school. My wife told me not to compromise with the quality of education for the reduced fee. But I convinced my wife by saying things from DHAN Foundation are known for its outstanding quality and admitted my children in CBOADHAN school. I paid the fees including school fees, books, note books and two sets of uniform. My expenditure came down to half of my previous expenses. I am very happy about my kids’ performance in education when compared to the previous school. Here my children feel very free to move with the teachers, all the subjects are taught with activity based works. I am very much satisfied with the school and learning process at school.

The student of our school, Madhavan says: I love this school because here no teacher in our school is stressing on doing repeated work of writing which I hate. Once I know to write then why I have to do that again and again. I enjoy being here, after the prayer we sing rhymes together and learn many things by doing. Next to

rhymes our teachers use to teach subject with the help of pictures and through stories. Very less written work and more on oral communication skill is the specialty of our school. Activities on subjects give us more information on what we study makes learning interesting.

Ms. Muniamma, mother of a KG Kid Master Karuppusamy says, I am the member of Gangai Vattara Kalanjiam, a federation, promoted by DHAN Foundation. I came to know about the school from my group members. I admitted my child in this school. When other children near to my house are reading only alphabets in Tamil and English my child is capable of reading words apart from reciting and writing alphabets in Tamil and English. I am very happy when he sings rhymes once after he comes from school.

Every day he comes with new information and activities to do.

Beyond all these the fee structure is affordable to me. As I am a house wife and my husband is construction labourer earning meager amount as salary on daily basis.

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I am very happy to go to school every day. My teachers teach rhymes every day. She is sitting with me and I am learning. They are very kind to me even if I do some mischief. I can sing, recite, read many words and write. We have lot of picture cards, charts to learn lessons, small books to learn and tiny chairs to sit, I like every thing here.

also given importance in finalizing the syllabus where in other schools we have to teach what the management says. Here we have the freedom in conducting the classes.

We are given importance in all education related aspects, we are recognized for our work, we have freedom to share and the give our ideas more than all these things we love this work environment because of the family atmosphere.

Our teachers say:

The Principal Says:

We all have finished a Diploma in Teacher Training to teach smaller kids, but the method we teach here is not the conventional one with black board. This method reduces the distance between the teacher and the student. We enjoy teaching with this method of ‘Life Oriented Activity Based Learning’ which gives us a different idea to teach subject in such a way that a child can understand.

We sit and analyze the level of the student and start teaching from their individual level. Teachers’ views are

We have started this school to serve for the poorest of the poor by providing better education. We provide foundation for life of the children. Self confidence is improved and the child is capable of facing the changing trends and situations in the society. The learning experiences what we give in our school is very much related to the child’s every day life situations. We are cautious in our teaching not to miss any of the curriculums of the other schools.

The difference we create remains in

The child (KG Kid Karuppusamy) says,

Master

the method of education and the way children react to the changing trends.

We take more attention to make the teachings lively and attached to the child’s own environment. Teachers are kind and affectionate to children.

We believe that we can bring no change through repeated writing and heavy home works. Instead we believe in activities and individual attention will give us success. We deal each child with a different approach.

The important humanistic principle behind our school is “First, Understand the child then teach him”. The education must be child centered not the teacher centered.

So a teacher must reach, touch and teach the child. According to the humanistic approach we should know our students, their interests, personality, capabilities, attitude, aptitude, potentials, level of aspiration his social, emotional, intellectual aesthetic development and mental health and should plan, use teaching method accordingly.

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Sustainable Agriculture

Returning to Nature Philosophy and Practice of Zero Budget Natural Farming S. Sathyanand*

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ne in three people in India is a farmer with farming as their only source of livelihood. It is obvious that the key to economic growth lays in the growth of agriculture. Particularly, to revive the vibrancy of the rural economy, and to ensure rural development, ‘natural farming’ can show us the way.

DHAN Foundation has been working for more than a decade towards development of the poor farmers by enhancing their livelihoods. The Foundation has adopted various strategies in achieving it. One among the strategy adopted is the introduction of ‘Zero Budget Natural Farming’ (ZBNF) method among the farmers. Mr. Subhash Palekar, the proponent of this method, a farmer and also an agriculture graduate, has been touring the nation in motivating the farmers and demonstrating a sustainable and viable method of farming system. In fact, he says it requires zero cost, thereby aptly naming it ‘ZBNF’. He had experimented in his own farm of 25 acres for the past three decade. Now he is taking this farming method to nook and corner of the nation.

DHAN Foundation’s Rainfed Farming Development Programme in Nattarampalli facilitated farmers in taking up this ZBNF by giving them training to Subhash Palekar’s seminar and exposure visits to

progressive natural farmers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Following this, around 200 farmers have taken up this farming method and had realized the benefits.

This article gives a preliminary introduction to this method of farming, and narrates the underlying philosophy so as to help professionals in DHAN to experiment with this method of farming in their location.

Depletion of Soil Fertility depletion and Shortage in supply of Chemical fertilizers It was in the 1970s that ‘Green Revolution’ (GR) came about with the sole aim of increasing the agricultural productivity. It was the time of mass hunger and starvation, and India was in short supply of food

grains, which it has to import from other countries.

As the scientists and others promised, the GR brought about food self-sufficiency to India. Its two main weapons were ‘chemical fertilizers’ and ‘hybrid variety of seeds’. It has been 30-40 years since the chemical method of farming was adopted, and only now we are witnessing the aftermath effects of adopting them. It is to be noted that these chemical fertilizers are manufactured from petroleum byeproducts and they are basically salt.

When we put these salts in the land, though they seem to enrich the soil, these are actually killing the soil. It is a common practice to add salt during the pickle making process.

Salt preserves the pickles by preventing the growth of

* S. Sathyanand, Project Executive, Centre for Development Communication, DHAN Foundation, Madurai

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Australia, Germany, which were proponents of these chemicals are fast changing their tracks to organic farming. They have banned the usage of many of these agricultural chemicals.

Ironically, these chemicals are still in use today in countries like India. It is necessary that an agriculture-dependent country like India should open its eyes to the fast-changing realities.

A Tradition of Natural Farming

microorganisms. The same thing happens when we apply chemical fertilizers in the land. The growth of microorganisms, which is the key to soil fertility, is arrested with the addition of chemical fertilisers. It also results in increasing salinity of the soil, and reduced soil fertility. Any farmers will vouch to this fact.

Another big problem faced by the farmers is the shortage in supply of these fertilizers, resulting in escalation of their price. As chemical fertilizers are from petroleum origin and there is increasing demand of these products. Consequently, the price of chemical fertilizers made from petroleum is also seeing a shortage in supply and hence increase in price.

There are mounting scientific evidences proving the ill-effects of chemical fertilizers on the farmers and the consumers, alike. Cases of severe harmful effects are in raising toll, it ranges from simple skin allergies, respiratory irregularities, cancer and even death is recorded due to prolonged use of agricultural chemicals (includes fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides).

Countries like US, UK, France,

It is at this moment of that many experts and progressive natural farmers are showing the rest of world a way of hope. Particularly, the natural farming method of Subash Palekar has been showing promising results as evident from the cases of farmers in Nattarampalli. His method very much applies to resource-poor farmers requiring minimum, if not zero cost. India has rich tradition of natural farming method, for it has been the only method of farming.

It has been tradition among our Indian farming communities to practice sheep/goat and cattle penning before the beginning of the crop season. The sheep, goats or cattle are fenced in particular spot on the land overnight for two or three days. The dung and urine of the livestock herd during the stay enriches the soil, helps the growth of microorganisms and earthworms, thereby enhancing the soil fertility.

These methods are still in practice among the tribal farmers in remote tribal tracts of Jawadhu hills in Pudurnadu, also in other traditional farming communities. Moreover, the usage of local variety of seeds had long since evolved and inherited a strong immunity to the local pests

and diseases. Highly priced hybrid seeds lack immunity which forces the use of highly hazardous pesticides and insecticides. All these factors increase the cost of cultivation.

The best example of a natural system is a forest, independent of any human interventions. The natural cycle is so perfectly balanced that the system requires no external chemicals or anything of that sort to ensure its survival. For example, the root absorbs nutrients deep within the soil thereby it grows with new branches and leaves. The older ripened leaves and branches fall within the canopy of the trees, and they decay and decompose, becoming ‘soil’ which is again absorbed by the trees for their growth and the process continues.

No one can question about the productivity given the forest’s lushness. The Zero Budget Natural System hopes to revive the natural system in the agricultural lands by exactly mimicking the forest system.

Four Chakhras of the ZBNF For creating a natural and highly productive system in agriculture field, the ZBNF requires the smooth functioning of the four chakhras. The farmer should ensure all these four chakhras are followed to realize complete benefit from this system.

The four chakhras are 1. Bijamrita, 2.Jiwamrita, 3.Mulching, and 4.Water Management. The details of these chakhras are given below.

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Bijamrita

The potency of seed that was ejected by a bird that had a fruit for its supper is so well known. When

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Preparation of Bijamrita Ingredients: Take 20 liters of water, 5 Kg local cow dung, 5 liters of local cow urine, 50 gram Lime and handful of soil from the bund of the farm.

Method: Take 5 Kg local cow dung in a cloth and bind it by tape. Hang this in the 20 litres of water for 12 hours.

Take one liter water and add 50 gm lime in it, let it stable for a night.

Then next morning, squeeze this bundle of the cow dung in that water thrice continuously, so that all essence of cow dung will dissolve uniformly in that water.

Then add a handful of soil in that water solution and stir it well.

Then add 5 litres of deshi cow urine or human urine in that solution and add the lime water and stir it well.

Now Bijamrita is ready to treat the seeds. the seed passes through the digestive tract of the bird, the seed is welltreated removing any kind of insects and pests. Bijamrita helps in treating the seed in similar manner.

The seeds are dipped inside the Bijamitra solution, and then are ready of use. By this, the eggs and larvae of any insects or pests, spores of infectious fungi are completely destroyed, and further adds rigor to help the seeds grow well.

The cow dung provides an ambient condition for the multiplication of beneficial microorganisms, bacteria and fungi, necessary for the enhancing soil fertility. At the same time, the cow dung can stimulate and attract the earthworms which usually are at a depth of 12 feet underground. When one lifts the cow dung, one could

see small pin-sized holes made in the land; this is evidence of visitors from the earth below attracted by the smell of the cow dung. The earthworms, reaching the soil surface, convert the organic matter on the surface into readily available nutrients for the soil. The availability of food means increasing earthworm population, and their continuous boring in the soil, helps in soil aeration.

Due to the decreasing population of livestock and the resource constraints, it is impossible to manure the entire land with cow dung. This is where ‘Jiwamrita’ comes in handy. The Jiwamrita is basically a concentrated microbial culture prepared from the cow dung. Applying Jiwamrita through the irrigation water is nothing but the process of inoculating the land with this culture. This triggers the growth of microorganisms and help increase the number of earthworms.

Jiwamrita must be supplied once in 15 days in case of short duration crops, and once in 20 days for other crops.

Preparation of Jiwamrita To prepare Jiwamrita for an acre, the following items will be needed.

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Jiwamrita

To increase the yield, the fertility of the soil should be enhanced.

Similarly, to increase the soil fertility, the microbial population and the number of earthworms in the soil needs to be increased. The chemical fertilizers inhibit the growth of microorganisms, and kill the earthworms. In order to increase the number of microorganisms and the earthworms, cow dung and urine are used. Hence the age old penning practice is encouraged.

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Cow dung (from desi cow) – 10 kg

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Cow urine – 10 litres

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Pulses flour (black/ green/ red/ Bengal gram) – 2 kg (supplies protein for microbial growth)

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Cane sugar – 2 kg (or) pieces of stem of Sweet sorghum – 10 kg(or) Tender coconut water – 2 (supplies carbohydrates for microbial growth)

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Handful of soil from the bund (source of local microbial population)

The above said materials should be mixed well with 200 litres of water, and kept for two days. On the third day, the Jiwamrita can be mixed with the irrigation water and supplied to the entire field. It is necessary that the solution be mixed well three times in the morning, noon and evening in the clockwise direction during the two days.

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flood irrigation method requires huge amount of water, and most of it is also wasted. ZBNF proposes an alternative method of irrigation and water management requiring onetenth of the conventional irrigation method. It is based on two important principles in the natural system.

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Mulching

Mixed cropping pattern is our traditional method of farming. This is a natural law existence in nature.

If we classify the plant kingdom, 20% of species belongs to dicots, and other 80% belongs to monocot.

But when we look at the plant population in a natural system like forest, 80% of the population belongs to dicots, while the monocot occupies only 20%. It is traditional practice among farmers to grow cereal crops (monocot) like ragi, cumbu, sorghum, maize, rainfed paddy, millets, with pulses (dicot) like red, green, black or Bengal gram as intercrops. This practice is in tandem with the natural law. Why is this so? And what is its importance?

The dicots belong to Leguminaceae family of plants, which have the special property of fixing free atmospheric Nitrogen in the soil in symbiotic association with bacteria named Rhizobium present in their root nodules. This helps increase the soil fertility, thereby completing avoiding the necessity of external inputs like chemical fertilisers. Again, our forefathers are wise enough to recognize this natural law, and thereby adopt it in their own fields, maintaining a fertility balance in the soil. Few other plants apart from pulses also have the capacity to fix nitrogen like Moringa (drumstick), Sesbania, Dianchia, Glyricidia.

These plants can be grown as intercrops in horticultural plantations.

There are two different types of mulching, first is live mulching meaning the cultivation of appropriate intercrops between the rows of the main crop. The second one is dry mulching. In this method of mulching, dry twigs and leaves are spread in between the crops, mimicking the forest system, where the nutrient cycle is pretty much stays within the system, and doesn’t leave the land. On application of Jiwamrita, the leaves and twigs get decomposed adding fertility to the soil. There is one other use in practicing mulching.

With soil surface completely covered with intercrops and mulch, the sunlight is optimally absorbed by the canopy itself, and little or no light falls on the soil directly. This helps maintain a microclimate with dense humidity in the air and moisture retained in the soil, which in turn reduces the external water requirement to a bare minimum.

The rainwater thus pours is absorbed by the mulch, and is stored by it.

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‘A plant or a tree doesn’t actually drink water, as we humans do, it absorbs only water vapours through its tiny root hairs are its mouth. Also, these root hairs are present at the end of its roots just below the end of the tree canopy (figure). So it is not necessary to give water to foot of a tree, but rather at the edges of the tree canopy is very well suffice. This is the first principle. The second principle says, ‘in order to get a good yield, there should be good growth of the shoot system; to get a good growth of shoot system, there should be good height of the shoot system; to get a good height of the shoot system, there should be good growth of the root system; and to get a good growth of the root system, there should be good length of the root system. So, in order to get a good yield, farmers just need to facilitate the lengthening of the root system.

How could this be done? It is now that we understood it is the root hairs present at the edges of the root system that absorb water, not the roots present at the foot of the tree.

So, a triangular trench 3x1.5 feet should be dug out a feet away from the edges of the canopy, and the irrigation water could be supplied through these trenches. The root hairs will starts to grow towards the water, increasing the spread of the root system, and therefore, the tree will grow well.

Water Management

Last component in ZBNF is proper water management techniques. The usual practice of

If farmers practice this method of irrigation, just one-tenth of the water will be required as in the conventional system.

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Perspective

Mainstreaming Development Paradigm M.P. Vasimalai* 1. Preamble

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he December 2004 Tsunami was an opportunity for DHAN Foundation to initiate the process of development in the coastal context. The process of relief, restoration and rehabilitation was done with difference. The difference is that it was planned and implemented by and through the community and community organisations leading to quick recovery, restoration and sustenance of livelihoods of the coastal community. In simple terms, it could be termed as Development in Fast Track. The experiences gained through the programme reiterates the point that post disaster recovery has to be planned as long term development programme in-order to build a resilient society; through the short term interventions the status quo can only be restored but it is not possible to address the risks and vulnerabilities holistically. The post tsunami programme of DHAN – Enabling Livelihood Restoration – is a typical model of evolving a long term development programme starting with post disaster recovery.

This paper highlights the model adopted, families reached and impact created by DHAN in the coastal areas.

2. Community Driven Model Disaster Recovery to Long Term Development With years of experience in coastal areas (Gulf of Mannar under

the UNDP GEF funded project) DHAN had a thorough knowledge on the risks and vulnerabilities of the coastal communities. It believed that sustainable development in coastal areas can only be achieved by organising the unorganised coastal community, enabling them for entitlements and facilitate for a better access to mainstream resources.

Hence post tsunami, DHAN adopted a community driven approach. The prime focus in its approach was organising the affected communities as institutions at three distinct levels of hamlet/village, panchayat and block and build their capacity to address their development needs.

The federations that are promoted at the block level collaborate with the other development agencies to mobilise resources and other services for its members. The approach of DHAN was that of facilitation so that the communities could prepare themselves for the long-term

* M.P. Vasimalai, Executive Director, DHAN Foundation, Madurai.

reconstruction with enabling process. The initiatives in the disaster-affected areas were taken in three distinct yet overlapping phases. z

Phase I: Strengthening and supporting relief operations (3 months)

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Phase II: Restoring Livelihoods through collective action ( 2 years)

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Phase III: Building selfreliance and Coastal Resource Conservation and Management (5 – 6 years)

The first phase of 3 months focused on filling the gaps in relief, reaching the un-reached, and to cover the vulnerable and marginal sections in the relief net. The communities were involved in ensuring equity in relief distribution.

Innovative methods of household card were distributed to avoid confusion and duplication.

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Renovation of livelihood infrastructure such as water bodies, drainage channels, boat repair etc., were taken as part of food for work programme in the relief phase itself.

DHAN adopted the following approach in its relief phase: z Immediate relief in the 290 affected villages identified z Identifying and intervening in the villages which are not supported / reached by other NGOs z Filling the gaps in relief interventions in all the villages z Field level assessment on damages with the support of professionals z Participation of the community while assessing the damage

z

Convergence with other institutions for implementing the relief activities

z

Involving the community leaders in serving the community

z

Identification of the affected people with the support of local community

z

Involving community in the purchase and distribution of relief materials

z

Avoiding duplication in the execution of relief

In the second phase (2005 - 07), the focus was on organising the community and restoring livelihoods through the people institutions. The vulnerable and marginal sections in

DHAN’s Community Driven Model for Post Tsunami Recovery

the coastal areas were given an exclusive focus. The intervention also had special focus on the women in coastal areas and thematic institutions for the development of women were evolved. The programme resulted in organising 70,113 poor families in 330 coastal villages into 4049 primary level people institutions.

The third phase starts with stabilising the interventions made so far in the coastal areas during which all the planned programme interventions are in place and the organised people institutions (41 federations) equip themselves to restore, conserve and manage the coastal natural resources.

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less were provided with alternate livelihood options like inland fresh water fishing, ornamental fish stocking and trading, mud crab culture etc., Mainstreaming the communities with banks helped in reducing their vulnerability to local money lenders (exorbitant interest rates). In addition, DHAN also facilitated better access to markets by organising the fisher folks as Kalanjia Meenavar Sangam. About Rs. 70 Millions worth of business transactions were facilitated between the fishers and fish markets.

3. Sectoral focus The community in the coastal areas are involved in a variety of livelihood activities that include marine and backwater fishing, coastal agriculture, salt pan, sea shell and chunk collection, palm based activity etc., The risks and vulnerabilities of these communities also vary widely. To address the issues in each of these sectors DHAN promoted exclusive people institutions in the coastal areas. Thus the women in coastal areas were organised as Kalanjiams (Women SHG’s), the marine and backwater fishers as Meenavar (fisheries) Kalanjiams (men SHG) and the men and women of coastal agriculture together as Vayalagam SHG. This helped in prioritising and addressing the livelihood issues exclusively but collectively. So far, DHAN was able to organise 31,044 women as Kalanjiams, 26,230 fisher folks as Meenavar Kalaniams and 12,839 men and women as Vayalagams(farming).

Fisheries: In fisheries sector the focus was on traditional fishers who are involved in fishing using country crafts. DHAN made exclusive focus to include the backwater and backwater channel fishing communities most of whom come under the economically weaker section category. In view of the dwindling near shore fish stocks in the country DHAN decided not to provide new boats but to repair / replace the existing ones. The asset

Coastal Agriculture: The coastal agriculture sector is unique but one of the neglected sectors by the mainstream. It is infested with declining productivity, slow rate of technology transfer, increasing soil salinity, exploitative agriculture produce marketing. Adding to the woes are the frequent drought and floods that jeopardize the livelihoods of the farming community. The invasion of marine soil on the agriculture fields still aggravated the situation. DHAN was one among the first to respond to this sector and brought in state of the technologies

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(Wageningen University) to grass roots in reclaiming the affected fields. The farmers were exposed and trained on the latest farming techniques through the extension centers – Coastal Agriculture resource Centre. The organised communities were facilitated for better market linkages for seed and fertilizer procurement and also in marketing their agriculture produce.

More than 300 tonnes worth agriculture produce have been handled by the community organisations so far.

Marginal Communities : In addition to fishers and farmers there is a wide spectrum of livelihood activities in which the coastal communities were involved which includes salt pan, backwater / backwater channel fishing, sea shell and chunk collectors, palm based activities etc., The intervention reached such communities also and their needs with respect to livelihood restoration and strengthening have also been addressed through the enabling model. More than 40% of the total beneficiaries covered under

the programme will fall under this category.

4.

Transition – Livelihood restoration to sustenance

Three years post tsunami, DHAN was able to organise the community, build institutions, restore and strengthen their livelihoods. In order to sustain the livelihoods it is imperative to conserve and manage the coastal resources in an effective

way. DHAN is of firm belief that the coastal natural resources can be effectively managed by the community through the people institutions and through cooperation and partnerships. Its experience in creating such systems in the Vayalagam programme has been very effective, time tested and found successful. The community driven model evolved by DHAN for effective management for natural resources (small scale water bodies) hinterland provides the basis for implementing similar systems in coastal areas also. It is proposed to integrate the existing institutions at the hamlet level and evolve exclusive institutions to focus on restoration, conservation and management of coastal natural resources. The community institutions would be facilitated by DHAN to mobilise resources internally and from mainstream to effectively manage the resources. In a period of 5 – 6 years, DHAN has planned to evolve a coastal community resource management system.

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inculcated with the concept of Self help and Mutuality can react and respond much better at times of disasters thus reducing the overall impact of the disaster. So far about Rs. 122 Millions have been mobilised as savings from the community.

The internal savings also helped in mobilising Rs.120 Millions from mainstream financial institutions.

5.

Initiatives in mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

In the process of livelihood restoration DHAN mainstreamed the concept of DRR through the following initiatives: a.

Community Owned Recovery: The organised community were enabled to restore and as well as initiate new livelihood activities. The financial support was routed through the people institution as a grant to the group and interest free loan to the member. The repaid amount to the people institution is stocked as risk reduction fund to meet any eventualities in future. b. Self help with savings: The members of the people institutions were inculcated with the habit of savings. The amount and period of savings is decided by the members of the SHG. The savings generated within the group is used by the members for internal lending thus meeting their emergency requirements. Self help and mutuality is habituated through the micro finance activity. A community

c. Partnerships for stabilising livelihoods: The organised communities were enabled to establish partnerships at different levels. Partnerships were forged with Government, Banks, Corporates and Research Institutions for improved skills, better access to resources and hence stabilised livelihoods for the affected community. d. Social Security: Realising the need and importance of extending social security for all the communities who are exposed to maximum no. of natural disasters, DHAN started extending life coverage for its members. So far, about 34,482 poor families have been covered under life insurance.

In addition to the coverage extended to the members, their spouses were also enrolled covering about 17,039.

The total number of insurance claims made was 86 and an amount of Rs. 2.34 Million claimed as compensation.

Through the programme – Enabling Livelihood Restoration – DHAN was able to effectively restore

the livelihoods of about 68,000 families in the tsunami affected coastal areas. The success of the programme lies in the community driven model adopted by DHAN. The model has been proven successful with the affected communities participating in the entire process of restoration in a disaster context.

6.

Way Forward

The interventions made so far by DHAN helped in reducing risks and vulnerabilities of the coastal communities and improve their income at household level. Through the programme, livelihoods of 60,457 coastal families have been strengthened and stabilized.

Organising the community as institutions and routing the restoration through the institutions is the key in this entire process of disaster recovery and development.

The approach builds the concept of self help, mutuality and senses of togetherness and thereby the resilience of the coastal community.

In four years down the line, DHAN was able to build the institutions with systems in place for their effective functioning and self management. In the next phase, the institutions will be made aware on the need to conserve the coastal natural resources which they depend directly for their livelihoods. DHAN would facilitate the institutions to evolve village level management plans so as to conserve and manage the coastal resources. The sustenance of coastal livelihoods depends on well managed coastal resources which will be the focus of DHAN in its next phase of development.

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Development Tools

Resource Mapping PDM 8 batch students of Tata-Dhan Academy*

R

esource map is one of the most commonly used PRA methods next to social map. While the social map focuses on habitation, commonly facilities, roads, temples, etc. The resource map focuses on the natural resources in the locality and depicts land, hills, rivers, fields, vegetation, etc. A resource map covers habitation as well. A resource map in PRA is not drawn to scale. It is not done by experts but by the local people. The local people are considered to have an in-depth knowledge of the surroundings where they have survived for a long time. Hence the resource map drawn by the local people is considered to be accurate and detailed. It is important to keep in mind, however, that it reflects the people’s perceptions rather than precise measurements of scale. Thus, a resource map reflects how people view their own locality in terms of natural resources.

Two batches of students went to two different villages to conduct PRA with different perspectives.

Konnaiyanpatti village –Microfinance perspective: We were divided into groups of two to go around the village and request the people and mobilize them to this exercise. After this process the people took almost 35 minutes to turn for participating in the exercise. We welcomed all villagers

as they came and slowly stated the exercise after having a brief introduction about this exercise. To begin with we started drawing the map with the help of people especially with Ayyamperumal, Kannan, Devi and Chinnachamy who voluntarily came forward to initiate the process. All of them participated till the whole of the village in terms of their resource information was over. While the map was being drawn by Ms. Devi also participated in putting the colour powder and village people were discussing and correcting, and again discussing to make it sure that it is exactly in the same place. It was like survey method to know the availability of wells with or without power and oil motor connection.

Hence, people were able to unleashed their observation and bring about the resources according to their ownership, when the resource persons were committing mistakes, the fellow villagers were correcting them. The process started at 5.30 pm and ended by 8.45 pm, people were not disturbed during the activity. Next day also the map was prepared with 3 resource persons namely Ayyamperumal, Ravichandran and Jay Kumar gave the name of the landholders. It took 2 hours, from 9:30 am to 11:30 am.

Lesson We found 93 percent of the total land is cultivable which means that

* Tata-Dhan Academy, Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

even though people now-a-days have gem cutting as their primary occupation some of them do farming as their primary occupation. It was very interesting and appreciable thing happened in that village. The practices of crop cultivation are from horticulture to agriculture and in majority of the land cultivating as multi crop cultivation.

Also, 54.76 percent of the wells were connected by oil motor which means more than half of the proportion are motored. It leads to high expense due to increasing petrol price and some of them are using kerosene too. When they can’t afford the price of petrol, they go for kerosene which leads to a decrease in the life of those machines.

Possibilities of Interventions z

Implementation of tank renovation program in that village will help to harvest the rain water and utilising it for both irrigation and drinking purpose. During the failure of monsoon the farming is affected due to lack of water in the well. So, the tank renovation work definitely would help them.

z

Lending for electricity connection would help people save the money spent on petrol and motor. Hence capital expenditure as well as revenue expenditure will be taken care of.

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z

Providing crop insurance product which means the crops often fail due to lack of well water and rain water. So, the lost crop cannot be compensated. It leads to indebtedness and sometime starving for food. Consequently to introducing the insurance product after some scrutinizing process.

Learning We understood the availability and accessibility of resources in the village. The size and distribution of the land was transferred from generation to generation. This led to a decrease in the landholding per household with half of them having less than one acre because the village has a very limited geographical area due to mountain in three sides.

Eventually we came to know the risk and vulnerabilities and coping mechanism of the people especially in resource point of view.

Ayyanampatty - Health Perspective: To understand the natural resources and their utilization and can have a profound impact on health; hence an understanding about the available natural resources, habitation, agriculture followed is necessary to have a holistic view about the health condition of the village.

Objectives z To know the cropping pattern existing in the village in order to understand their food habits z To know the availability of vegetation and trees species which influence on people health?

z

To understand the availability and utilization of water resources.

As the people are daily wage labourers the people are hesitate to come for the PRA exercise. Later on we conducted exercise only during the late evening. Finally we mobilised the people with the help of village youths and also with songs. We went to each household to invite the people to participate in the resource mapping process. We used leaves, flowers, paddy straw, colour powder, plastic colour coins and Rangoli powder for resource mapping.

During the transect walk we walked around the village. Village people without any hesitation helped us and scanned the resource, cultivable and dry land. Watching the process makes us more educated about the resource. We used the transect walk for resource map.

Initially one of our friends started to ask the resource about the village.

Women shared about their village resources. One woman came to the centre and she drew the map in the ground with rangoli powder. When we started the resource map, initially there were eight to ten members.

The process was interesting. After some time nearly thirty members were assembled and participated in the process. Among them most of them were women.

Good practices During the transect walk we walked around the village. Village people without any hesitation helped us to discuss about the resource and they show the cultivable land and dry land. Watching the thing itself make

us more educated on the resource and we raised the questions to the stake holders, they make us very clear on the resource.

Difficulties We gathered all the people; we took the help of the associates, and started mobilising the people. Initially stage people are very interested to participate. But later on people felt monotonous due to the participation.

So we motivated them.

Outcome Most of the people have own cultivable land, they were cultivating different types of crops in the whole year. This village farmers are mainly depending on the rain water and well water for irrigation. Maximum of the farmers have own well. Villagers are using the well water for bathing. But they are not allowed to take bath inside the well. Near to the mountain there is a check dam. This dam is very helpful to recharge the ground water. The mountain provides some natural resources for this village.

Some of the fruits are available from this mountain. The people was using this mountain as a grazing land. But now the forest department is protecting the forest. So the graze land is decreased. Due to the decreased graze land, the number of cattle also decreased. This makes a lot of problem related to health.

Because when there was lot of cattle there were no diseases. But when the cattle are decreased the health problems also started.

While compare to the dry land cultivable land are more in place.

Primary occupation of the village is agriculture and the allied activity is

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cattle raring. Even the cattle also depend on the agriculture the resource in the village makes them profit. Crops cultivated in this village are Sugarcane, coconut tree, groundnut, maize, sunflower, chilly, onion, marigold, celosiea, radish, paddy, glyricidia, horse gram, sorghum etc, Inference People are mainly depending on the natural resources. So they engage in the cultivation. Both men and women involve in cultivation.

Even small children are involved in the agricultural activity. But forest department make ban on grazing.

This leads to reduction of livestock.

So they don’t have natural fertilizer.

Now a day they are purchasing pesticides and artificial fertilizer.

Possible interventions Promotion of the cattle rearing can help them to have natural fertilizer. This leads to good and profitable cultivation. People mainly depend on the natural resources like rain, soil, and agriculture. If drought or flood or any other natural calamities occurs, it will affect the whole occupation of the village and leads to poverty. So promotion of other occupation like self employment, small enterprises etc will be better for their life.

Reflection When we finish the entire process of the resource mapping, the

villager compares the past and present situation of the resources.

If we see the past situation the resources are very high in fertility.

But now the soils are decline in fertility due to pesticides and artificial fertilizers. People are mainly depending on the natural resources.

So they engage in the cultivation.

Both men and women involve in cultivation. Even small children are involved in the agricultural activity.

But forest department make ban on grazing. This leads to reduction of livestock. So they don’t have natural fertilizer. Now a day they are purchasing pesticides and artificial fertilizer. Due to this plants are weak condition. This shows negative scenario on the occupation.

Livelihoods

Weaving the tomorrows….

Endogenous Tourism in Karaikudi Karthick Gopal* Background:

T

ourism is one of the world’s leading Global industries (11% of Global GDP). The World Tourism Organization estimates that there will be 1.5 billion tourists in 2020, representing 21% of world population. Strong population growth in developing regions is set to attract almost 50% of international tourists in 2020. The World Tourism Organization notes that with in the next 5 – 10 years, range of product on offer to tourist seeking the rural experience is to increase

significantly. There is a clear trend in the growth of rural tourism with the increase in the number of tourists visiting these places. India’s vast rural diversity and heritage offer tremendous potential for tourism in rural areas.

Tourism is one of the major vehicles for generating sustainable livelihood in India. Towards this end, the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, UNDP India, and leading NGOs are jointly developing alternative models for rural tourism across the country

with a view to position such models as engines of economic growth. The high potential tourism sector would address the development issues such as poverty reduction, developing vibrant local economy, revival and regeneration of arts and crafts, preservation of culture, and most importantly the gender equity.

India has several forms of art and handicrafts. Contribution to national integration and the social transformation of the economic lives of people are important features of tourism. Over 176 million domestic

* Karthick Gopal, Project Executive, Tourism Theme, DHAN Foundation, Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu.

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and disadvantaged groups.

Endogenous tourism comprises two components: software and Hardware. The software component comprises four main activities including promotion of activity based groups and their federation; skill building for traditional activities; and market linkages and tourism promotion.

The hardware component emphasizes on the construction or development of the infrastructure for tourists.

Chettinad tourists visit different parts of the country every year and return with a better understanding of the people living in other regions of the country and of the cultural diversity of India.

Tourism also encourages preservation of monuments and heritage properties and helps the survival of art forms, crafts, and culture.

Today, tourism is not seen as an activity of visiting a tourist spot, clicking a few photographs, and preserving them for posterity; instead, it is expected to play a larger role in the development of mankind.

The stated objective of the nation is to distribute the benefit of tourism more widely, contribute to poverty reduction, sustainable development of gender equity, and minimize adverse social impact. There is a strong case of rebuilding pride and respect for women, enthusiastic minorities, disabled, mentally challenged, and other disadvantaged groups of people. National tourism policy 2005 has identified village tourism as a primary tourism product to spread tourism and socio–economic benefits to rural and new geographical area.

Endogenous Rural tourism Project The impact of migration has also been distinct on the culture of the centres of ancient civilization. The arts and the architecture have started fading; the livelihood of the rural people has also been affected due to these migrations. But the interest of people to go back to their villages, stay in their residences, and relive in their own culture is still deep rooted.

And it is a success formula for rural tourism. The international tourists will also be interested in sharing the same rich experience, living in the residences, living with the community, tasting their food, interacting with them, visiting the historic sites, buying their “trade mark” products, and so on.

The Project on Endogenous Tourism is a part of a growing GOIUNDP partnership to promote new and innovative approaches to build livelihood opportunities, through community action. Its Focus within the Rural Tourism Programme of Ministry of Tourism is on the Cultural, craft, and ecological dimensions of rural life as a means to create viable livelihood opportunities, especially for women

Karaikudi is the bastion of Chettinad culture, captivating the visitor with spectacular mansions, refined woodcarving, and tangy Chettinad cuisine. The Chettiar community, torch-bearers of modern banking, has now laid open several of their magnificent homes, offering unique home-stay insights to the venturing Chettinad spirit of enterprise.

The visitor is welcomed to the family’s history, the quest for success and the drive that has yielded these grandiose buildings, their egg plastering technique…leading on that magnificence to fine silver handicrafts, woven saris, palm leaf baskets and unique hand-made Athangudi tiles.

The immense tourism potential of Chettinad, which has been receiving a large number of foreign tourists, will be utilized to boost the economy of local people through a number of community-based initiatives.

Creating employment opportunities through tourism projects, creating market linkages for artisans of Chettinad region, training for artisans to improve the skill,

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3.

Identifying the role of different stakeholders in poverty reduction through tourism and involving them.

4.

Benefiting the community through significant tourism economy.

5.

Nurturing the skills of the community to promote especially skilled persons in the community.

The core issues promoting rural livelihood, and marketing Chettinad cuisine through innovative methods are few of the plans. As a first step towards exploring the avenues for income generation of local people and to sustain the efforts of popularizing the pride of Chettinad, the district administration, with the support of DHAN Foundation, firmed up a community managed rural tourism concept.

The aim is that local people should receive benefits by marketing all Chettinad related items such as Kandanki saris, Athangudi tiles, wood carving works, and other handicrafts. All the efforts would benefit the larger masses of the local community and would bring back the traditional living. The community managed tourism would involve multi stake holders for the holistic approach of poverty reduction, and gender empowerment and invite the migrated citizens to return to live in their own place and bring back the traditional livelihood of the local community that would sustain for generations. The socio-economic development of the host community could be visualized, through the impacts of tourism.

z

It has become clear that if the architectural heritage is preserved, there will be a lot of possibilities for heritage tourism to occur. Linked to this is the conservation of the Chettiar community who need sensitive encouragement to become involved in this endeavor.

Financial constraints limit the ability of families to maintain their homes.

z

Local artisans at present are seeking alternative occupations; there is no call on their traditional skills because new buildings do not need wood carvers or traditional crafts. It

Objectives: The Overall goal of rural tourism is to create a community-managed rural tourism model through strengthening sustainable livelihoods of the local communities for the preservation and development of local heritage and culture of Chettinad Villages. The immediate objective will be: 1.

Exploring the avenues for livelihood promotion and the scope of development in the villages through tourism.

2.

Promoting people institutions for sustainability.

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involve multi-stake holders including the government officials, financial institutions, tourist guides and the leading chettiar community. This model would serve the purpose of each and every entity, in itself, keeping in mind that the model always ensures sustainability of the institutions, and carries the rich cultural heritage of Chettinad to the tourists, with their established ethics.

has become a common feature for young Chettiar and young members of other communities to seek employment in the cities and abroad. The pull of their roots is strong and draws them back for major family occasions and festivals. If heritage tourism were successful they might be happy to build their lives in Chettinad permanently. z

This is largely agricultural land with good soil and knowledge on cultivation. However, the farmers are entirely dependent on rainfall. This means that agriculture suffers every time the rains fail.

Institution building for sustainable tourism DHAN Foundation in Karaikudi is working at the grassroots to empower women and craftsmen through forming and strengthening people organisations. During the implementation of the project, thirtytwo activity groups have been promoted, reaching 368 artisans.

One hundred and five women SHGs have been promoted, reaching 1,550 poor families.

The institutions promoted would constitute a federation of Kalanjiam SHGs, which would be linked with the Producer Company, consisting of the artisans. This model would

The representatives of each entity have been constituted as Chettinad tourism Development committee. This committee, would work for the development of tourism, based on the need, and would approach various agencies or departments to fulfill the requirements. The members of this

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committee are the elected representatives of the Panchayats (their role will be discharging the duties, as per the requirements; approaching the government agencies, especially for infrastructure development); artisans (based on the tourist requirements, they would create different

products, upgrade their skills); Representatives from the tourism department (they would consolidate the demands, based on the inputs, would draw plans, support the initiatives by linking the circuits); home-stay groups (based on the demand, would modify the packages, provide the tourists a

memorable experience of Chettinad); Guides (would work with ethics), DHAN Foundation (would facilitate the community, guide them and ensures that everything is set right, until everyone clearly understands who they are and what they should do).

Model for Tourism Governance Progressing in Chettinad

Skill-building of the community to meet the tourism demands We could find a gap between the capacity of the community and the tourist demands, during the initiation of the tourism location. Continuous capacity-building is required to the community so that they could deliver the products of tourism demands. Initiatives started with the series of workshops, involving the artisan community, few people from district administration or

development agencies, so that the linkages is possible, along with the skill building processes. The activities which have greater affinity towards the tourists have been identified. These included the Chettinad cuisine and snacks preparation, Kandanki saree (handloom) weaving, hand made tile making, and wood carving. The artisans of the above trades, who are organized in the institutions, were given training to improve their skills on the following aspects, such as to

promote new tourism products like souvenirs, improve their existing skills, and finally to provide skills to the community, who had interest in running the enterprises related to tourism, but had least knowledge in the trade and carrying the activity.

The skill-building programmes were planned on the skill level of the community, involving the mastercraftsmen in the process. The series of these skill-building programmes have resulted in the product promotion like souvenirs in

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the sustainability focus. We could visualize the ownership of the community, throughout the implementation of the Project, for they get real benefit.

wood carving, brass metal works, Athangudi tiles and even in food preparation like a design of a menu for the guests. The whole process has equipped the community to get more confidence along with the skill.

Market linkages and tourism Promotion The artisans have been provided opportunities to participate in trade fairs such as Dilli Haat and in various exhibitions to showcase their activity and their products and also to sell their crafts. Selling the site is an important task for the project. This would help in attracting the tourists to the site and would directly benefit the local community. Efforts have been taken to sell the site through brochures, video documentation of the project site, website creation, and organizing tours. Development tours have provided great rich experience of designing of the tour packages, helping the community to internalize the benefits of tourism and to fine tune their skills.

Working with the Panchayats Resource mobilization for the project components is strongly

recommended by UNDP for working with different stake holders and to scale up the project. In Karaikudi, strong collaboration has been done with the Town Panchayats, for the implementation of the SJSRY scheme. Pallathur, Kanadukaathan, Pudhuvayal, Kottaiyur are the Panchayats in which the collaborations have been done. Till date, through the SJSRY Scheme, around 27 SHG members were trained in the preparation of Chettinad cuisine and snacks. The resource mobilized from these Panchayats is Rs.54,000. These sorts of collaborations have also resulted in the close interaction with Panchayat administration, which helps us in the micro-planning for Tourism in these Panchayats.

Ownership Matters‌.

The ownership of the community ensures the sustainability. The sustainability of the rural tourism project has become a serious question in a few of the Rural tourism sites, for the community involved in the projects had no ownership or the projects have been designed with low community focus. DHAN has no doubt implemented the project with

Launching of the Tourism Sites is an important event for all the Rural Tourism Projects. This event is designed in such a way to declare to the world that the project site is ready to stand on its own to carry out tourism related activities even after the project period is over and to convey to tourists that the sites are ready to receive any type of guests and could provide tourism related services such as accommodation, hospitality, guiding and purchasing traditionally-made products. It is like more than sharing and complementing each other.

Launching of the community managed rural tourism site, Karaikudi, was conducted in October 2008, involving all the stakeholders of the project such as Chettinad Tourism Development Committee, Tourism Kalanjiam SHGs, Tourism Department, District Administration, hoteliers, travel club members, the media participated, welcoming tourists from Netherlands. The event was organized by the Chettinad Tourism Development Committee. They constituted a few committees such as reception committee, venue arrangement committee, publicity committee, souvenior committee, exhibition committee, food arrangement committee, guide committee, and some sub committees, to share the responsibilities and to implement the activities, without any hesitations.

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Kandanki saree Primary Producer Group Mrs.Shanthi, secretary of Meenakshi Amman Kalanjiam, Karaikudi, says she is proud to be a member of Chettinad Tourism Development Committee. According to her, the members of the Kandanki weaving community, including her, have got confidence that the Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme and Tourism would light lamps in their lives. Mrs.Shanthi and six other members in the same Kalanjiam joined to form a PPG, a year back named Shri Ganesh Kandanki saree Primary Producer Group. They found the tourists coming to their places as interesting and even pride and they started to sell their hand woven sarees to them. But their interest level started to shake, when they found very few tourists visiting their place, in the very first tourism season. This made them to opt for the Exhibitions, in and around Madurai.

But their luck did not favour in the vey first exhibition, in which everyone of their PPG, even came down to Madurai on rotation basis for a week. The sales was so low and their expectations and their imaginations found the reality, though everyone felt disappointed. But it did not last for long, they regained their confidence, when they found a series of local tourists visiting their places and purchasing their products.

The local tourists were the people from DHAN, UNDP, evaluation teams and few others, who came for collaborations. This gave them enough confidence to strengthen their PPG. Shri Ganesh Kandanki saree Primary Producer Group could handle the tourists too, for they have mastered in Craft demonstration and marketing. They have also promoted the Kandanki hand bags, for distribution of gifts during marriages and other functions. We have never dreamt of going away from Karaikudi, for selling Kandanki. But now everything is a dream now, for I have gone to Delhi along with another PPG member Mrs.Saraswathi, to participate in Dilli Haat. Forgoing Deepavali was not at all an issue, but we went to Delhi to know about the marketability of the products. These successful women had made a turnover of Rs.25, 000/-, selling around 90% of the total stock. We are now confident of marketing of Kandanki, says Mrs.Shanthi with her bright eyes.

Join hands to promote Kandanki Contact: Shri Kandanki saree Primary Producer Group, Deivarayan Chettiar Street, Karaikudi.

We could feel their ownership throughout the process. Tourism products such as the brochures, postures, souvenirs have been released in the event, and the Chettinad Tourism Development Committee has been positioned in the event, through proper introduction and involving them in the release of the products, which made them excited and proud. The participation of the Tourism Kalanjiam SHGs is also highly appreciable in the event.

This event has facilitated the project site, to view tourism as its major livelihood tool for empowerment.

Mrs. Shanthi: 9381443285

Emerging as a Responsible Tourism Destination

Capacity-building to the host community:

Poverty reduction of disadvantaged host community:

Capacity-building programme facilitates the host community to build new skills for initiating new traditional business activities, better management of their business, functional literacy and so on. The organized community decides acquiring skills for improving their livelihood also develop and acquire skills related to leadership, planning, monitoring, negotiating, implementation, accounting, management etc., to manage their own organization.

Rural rourism model at Chettinad taps all the employment opportunities emerging through tourism and benefiting the local community. The benefits are being shared by the rural poor, especially the unemployed youths and other disadvantaged sectors of the community. For the sustainability of the model, rural enterprises, targeting the tourists is managed by the community thereby improving the livelihood.

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Gender Balance of the host community: The rural tourism model at Chettinad ensures the empowerment of women at every stage of the implementation. DHAN Foundation’s Kalanjiam Community Banking Programme is working at the grassroots level around Chettinad.

The thematic programme ensures their empowerment and finds the means for increased earning capacity. The Kalanjiam Community is being provided necessary skillbuilding programmes for sustainable livelihood. Other women folk in the project site, who are not involved in the crafts, are involved in the tourism related activities act as governing bodies for monitoring system of the activities.

Sustainable People Institutions: Strengthening People’s Institutions for tourism governance is vital for its long term sustainability and growth.

Community participation is very important for a successful tourism site. The sustainable institutions among the artisan community, poor/ disadvantaged groups and women are organized, for the distribution of tourism; equally to one and all. The institution building among artisans results in the federation of the artisans- permanent institutions for generations, thereby ensuring sustainable development. The Chettinad Tourism Development Committee is also a sustainable institution with guiding core values and ethics to enable any future development in the tourism site.

Information Technology Information technology (IT) and tourism are inseparable. Knowing its importance, three tourism information centers have been positioned in the project site.

Community college for tourism has been launched in the site. The community college for tourism is focusing on the I.T. enabled skillbuilding for the rural poor, so as to enable them reach the global market for their career. It also plans to provide basic knowledge in the I.T., to the artisans, for touching the export market, without any

intermediation. All these centers are owned and managed by the tourism activity group. This center in future may also act as Village Knowledge Center with support of ISRO. Collaboration stakeholders

with

Multi–

The rural tourism model at Chettinad involves many stakeholders, for the better implementation of the proposed activities. Collaborations with the marketing agencies have been done for the marketing of the handicrafts.

Collaboration with the tourism

26

associations have been done for selling the project site. Strong rapport has been created among the organized community and the apex bank institutions for financial assistance. Rapport with the Tourism department, International development agencies like UNDP, District Administration, Panchayats, tourism activity groups, craft associations, and home stay owners have been developed for the better implementation of the proposed activities.

Promoting Traditional Livelihood Efforts are being put intensively to build their lives in Chettinad. Craft associations are being promoted and the market linkages are provided to the members. The financial assistance is also rendered, thereby providing them confidence to continue their trade.

Conservation of Heritage Chettinad mansions with its unique architecture, is the greatest attraction of the site. These mansions are considered to be the most likely to benefit from the rural tourism initiatives, as they are endangered.

Once restored these houses could be a heritage guest house, offering the visitors a unique experience. These mansions are great treasure to architects and architecture students.

Those houses contain rich culture, and could earn much-needed income to maintain the properties as well as the artifacts. Measures are taken to convert some of these mansions as home stays for benefiting the

community. Positioning of these home stays would be done by the collaboration with the established resorts.

Orientation on Development to Guests: Chettinad offers unique package, “Development Tour”. This package has brought many development practitioners to the site to learn about the impact of tourism on the livelihood of the community. The package has also provided in depth knowledge on the tradition of the community.

Philanthropic contributions have been given by the generous guests for the promotion of arts and crafts in the village.

Cultural Immersion Tour packages such as “Arts and crafts tour” and “Architecture tour” provide the visitors knowledge about the culture and traditional practices at Chettinad. Various opportunities such as living with the community, cooking traditional food, preparing the hand made tiles, visiting their temple, and visiting their agricultural lands provide them a rich experience of chettinad. Every one of the tour packages would provide the guests with a varied experience which they will always carry in their heart forever.

the Indian monsoon necessitated the creation of storage facilities to hold the rain water of the monsoon. With extra-ordinary engineering, managerial, and social skills, an extensive system of rainwater harvesting structures like tanks and ponds had been built and maintained by the people for centuries. The heritage water bodies, along with the temples in Chettinad, are of great attraction to tourists. It has been planned to renovate these water bodies.

Tourism Ethics Various initiatives have been taken in ensuring the responsibility of the hosts. Charter for sustainable tourism has been derived in ensuring a balanced relationship between hosts and guests in destinations. It helps in maximizing positive impacts and minimizing negative impacts.

Fair trade practices are practiced by the artisans while selling the crafts, and by the host community while rendering the services.

Way forward 1.

Strengthening of the people institutions and registering the Federation, CTDC.

2.

Resource Mobilization for strengthening the tourism based livelihoods.

Heritage water bodies

3.

Great civilizations show that their development was directly related to the extent to which they could control and manage water resources.

The hydrological characteristics of

Intensive marketing of the project site and tourism products.

4.

Positioning community colleges as a Resource centre for Tourism.

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Watter Matters

Local Management of traditional tanks–need of the hour Er. N. Venkatesan *

L

arge numbers of small scale water bodies are effective tool for rain water harvesting at rural areas. There are 40,000 numbers of tanks in Tamil Nadu state as to harvest the rain water at rural areas and stabilize the agriculture during the north east monsoon rainfall as well as south west monsoon seasons. From the history and experience of tank irrigation systems, it was known that the tanks were the effective tool to harvest the rainfall at drought prone districts during the monsoon and later used for agriculture purposes. The systems and designs of the structures were in such a way that it was easy to manage and maintain with simple technology at locally and sustainable even after hundreds of years and serves the purposes.

These tanks and their designs are unique in their designs as the sizes varies from small to big as to serve few acres of command to thousands of acres as the tanks ever remembered are Madurandagam, Sembarampakkam, Ramnad big tank and Kallari tank etc as big tanks.

But all the tanks were designed with equal importance of technology and related issues.

The tanks in southern Tamil Nadu were unique in small in size and large in numbers at each village as the following details would show us the analysis as the number of tanks per development block as given below:

Kottampatti block of Madurai district Natham block of Dindigul district Ponnamaravathy block of Pudukottai district Singampunari block of Sivagangai district The two sample villages namely A.Kalapur and Kirungakottai villages have been studied for the spread of tanks, their locations, reasons for more number of tanks and management of the tanks at locally etc. The study shows that the each village has been designed with tanks as one tank per 23-24 ha of extent of the total villages. The ratio of tankfed agriculture with total cultivable area is varies from 35% to 60% of the total cultivation. These tanks systems provides us the following learnings as effective management of the system at locally to harvest the available rain fall at the drought prone areas even after many centuries as

-

1000 numbers 623 numbers 500 numbers 544 numbers

z

Instead of designing one big structure (or) dam across the stream, the large numbers of small tanks have been constructed as chains of tanks based on the topography and maximize the command area to provide irrigation for maximum numbers of small and marginal farmers.

z

Large dams are preferred by irrigation experts in eve of less water spread compared with command area. But however this lacuna of small tank in wasting storage area, the farmers use this water spread area for summer cultivation.

Thus compensating the water

* Er. N. Venkatesan, Programme Leader, DHAN Foundation, Madurai, Tamil Nadu

28

spread area not being wasted without cultivation (or) water spread area with tree plantation is compensating the non use of land. z

z

Each small structure of the tank system is locally managed by group of farmers who belongs to a group with homogenous characteristics like caste and economic basis as to operate as cohesive group.

The present concept of catch the water as it falls is followed in this tank system. Because of more in numbers but less in length of conveyance distance for tank to command as well as tank to tank transfer of

water provides greater efficiency of water for agriculture and irrigation. z

The usufractury benefits like trees and fish rearing were effectively managed by the community as a small group for each tank was easiest ways of local management

z

The maintenance of the tanksystem for its regular functioning have been distributed among the many groups of farmers as almost all in the villages have been involved in regular maintenance of the system. This provides effective decentralisation of

management & utility of tank system in the villages. z

The large numbers of small scale water bodies on series basis provides effective flood & drought management as the issues of ground water recharge, livelihood for land less, management of flash floods during rainy seasons etc have been achieved as these tanks acts as cushion for water storage.

z

Because of the tank silt, trees and other benefits, the village economy have been fully dependent on the tank system for over all economy of the village systems.

Details of A.Kalapur revenue village for large number of tanks and its relevance at Sivagangai District Total Number of tanks Total waterspread area of tanks Total command area Total extent of the village Total cultivable wet land Total dry land Total cultivable land Analysis Percentage irrigated by tank Percentage irrigated by tank out of wet land No. of tanks per ha of total extent

: : : : : : :

62 125.065 ha 380.955 ha 1419.175 ha 433.93 ha 665.445 ha 1099.375 ha

: : :

34.65 % 87.8 % one tank per 23 ha.

Details of Kirungakottai revenue village for large number of tanks and its relevance at Sivagangai District Total Number of tanks Total waterspread area of tanks Total command area Total extent of the village Total cultivable wet land Total dry land Total cultivable land Analysis Percentage irrigated by tank Percentage irrigated by tank out of wet land No. of tanks per ha of total extent

: : : : : : :

35 126.718 ha 387.24 ha 818.42 ha 395.715 ha 237.405 ha 633.12 ha

: : :

61.16 % 97.85 % one tank per 24 ha.

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Disaster Management

Disaster and Governance N. Janakiraman *

P

anchayat raj institutions in India have the history of more than 2000 years. 73 rd constitutional amendment is considered as radical in nature, for it promised institutionalization of a third stratum of government at the local level. We have about 3.2 million representatives as people leaders in local government institutions. For the past fifteen years, the post 73rd Amendment has proven the relevance and importance of local governance in most of the development sectors.

The role of local government institution, especially the village Panchayat on disaster risk reduction is obligatory. Even in the recent incident of tsunami disaster occurred in the southern states of India, the sharp and immediate reflection for rescue and risk reduction was sound from local Panchayats.

Unfortunately these Village Panchayats were not duly recognized and given with preparative perspectives. In most of the time it operates with relief mode.

Such scope of disaster incidences is very high in coastal areas.

Issues in Achieving Better Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) We could see the Government machinery is weak in disaster preparedness initiatives. Most time, the government system is active only in post disaster conditions. The potential of Village Panchayat on DRR is not explored. More over these days, a lot of people institutions like SHGs, farmer’s forum and other functional groups were not integrated with Panchayat governance.

Disaster Preparedness with Village Governace The Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction (ACEDRR) promoted by DHAN with the support of Oxfam America at Tata-Dhan Academy has worked and tested a pilot to integrate disaster risk reduction with local governance and making the Village Panchayat as the centre for Disaster preparedness at their level through following activities: z Integrating the people institutions with Panchayat governance z Capacity building to People Rep., Functional group members & Community z Micro planning on DRR & Execution z Developing Monitoring & Evaluation mechanisms on pooling or generating of baseline data, disaster responses Role of Panchayats in Disaster Prone Area From the PILOT we could feel the following roles for Panchayat governance relating to disaster risk reduction. As a Primary level grassroots Government, Panchayat has crucial role to play in the disaster prone area. Being closer and immediate government system for the local community, it can react intensively beyond relief and restoration activities to preparedness perspectives. The role of the local Panchayat system goes very wide and in different dimensions such as, z Setting up of local disaster risk reduction committees and involving in preparedness, relief

z

z

z

z

z

and rehabilitation works for the victim families and villages Interfacing with Government, the non Government organization and local community for channelizing the risk preparedness, relief and rehabilitation work Establishing and maintaining basic community infrastructures towards disaster risk reduction – cyclone protection shelters, community halls, water sources, lights, transportation and other communication.

Setting up villages level committee to undertake the restoration of livelihoods with sustainability to the affected families Assessing the real losses and exploring possibilities for resource mobilization to address the need and issue related to the disaster Ensuring basic needs for the victim families related with stay, food, clothes and other basic living requirements

Pilot Outcomes Products: z A toolkit on “Role of Panchayat in Disaster risk reduction” z Micro plan document on Panchayat disaster risk reduction z Visual Process Documentation of micro planning and DRR committee promotion z Promotion of hamlet level and Panchayat level DRR committees for leading the initiative.

* N. Janakiraman, Senior Project Executive, Panchayat Theme, DHAN Foundation, Madurai, Tamil Nadu