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| Anti liquor Campaign |
| Self Help Groups in Jakhol |
| Memorandum to the Chief Minister |
| Federation |
| Self Help Groups |
| Prakriya .. the process |
| Diary of a field Volunteer |
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Jakhol is a road-side village located in 45 km away from the Mori block of district Uttarkashi. It's a big village as compared to other villages. There are around 250 households and the population is approximately 1300. People living here belong to various castes. Majority of its population is Scheduled Caste so it comes under Ambedkar village. Ms. Devendri Rawat is Pradhan of this village, belongs to the upper (Rajput) caste. She was elected on general seat. Ms. Anita, the BDC member is also a woman.
The village has many facilities such as a post office, Junior High School, a Junior School, one MKC, an Ayuervedic center, one private school (Saraswati Shishu Mandir), one mini Bank that is a branch of Sahkari Samiti Bank & a ration shop. The main occupation of the villagers is agriculture. Some people are working in the govt. Departments and some are in private sector. Their main crops are potato, Manduwa, wheat, Rajma (Chami), Choulie. Rajma & Potato are there main cash crops. The economy of the people is mainly dependent on potato crop. From March to October the people are generally busy with activities related to potato & rajma crops. Rainwater is the main source of irrigation. Drinking water is available through the pipeline and natural sources.
The height of Jakhol village is approx. 2200 m. For three months in winters Jakhol village is covered with Snowfall. So for these three months in winters the schools are closed and generally people are free from work or resort to alternate works such as weaving etc. Women, usually visit their mother's home during this time and participate & celebrate the festivals. Before the winter season sets in, villagers collect a lot of wood and grass. Most of the festivities take place during winter months as they have a lot of free time, singing and dancing at night.
The condition of women from these areas is generally not good. They engage in domestic and agriculture work usually working for 12-14 hrs/day. Women get up early in the morning and do household work, go to the field for agriculture work, bring wood for fuel, collect fodder for cattle, look after the children and go to bed at late night. As a result they are so busy that they do not have any time for themselves. Also the status of the women is pretty low with no decision making power and very little control over finances. The literacy rate amongst women is not very high. Due to lack of education, amongst other things, they suffer from health related problems. As there is no awareness regarding their own body they conceive again and again with the result they are highly anemic, and also infant and maternal mortality & morbidity is very high. Since they are not conversant with Hindi they hardly & rarely attend Gram Sabha meetings. The women hardly go out side the village and the only time when they go out is when they are sick to see a doctor.
When we were exploring the possibility of selecting this village, no one came forward to work as a volunteer and to be associate with over project. We also faced a problem with the language. As this was the roadside village hence we wanted a women volunteer from this village. But the leaders/pradhan did not find our choice of women to be appropriate and hence we had to take a male volunteer. Though we tried to convince the villagers that women should get exposed to the outside world and we would be giving orientation training and later she will feel confident to work either under community pressure or because of the commitment to work for the upliftment of the women and the community at large. Certain example were given from Uttrakhand, where the women have come forward and taken responsibility to work for their community and region.
The names of the groups formed in Jakhol are as follows:
Jagriti Women's Saving Group
Saira Women's Saving Group
Luvali Women's Saving Group
Ambedkar Women's Saving Group.
Bhungyali Women's Saving Group.
Chand Bhungyali Women's Saving Group.
Sameshwar Women's Saving Group.
Pujeli Women's Saving Group.
During the first meeting information regarding the necessity of having SHG was explained. Women showed lot of interest and enthusiasm in forming the groups. As a result eight groups were formed on the basis of caste structure. Women decided that the groups should be formed around the caste structure and vicinity of households. The members vary from 15-20 in each group. Our volunteer Meena Rawat played a pivotal role in preparing the women to form the groups and the activities the group can undertake from savings to inter-loaning and then starting a small socio-economic enterprise with the help of the "Prakriya" facilitators and linkages with the bank. The women agreed that the current situation is that they do not have a penny for their day-to-day usage or for emergencies such as children's illness. They always have to depend on their men-folk for any monetary requirements. In this grave situation the women showed their keen interest to start groups so that they can become self-sufficient.
The women also decided to involve the women pradhan in the "Bhungyali" group so that she can actively contribute to the SHG's by getting schemes from the Gram panchayat/ Block. This group initially comprised of 30 members and on the insistence of the facilitators they decided to form two groups and reelected their functionaries.
Similarly Mansa of Pujali group reinforced that with small savings, with the help of Prakriya team, Trainings can be organized in skill development, which can be used for small economic enterprises for improving their earnings on monthly basis.
Women of Sameshwar group are slightly better off than other groups and they expressed the need to learn Tailoring in order to stitch their own clothes and save money rather than think of earning from Stitching & Tailoring.
Women of Luwali and Ambedkar group decided that the members would join literacy class so that they can fill their own day-to-day registers and do not depend on the men-folk since they were made fun off in the Gram- sabha meeting about the SHG & role of savings in improving the economic conditions of the women specially with Rs five as saving amount. As they were prevented from attending the Gram- Sabha meeting the facilitators made them understand, as to why it is important for them to attend these meetings as they would get to know the schemes from panchayat, widow pension, Indra Aavas Yojna and how to access these specially by the SHG groups.
For instance the women's group have asked for the money for constructing the common passageway in the village from the Gram-sabha scheme, to be given to them exclusively, so that they ensure that the job gets done to their satisfaction and faster. They would also ensure that the sanitation & hygiene would be taken care off by them. The women also framed the by-laws and one of the clauses was that those who do not attend meetings consecutively for three meetings would be fined as they believed that only savings is not important but it is important to attend discussions on regular basis so that they know as to what is going on and constructively contribute to furthering the women's cause. The facilitator also emphasized that the women members will not ask for the monthly saving amount from their husbands but try to save either money or in kind on day-to-day basis, which in real term is "savings". The entire group's have opened their bank accounts and have decided that they would save for three months before starting inter-loaning. The situation in the Jakhol village as far as alcoholism is concerned has been that they have a committee for anti-liquor vigilance and the panchayat has deputed a watch- man who is being paid by the panchayat. But some of the men go to the near by village "Dhara" where the country liquor is being made. These women members decided to have these joints close down and a ultimatum has been sounded to shut these by a stipulated time falling which they would march up to the village and destroy where ever this is being made. The women have also taken up the issue of card playing by the men wherein they loose money to the tune of Rs 500-2000 every day which plays upon the physical and mental condition of the women. The members will strive towards closure of this. As the new understanding has grown the members have also decided to save some "chullu" fruit and cash crop (potato) and contribute the proceeds in the form of money by way of selling these to the SHG account so as to enhance the saving amount.