Ooranis - Rehabilitation - DHAN Foundation

We are happy to bring you the updates of DHAN Foundation’s Philanthropy projects during Dec’07 and Jan’08.

Oorani Updates

It is our pleasure to mention that all the Ooranis constructed through our project are filled with water, and presently people are enjoying the impact of the project. Three Oorani works namely Neerkundram, Nediyamanickam and Karuthaiahpuram were completed during this period. Markers were placed at completed ooranis and dedicated as per donor’s interest. A team of NRIs from USA who were here during Dec 2007 for their first Rural India Learning Journey has adopted Senkottaipatti Oorani. Encouragingly many donors becoming partner of the project not just only providing money to the work and also spreading this good initiative across boundaries.

Mr. Chennu, Secretary of Karuthaiapuram Oorani Vayalagam says, the fenced Oorani gives us the confidence on the quality of drinking water. Earlier we suffered with many water borne diseases like Cholera, etc. whereas the oorani is now protected from the entry of animals and other sources of contamination. Thanks to “Support an Oorani Project”.

A village woman from Senkottaipatti says…… fencing for the drinking water Oorani is a long felt need in our village. Our village is around 3 km away from the main road to board a bus. My daughter who is studying 8 th standard has to support me in fetching the water for drinking and domestic purpose before leaving to school. Many days it becomes difficult for her to catch the bus and reach the school in time. We are happy that the learning journey team extends helping hands to resolve our drinking water problems.

Project Highlights

The Work Status

Support a Farm Pond - Restore Livelihoods of a Family

The farm ponds play a critical role in restoring the livelihoods of the rainfed farmers, where water availability during critical period of crop growth is life threatening not only for the crop and for the farmer’s livelihood itself. It also helps in promotion of crop diversification and improves the value of the land. DHAN has been implementing farm pond development projects in many drought prone districts in south India with the support of NABARD, CAPART and government’s Drought Prone Area Development programme. The continuous inconsistency in monsoons and drastic reduction in ground water resulted in high demand for farm ponds.

The project is getting momentum as India Development Services (IDS), came forward to support a rainfed farming development programme at Melapatti and Odapatty panchayats of Thirumangalam block in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. The project focuses on water harvesting structures like village pond and farm pond rehabilitation and maintenance, dryland horticulture development, agro-forestry, transfer of agriculture know-hows through agriculture experimentation and demonstration, and land development activities.

Mr. M. Palanisamy, the Programme Leader of DHAN Foundation says ……. being a drought prone area, crop failure is common here due to frequent inconsistency in rainfall occurrence. The income from rainfed agriculture has not been encouraging year by year due to various reasons whereas the input cost is in increasing trend. So, the younger generations are not attracted towards rainfed agriculture because of the risk and uncertainty attached to it. The support of IDS would certainly help set an example and build the confidence of the farmers to reinvent agriculture as reliable livelihood option.

As part of the project veterinary and livestock promotion camps were conducted at villages in Melapatti panchayat, wherein 110 farmers participated to receive treatment for 45 cattles and 392 goats. 20 farmers were provided with dryland horticulture and agro-forestry seedlings during the period. Similarly 12 farmers received bioliquids for their crops. So far work has been completed for about Rs. 63,666 of which people have contributed Rs. 19,127.

Light a Home - Ignite a Dream

Creating access to electricity for the poor has been taken up by various people federations across the states. There are people who are not afford to have an electricity connection either with own money or through loan funds. The people federations try to generate energy revolving funds to meet such demands of the members. There is a need to saturate the reach of the project and ensure cent percent electrification of member houses. Your support would help us to reach the goal.

The people organizations in Salem, Madurai, Chittoor districts are taking up the project very intensively and looking forward the supporter to reach 100% percent electrification to member houses. Currently we have about 5000 poor households identified for electrification projects and ready to take up the work.

Karupayee aged 58, Kalanjiam member from Theppathupatti says …… I have to finish dinner before 4.00 p.m. Otherwise it is not possible. At night if any insects fall in the food, we may have to eat the insect or step on them in the dark. There is no other way. There is also a social face of this problem. She continues saying, “Our guests too have to suffer from the insects. On return they comment "Alas! We had gone to their house. It was full of insects. Even in these modern days they don't have electricity.

Madurai Marathon 2008, a Run for Heritage Water Bodies

DHAN’s Centre for Facilitating Philanthropy’s efforts in creating opportunities to contribute for development action brings a new initiative to sensitize various stakeholders of the society to come together for a cause. The centre has been organizing the Marathon for a specific development theme to bring community awareness and action. The first Madurai Marathon was organized in 2007 on the theme of water, where people from various walks of the lives participated.

Madurai, the temple city of Tamil Nadu is rich in culture and heritage. It houses many water bodies which served and continues to serve as the lifelines of the community for decades. In the era of urbanization and increasing population growth, Madurai is becoming one of the popular industrial hubs of Tamil Nadu. It poses biggest challenge to meet the increased water needs. On the other hand the recent decades witnessed a great decline in the quality of life saving water bodies. These heritage structures, which served the humanity for decades are now neglected and are being converted as drainage channels, garbage bins, and open toilets so on.

Many heritage water bodies are losing their glories due to ignorance about the value of it. It’s the responsibility of every citizen to safe guard these ancient properties to serve for generations. We firmly believe that sensitizing the community to own and preserve the water bodies would offer a long-term solution to today’s daunting challenge of water scarcity. Building a Public Private Partnership model to preserve and restore the water bodies is increasingly felt by all. It demands the participation of various stakeholders to join hands for this noble cause.

The second Madurai Marathon was organized on 13 January 2008 with the focus to bring awareness and action related to Heritage Water Bodies. The event was successful with the support and active participation by various stakeholders like City Municipal Corporation, Corporates, Bankers, NGOs, Academic Institutions, People Movements like Kalanjiam Iyyakkam and Vayalaga Iyyakkam and general public.

As part of cause dissemination to reach the cause to all sections of the society and sensitise them for action, essay and drawing competitions and Water Literacy Programmes were organised for the schools and colleges on importance of water bodies.

More than 22,000 people from all sections of the community participated in the various events organized as part of Madurai Marathon. There was a Half Marathon for about 21 kms for the athletes, a Mini Marathon for the youth and students, a Walk for a Cause to the elders and general public, a Walk for the Differently-Abled and a Roller Skating to give opportunity for all section of the society to join the efforts. Signage boards were placed at important water bodies to reach the message and appreciate the theme of Marathon .

A book titled “Tales of Madurai Temple Tanks” from DHAN's Centre for Urban Water Resources (CURE) was released during the occasion. The book presents about water quality, major concerns and cases of temple tanks in Madurai . Look at the interesting book Neerindri brought out during Madurai Marathon 2007.

It was a pioneering effort and a memorable moment when Kalanjiam and Vayalagam federations, Corporates and Academic Institutions came forward on the spot and declared to adopt water bodies. Eight water bodies including 4 temple tanks were adopted so far. We have a plan to bring in more individual and institutional philanthropist to take this forward.

The theme for the Madurai Marathon 2009 has been declared as “Run for Anaemia free world”. You can also join in this initiative to create a world free from anaemia.

Rural India Learning Journey

We facilitate exploration and learning journeys to the foreigners and NRIs from various countries, which help them to learn the ongoing developments in India and explore the possibility to get inspired and contribute, and also to attract and organize affiliates for various development works in India.

A team of enthusiastic NRIs from USA came ‘down to earth’ in making their Indian tour more meaningful. They conceived an idea of visiting various parts of India for learning and updating their knowledge on development works in India. Unlike usual tours they made it as a Rural India learning Journey. Mr. Ram Krishnan and Mr. Ram Narayanan took the initiative and led the team. The team consisted of 28 NRIs from all over USA with age range from twenties to seventies for one week.

They spent two days at Madurai visiting DHAN’s initiatives on SHG movement and water. They visited the Vaigai Vattara Kalanjiam, India’s first SHG federation in rural context to understand the role of microfinance in poverty reduction. They visited few villages and slums, where DHAN is working and were constantly amazed at the silent revolution going on there through empowerment of rural women. The field visit gave them a deep insight into the extreme poverty and hardships and various development initiatives in villages. Savings, credit, social security and livelihood enhancement supports are the few among the extended list of development works taken up by people movement.

They met Smt. Chinnapillai , the leader of Kalanjia Iyyakkam and recipient of Stree Shakti Puraskar , national award for women for her contribution to the society especially women empowerment. It is remarkable to see her contribution and commitment in her 60's, unlike other illiterate women she exuded tremendous confidence and concern for the cause as she spoke on the milestones of success stories in Kalanjiam Movement, Mr. Ram Narayanan said.

The second day focus was on water; the team visited the villages of Mudhukulathur in Ramanathapuram district to study the Vayalagam model of watershed management and tankfed agricultural development activities. The visit helped them learn about Ooranis , the need for constant desilting and maintenance to cerate sustainable water access to villagers. The team appreciated the approach of DHAN Foundation efforts in regeneration of local management of these water bodies by organizing the farmers around the tanks. There was a surprise on that day, when all the group members spontaneously came forward to offer support to an Oorani at Senkottaipatti to make the development journey memorable and more meaningful.

They visited a live life saving Oorani at Kadamabkulam, then visited Senkottaipatti, the oorani adopted by the team. The interactions were quite emotional as the team directly partnering to bring changes in the lives of the people. The team received very warm greetings from the villagers.

Asha, one of the members put it this way, there is so much more that the heart wants to say but words are difficult to come by, so many ideas rushing into the head, some unrealistic fantasies and some reasonable. A thoughtful process with guidance from the more experienced yatris will be seeked, hopefully materialising into action in years to come.

The success of the trip was quite evident as there were animated discussions about how they wanted to help in rural transformation.

Read the full learning journey report.

New projects - Community Resource Centre

The diversification of services by the advanced thematic people organisations emphasizes the need for own community infrastructure, which would act as resource hub by providing multiple development services such as hosting the training and capacity building events, establishing collective business ventures, and skill based vocational training cell, and for setting up village information centres, evening study place for children, community college for youth and women, etc.

In this backdrop, Sanarpatti Vattara Kalanjiam, a federation of Self Help Groups in Theni district of Tamil Nadu established their own building for community resource centre. Being the symbol of unity it reinforces the strength of the marginalised people. Mr. Vinod Aachi a friend of DHAN from Singapore has pioneered in extending part of the support for this community initiative. This timely support helped the people to complete the work as per their plan. The construction work of the centre is completed now and people have started using it. The entire community is excited as their dream came true.

A part of Mr. Vinod’s contribution is helping the Mullai Vattara Kalanjiam in Salem district of Tamil Nadu to start the work. Similarly the people organizations at Kuppam and Punganur in Andhra Pradesh and Kottampatti in Tamil Nadu are planning their community resource centre. They have purchased land and the people contribution mobilization is underway, they look forward for support to start the work.

You can support this initiative whatever the form you can. The contribution may be made in cash or in Kind. The people would also appreciate your support in the form of construction material and furniture.

Donors of the period

IDS has supported 5,000 US $ for a rainfed farming village development project at Thirumangalam. Mr. Kartic Vaidyanathan and Ms. Hema Tallapaka from Bangalore contributed Rs. 5,000 each for the Oorani project. Ms. Saraswathy opted for a monthly regular contribution for the Oorani development initiatives. Mr. Vinod Aachi initiated the Community Resources Centre project by extending his support of Rs. 4 lakhs towards Community Resource Centers for Sanarpatti and Mullai Kalanjiam Federations.

The people movements like Kalanjia and Vayalaga Iyyakkams, Madurai Corporation, Hi Tech Arai Ltd., TVS, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank, State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, ICICI, HDFC, Indian Oversease Bank, Ramraj Cottons, Rajmahal, Visvas Promoters, Humane Trust, Kalanjiam Tholizhagam Ltd. provided financial support for the conduct of the Madurai Marathon 2008.

Acknowledgements

Our experience in building partnership with the needy community in their development action is inspiring and propels us to connect with more well wishers. We take pleasure in placing on record our sincere appreciation for the encouragement and support extended by all our donors in enabling the poor to take charge of their lives.

DHAN Foundation - Philanthropy Updates: Dec.'07 - Jan.'08