L ivelihoods are the lifelines of poor families. Despite the hardships of COVID, the collective endeavors at community level have sustained their livelihoods to a greater extent. The community is getting connected with the stakeholders very intensively to gain exposure on new avenues. The Kalanjiam farming families have come together to promote Farmer Producer Organizations to attain collective growth in their livelihoods. In this connection, agriculture awareness programmes has been conducted in Mysore region to enable the community to understand the need of Kalanjiam and Farmer Producer Institutions. A range of 15 trainings were conducted by covering 625 members.

Livelihood Trainings on Dairy activities under LEDP Project

Tumkur region has conducted training programmes on livelihood to Kalanjiam members under the NABARD’s LEDP project. The training for the 1st batch was started with dairy activities for the members belong to K Rampura village of Y N Hosakote. Officials from veterinary department and Canara bank have graced the occasion with their presence. The training programme was conducted up to 9 days continuously to equip the members on the subject.

Action meet with Ambassadors

People Mutuals, the social security initiative of DHAN Foundation drives the mission to ensure 100% enrolment by poor under government insurance schemes. The nodal persons spread across different contexts are the frontline ambassadors who plays greater role in the mission. The action meet with the nodal persons was envisaged to include the excluded poor across entire social security initiatives.

Potential Violators Training

Potential Violators Training was conducted at DHAN People’s Academy to understand the difficulties and issues faced by sewage de-sludgers. A total of 7 families participated in the event, where rigorous activities were taken up to understand the social stigma, their financial status and other health related problems faced by manual sewage de-sludgers. This gave a comprehensive understanding into the lives of the people and struggles they face. The main issues highlighted were the need of sewage pumping 24x7. The families also highlighted upon the skin problems they face in the months from May to July due to increased vector borne diseases. Often the lives of the de- sludgers are full of struggles, in terms of finances, social stigma associated with the work. The Corporation has failed so far in providing safety equipment to the manual workers and they hence rely on traditional ways of checking toxic gas built-up in the man hole. This not only proves hazardous but also puts lives of the workers at risk. Other problems highlighted by the community are alcoholism, or liquor consumption, domestic violence and health related issues, specifically skin diseases, that often got un-diagnosed.