Small but not Beautiful?

Posted on 27 March 2013 by Mark R

In a recent report, the World Bank interestingly puts great emphasis on jobs (livelihoods) and “enhancing gender parity” in its most recent studies and reports on South Asia. The reports are detailed and make for rather dry reading, but what is interesting for Jeevika and its supporters is how much employment is accounted for by small-scale “own account” enterprise even in such areas as manufacturing.

By far, most employment in India comes from self-employment and casual labour and that transition from casual labouring to self-employment will continue to be where the future lies in the near term for most people trying to escape poverty. Salaried employment, despite the high levels of economic growth in India in particular, still only provided 17% of all employment in 2009/10.

I don’t think you will find mention of Schumacher Economics or “Small is Beautiful” anywhere on the World Bank’s website but the statistics they provide show that small-scale employment opportunities make up the bulk of those that exist. The challenge of course is to improve the quality and conditions of such employment with much of the work being “small” scale but far from “beautiful” — especially when it boils down to poorly paid casual labour in bad working conditions.

The way to achieve that is to improve skills, education, and most importantly of all, to “enhance gender parity” as the World Bank describes it, especially if issues like the childhood malnutrition still endemic in the region are to be properly addressed.

Excerpts from the World Bank report on South Asia:

In 2011, the Bank produced a regional flagship report, More and Better Jobs in South Asia. To strengthen the World Bank’s understanding of the policies conducive to inclusive growth, the South Asia region team is working on a new flagship report on Equity for Development, in which inequality in income and consumption will be studied alongside inequality of access and opportunities.

Building Skills and Improving Health and Nutrition Outcomes

The World Bank has strengthened its focus on promoting a multi-sectoral agenda to tackle the severe nutrition problems in South Asia, and on mainstreaming gender issues into its operations. South Asia has 330 million undernourished people, more than sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Bank is drawing on the World Development Report (WDR) 2012 findings as it intensifies its efforts to enhance gender parity in the region. Efforts include strategic mainstreaming across the portfolio, such as the South Asia Gender Initiative, which is working across sectors to mainstream gender; understand gender identities (women’s and men’s) across generations; and support Impact Evaluations of Rural Livelihoods projects in India and Nepal and gender-specific projects.

In addition, the Bank has many stand-alone gender-based projects such as the National Rural Livelihoods Project in India and the Adolescent Girls Initiative in Afghanistan, which aims to help girls stay in school and build skills so they can find jobs.

If you would like to support Jeevika’s work with the poorest of the poor in India, through livelihood initiatives just like those mentioned by the World Bank, please consider making a donation:

First photo used courtesy of TropicalIsland.de and second photo from Chapter 3 of the World Bank report.

Voices from India: Basanti in Bebari

Posted on 27 February 2013 by Candace

It’s a balmy Tuesday morning in Orissa as we make our way to the village of Bebari, nearly a three-hour drive from the state capital of Bhubaneswar. For the last few miles, the road is nothing but thick red clay, and several times we pause to give way to cows, the cowherds clucking their tongues to clear up the jam.

A year has gone by since I’ve been to Orissa, and I’m delighted to find myself here once again with Jeevika’s programmes officer, Judith, our in-country coordinator, Priya, and Manu and Madhu, directors of our partner NGO in Orissa, Jeevan Rekha Parishad (JRP).

Today is our first day heading back into the field to visit our projects.

Come and learn from bees reads a poster on one of the first buildings we see in Bebari. But today we have come to not only learn from bees, but from the women who keep them. After receiving a two-year extension from DFID, Jeevika and JRP have continued the Madhu Network Project, which supports 300 traditional women beekeepers in 10 villages across Orissa.

The first woman I sit down with is named Basanti. With Manu kindly offering to translate, I learn that she is 40 years old and has four children – a son and three daughters, ranging in age from 8 to 20 years old. While her children are all studying, Basanti herself has no education.

“There was no school at the time,” she explains. “There was only jungle when I was a child. My parents taught me some letters. That is all.

Originally from the Ganjam district, Basanti has lived in Bebari for 25 years, and was married at the age of 15. “Earlier, there was nothing. We were just housewives. Now we have started beekeeping.”

Basanti even tells us she had the first beehive box in the village. And since two Self-Help Groups (SHGs) were formed in Bebari six months ago, she has become president of hers.

There are typically three kilograms of honey in a harvest, with each kilogram earning 200 rupees in local markets. Basanti uses the extra income to buy household items, for the treatment of her son when he was suffering from fever, and “also for the study of my children.”

“Earlier no one was giving us a single rupee for our activities. Now we have our group and our savings. We are very happy to be working together in a team for economic activities. It is increasing day by day, so we will not stop.

“Now you all have come. We need to assess our other needs and other programmes. That is our future plan. We are very happy many people are coming to our village now.”

In addition to meeting household needs and expenses, each member of the SHG also currently saves 20 rupees a month in their collective savings account. Hearing this is a necessary reminder of the hundreds of millions of rural people living at the ‘base of the pyramid’ that is today’s modern India.

While those at the top now earn and spend at European rates, women like Basanti still find tiny amounts of money to be a worthwhile return on time and effort. Indeed, I think back to what she had said earlier in our conversation:

We are increasing day by day.

I already look forward to the updates – and to seeing Basanti again – when we’re back in Orissa this time next month.

Please consider supporting Jeevika with a small donation as we work to support Basanti and other women beekeepers like her in the communities of village India:

A Bee’s Life, Tamil Nadu-style

Posted on 30 April 2012 by Candace

Last Thursday our funding strategy officer, Mark, shared about a new beekeeping initiative in Orissa. But this isn’t the only region of India in which we’re supporting honey projects. From another part of the country – Tamil Nadu – and another Jeevika partner, we’ve got a second bee story for you…and this time, with lots of photos!

This bee story begins with one of our six Indian partners, the Annai Mary Foundation. In the past couple of years, they have trained 100 women from eight groups in beekeeping with the support of Jeevika Trust.

Wooden hive boxes have been supplied to 67 women, which have then been placed in banana groves with dense foliage and close proximity to water sources.

An initial reluctance and fear in handling bees gave way to interest and commitment among the women. “We check the bees’ at least once every two days and make sure they are doing alright,” one woman involved in the project said.

The women are eagerly waiting to harvest their first yield of honey. “We will use it for our own needs and feed it to our children. Honey has nutritional value. Once we begin to get more honey, we will sell some of this,” says an excited Indrani who hopes to get Rs 50 to 100 per kilogram of honey.

Indrani dreams of a bright future – a future in which additional income will pay the medical bills from treating her disabled son.

The women are eager to share their new skills with other women in the neighbourhood and also to enhance their knowledge through an exposure visit to a private beekeeping enterprise.

Do you have a bee story of your own to share? We’d love to hear it!

Voices from India, part 3: Basanti in Orissa

Posted on 23 April 2012 by Candace

Over the past month, our series “Voices from India” has been sharing stories of various women involved in our livelihood projects throughout India, from Dhani in Orissa to Priya in Tamil Nadu. This week we’re heading back to Chilika Lake in Orissa to speak with Basanti…

43-year old Basanti is there to meet us when we first arrive on Mahinsa, a palm-covered island in Orissa’s Chilika Lake. She was born and raised in a village of the same name, and although she studied up to 7th class, there was no school for her as she grew older. She was married at the age of fourteen before giving birth to her son and two daughters.

Since Jeevika Trust and partner Jeevan Rekha Parishad began Project Eco on Mahinsa three years ago, Basanti has become involved in a number of activities, from cultivating crabs and ground nuts to installing new toilets and hand pumps to motivating schoolchildren. She uses the extra income to fund her children’s education, and even to help towards the healthcare for her recently discovered tumour.

She says: “Earlier we were dependent on our husbands. They used to go to the lake and get fish. When the NGO came, we got financial support and now we are self-dependent because we are earning. Earlier we were very idle, sitting inside the four walls of the house. Now we are active.”

“The last four months, we are not getting any income from the lake because of rain. Now we have the savings to live. I have become self-dependent and sufficient. We are free from the four walls of the house.”

It’s this last phrase that keeps echoing in my mind when we leave Mahinsa–”free from the four walls.” Because as we walked with Basanti and other women across the island, it was clear this freedom really is now their reality.

Can a crab change a life?

Posted on 5 April 2012 by Judith

Wonderful news! The Jeevika Team has won funding from Innocent Foundation for a new livelihood initiative we’re calling Project ECO. It will be located on Barhampur Island in the Chilika Lagoon located on the southeast coast of Orissa, which is one of the most important wetlands in the world and home to a phenomenal variety of birds.

But this is not a tourism project.

It’s to ensure that the islanders of Barhampur establish income-generation activities that combat their poverty from a lack of employment opportunities and address some of the environmental issues they face.

Our partner organisation, Jeevan Rekha Parishad (JRP), is thrilled that we can now go ahead with this, their second island project, as are our potential beneficiaries. They’ve been pushing JRP to include their island in its eco-development strategy for over three years and, finally, their dream has come true.

The difficulties the islanders face are many.

The islands in the region are exposed to high seas and cyclones from the Bay of Bengal on one side and brackish water in the lagoon on the other. Also, as a result of past over-fishing, local authorities have banned commercial fisheries working in the lagoon. This has severely reduced fishing, which is the traditional livelihood of the islanders.

JRP’s eco-development project on the island of Mahinsa (2009-11), for example, managed to save its islanders from poverty by building the capacity of the women to cultivate crabs in island ponds which catch the monsoon water and, after fattening up the seed-crabs, grow these into the monster you see below.

The crabs are now sold to mainland and export markets and the women – now formed into Self-Help Groups which manage the project and make savings and loans using a Revolving Fund – are thriving!

Whatsmore, with the savings made from crab sales, these women have gone on to start other income-generation activities such as the cultivation of peanuts which are sold to wholesalers and vermicompost (organic compost complete with worms) which is bagged up and sold to mainlaind garden nurseries.

There’s no stopping the Mahinsa women now. And this is what Jeevika and JRP will shortly do on Barhampur Island.

Watch this space!

An Inspiring Induction: Making a World of Difference with Vodafone

Posted on 29 March 2012 by Mark H

“There is wisdom in smallness.”
– E. F. Schumacher

As Andrew mentioned in his post last week, both Candace and I are winners of Vodafone’s World of Difference (WOD) programme this year. I think Vodafone deserves a lot of credit for coming up with such an innovative CSR initiative.

At our induction day in late February, I had the pleasure of meeting lots of other winners from diverse walks of life. Like me, many of them are being enabled to transform the fortunes of small charities by the WOD programme.

A very small world

By very happy coincidence, one of the winners I met was Tom Stedall. Tom’s charity, The Converging World, works with the same Indian partner as Jeevika Trust in Tamil Nadu, Social Change and Development (SCAD).

Jeevika runs Project Pisces with SCAD, which has brought three traditional water reservoirs, known as ooranies, back into use providing water for farming and domestic use. Here’s an idea of how the transformation takes place:

Additionally, in 2010 the ooranies were used for fish farming and the harvest was consumed and sold by 2,500 villagers in the Tuticorin area.

The Converging World supports SCAD community development projects on GP consultations, education and women’s self help groups and is also developing renewable energy and woodstove initiatives.

Connecting Schumacher with World of Difference

Both The Converging World and Jeevika Trust draw inspiration from the radical economist, E.F. Schumacher, author of the book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered.

Schumacher rejected large scale industrial development based on the exploitation of finite, non-renewable resources.

He instead believed in tackling poverty by revitalising rural communities, promoting inclusive, sustainable development and creating and sharing appropriate knowledge and technology centred around human well-being.

At Vodafone’s inspirational induction day, listening to the fascinating stories of so many activists that are improving the world through grassroots, community-based organisations, it occurred to me that Schumacher’s belief that “Small is beautiful” is also a very apt description for the WOD programme itself.

To learn more about our water projects, such as Project Ooranie in Tamil Nadu, visit our website. Have a question about ooranie pond restoration? Leave a comment below and we’d love to tell you more!

Voices from India, part 1: Dhani in Orissa

Posted on 26 March 2012 by Candace

For the next month here on our blog, we’ll be running a weekly series called “Voices from India.” Every Monday will bring you face-to-face with a new woman involved in the livelihood projects we support in India, from crab cultivation to getting involved with self-help groups. Today we travel to a forest tribal area in coastal Orissa…

When I first meet Dhani, her face is obscured behind the net of her beekeeper’s hat and her hands are full of honeycomb.

She works quickly, carefully lifting trays from the three hives set out around her house to assess which ones are ripe for the harvest.

Born in Ambapadia, a small village in Orissa, India, Dhani is 30 years old and lives in the Chandaka Forest tribal area with her four children: two sons and two daughters, she tells me.

Through Project Madhu, set up by Jeevika and our partner in Orissa, Jeevan Rekha Parishad, Dhani has been involved in beekeeping activities for a year and currently serves as the project leader.

When not tending to her own hives, Dhani helps other women in the village care for their bees. To harvest the honey, thick layers of honeycomb, oozing with amber-coloured liquid, are scraped off each tray and then placed in a silver extraction drum, where the comb is spun by hand.

As the honey drips slowly down the walls of the drum, a tap at the bottom is opened and old whiskey bottles are recycled to hold the harvest. The women involved in beekeeping currently will keep half of the honey for their own use, and sell the other half in local markets.

Finally, as the last drop of honey is bottled up and sealed away, Dhani’s net comes off and her tools are set down. We find a seat on a fallen tree trunk and talk about her involvement with the project.

She says: “I was doing agricultural labour before, very seasonal work. Because of the project, the economic condition of my family has improved. We own this.

“Some money is saved in the self-help group fund, and some is used for the education of my children and medicine.”

And maybe that’s the only thing sweeter than honey to Dhani—the unmistakable feeling of ownership.

Have you ever kept bees? We’d love to hear your beekeeping stories!