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“Unlike a stunted bonsai plant, I aspire to become a redwood”, says Jasmita Mohanta, a 32 year old inspiring woman,  hails from Khuntakata village which is apparently 15 km away from the Thakurmunda block of Mayurbhanj district in north Odisha. After receiving a basic education, she got married to Patel Chandra Mohanta of Khuntaposai in 2008 and together, they are a family of four! The family was left to survive on their own from the meagre income that they earn from their 1.5 acres of land through paddy cultivation. Sadly, the yield was too low to afford the educational facilities for her two children. However, these tragedies were never enough to let down Jasmita’s spirit. Being a self-taught woman, having experience in vegetable cultivation, she was confident on her own ideas to be self-employed in order to extend a lending hand to her family but not just support her children’s education.

Jasmita’s voluntary participation in a meeting of the village Producer Group brought a turning point in her life when she listened the hard work of members, their positive attitude and determination to try something new and getting success. This could motivate her and soon she convinced her husband to get involved in the Producer Group and bring innovation in cultivation.  Here, the role of her husband cannot be ignored. He delightedly allowed Jasmita to be a member of the village producer group.

Having agricultural roots and lot of experience in vegetable cultivation, Jasmita became a member of Maa Budhipat Producer Group, Khuntakata village which was being promoted by CYSD. Soon she got chances to participate in four orientation programmes along with other members that includes vegetable cultivation, NPM preparation, BDP development and leadership training. Her enthusiasm also led her to participate in a leadership training & exposure visit to Baripada to gain knowledge on Role of Producer Group.

Being an active member of Maa Mangala SHG, Jasmita availed a loan of Rs. 20,000 in the year 2018 from the SHG to start Agri-enterprise and from then she never looked back! In the very first year of her entrepreneurship, she started with the highly demanded vegetable cultivation, like brinjal, tomato, cauliflower and chilly. After earning a suitable profit of Rs. 45000, she was motivated to try something more. Then she continued cultivating watermelon in the same plot of land and gained more than Rs. 20000 within four months’ time! The combined gain was enough to save her family from the debt and poverty cycle they earlier faced. She repaid back the loan borrowed from the SHG.

The unexpected success of Jasmita impressed her husband Patel, who continued to support & cooperate in her initiatives. After success in vegetable cultivation, the couple decided to take up Banana cultivation in one acre of land. Now banana crop is in growing stage and production will come in 3 months’ time.  “We expect an estimated profit of Rs. 60,000/- from the banana cultivation this year. If the weather condition favours we will expand this cultivation to three acres more on lease with the available suckers”, said Jasmita.

Not only did Jasmita succeed in agriculture but also she initiated animal rearing.  In between, investing some amount from the profit she has started livestock rearing. Now, she has been able to acquire 10 goats, 60 ducks and 50 country layer bird which will cost around Rs. 90,000.

Today, Jasmita has stood as a successful entrepreneur changing her role from housewife. She is blessed with her own bank account in Odisha Gramya Bank and sportively taking her own decisions in terms of family expenses and her business. She aspires to provide her children with better higher education. Her determination to achieve something, backed by CYSD, has helped her to come out of the shackle of poverty. Her story has not only touched the lives of local people, but  also12 members have actively shown interest in action to adopt her path and take guidance to yield better in their cultivation refraining from seasonal migration.

Jasmita proudly flaunts by saying, “There is absolutely no need of providing rice with a price of Rs. 2.00 per Kg by the Government, but only timely support from the banks or financial institutions and guidance will help for economic growth of a person”.

Shantilata Mohanta, a resident of Daradara village of Toramora Panchayat under Thakurmunda block of  Mayurbhanj district, is educationally 12^th Std. pass out. Her family comprises of 5 members – her husband Baidhar Mohanta, two children and mother in-law. Chandan, her son is a sponsored child under CYSD-Plan Project for past 10 years. Her children are academically active – daughter is pursuing higher secondary education (+2 Arts) and son studies in Dumuriya Residential High School.

Being blessed with a stable family is not enough! The economic crisis of her family was soaring higher with each passing day. They own a very small landholding that was insufficient for the year round subsistence, that too for six members. Earlier, they had been cultivating paddy with meager production. Her miseries doesn’t end here! Due to misfortune, her husband has been suffering with epileptic attacks since eight years for now. They, however, had tired their level best in consulting to the nearby health institutions as well the SCB medical college at Cuttack. The family spent a lot for his treatment and medication, but he is not fully cured and still remains in a deteriorating condition. Sometimes he gets recurrent fits and his situation gets even more precarious. He is as sick as he is incompetent to carry out his own hygiene and care, for which Shanti and her mother-in-law have been devoting a lot of their time.

With this miserable condition, Shantilata had applied for a Tailoring Training course in 2015 which was organized by CYSD. Being the mother of a sponsored child and visualizing her poor economic background, CYSD programme team selected her as one of the trainees for Vocational Training on Tailoring. Shantilata underwent the training at Karanjia for two months and sincerely learnt the skills of measurements, cutting and stitching of ladies garments. She had also been supported with stitching materials and a sewing machine with 50% cost contribution from her side.

Today, she has managed to take a rented room for Tailoring Workshop in Mahuldiha market and has been stitching the garments as per order of the ladies customers. Currently she owns two sewing machines, one is at workshop and the other one at home in order to maintain timely delivery of orders and to satisfy the customers. Out of tailoring business she is now able to earn around Rs.6000 to Rs.7000 per month. This income has categorically helped to support her children’s higher education. Shantilata says, “My children very much understand the family situation and unlike the fashionable adolescents of the present day, they have never demanded luxuries. Through this little earning I am able to manage the family expenses”.

She has planned to expand her endeavor engaging two full time assistants and showcasing the shop with cabinets and accessories. Not only that, she also desires to install an electric sewing machine with PICO and other stitching designers that will attract more customers to her shop. In this process some stitching/sewing materials like clothes, lining materials, designer items etc. will be also procured and used in stitching to meet the customers’ demands.

 “I have struggled a lot in my life. However that acute phase of adversity is going away gradually. My main aim is to make my children better qualified for getting suitable jobs. All depends upon God’s grace”. I am thankful to CYSD for supporting me during my crisis and empowering me to become self-employed in tailoring profession”, shared happy Shantilata.

“As I grew up, I lost everything I loved, bit by bit”, says Rajesh Khillo, an Adivasi adolescent boy from Kandh Antalguda village of Khairput Gram Panchayat when he was in discussion with the Community Mobiliser of CYSD for that particular GP under Khairput block.  He expressed how his hard work and ability to tackle situations calmly, helped him throughout life.

Rajesh lost his mother at the very tender age owing to mental retardation. He lost his father too, around when he was in secondary school. He had to lead an orphaned life, since his early adolescence and had to live with his paternal uncle. Rajesh’s life worsened when he had to discontinue the school from 8^th Standard due to continuous engagement in household chores. A satiated appetite and a stress free sleep were the only things that became his utmost desire. He had to work for hours as a labourer to earn his two square of meals a day. He started underperforming in class owing to continuous absence.   During a dropout counseling program he was identified and supported by CYSD Programe team to go back to the school. After 2 years of long gap in education he was readmitted in 8^th Standard with the help of Community Mobiliser of Khairput in 2018. Continuous counseling and support of education materials ignited his interest and made him alive in education. This year, Rajesh successfully completed his High School Certificate Examination.

Rajesh is a very hard working boy.  He was simultaneously studying and working as daily wage earner to bear his own educational expenses. Soon after completion of matriculation examination, he never stopped himself to work as a daily labourer. Even during the COVID-19 lock down period he has worked in agriculture field and supported his uncle financially. Fortunately, Rajesh could become a Community Volunteer to spread the message on how to fight against coronavirus and lend major supporting hand for conducting awareness campaigns in the locality. “I am really grateful to CYSD for bringing back my life in track and offering me a chance to serve the people during this pandemic”, says Rajesh delightedly.

Now Rajesh has planned to get admission in a suitable college, complete higher education, stand by his own and support orphan children like him to become self-dependent. Gradually his struggle comes to an end, thus, it can be said “the saddest people smile the brightest”.

Goudaguda is a predominantly tribal populated Gram Panchayat under Laxmipur block of Koraput district. The main source of income of the people has been agriculture since ages. With increase in population, pressure on agricultural land and changing weather pattern with limited land, mere agriculture became inefficient to sustain the families; and has forced the tribals to   migrate to neighbouring states or cities. During COVID -19 most of the migrants find no way than coming back to their native place. Due to lock down situation, without any job in hand their families had to suffer from hunger and other household shortages. In order to address the situation the Govt of Odisha declared MGNREGA work for job seekers, identifying CYSD as the facilitating agency for 4 GPs in Laxmipur Block.

Joining hands with Block and Panchyat administration, CYSD Programme team mobilized communities through Village Development Committees (VDCs) and conducted various awareness programmes from time-to-time and motivated the people to know their rights and entitlements and to raise demand for work from the concerned Gram Panchayat. Accepting their limitations in literacy, CRPs and Programme team of CYSD helped them in mainstreaming. They opened their bank accounts, enrolled themselves for job cards and Aadhar cards. Community’s knowledge and awareness on MGNREGS system gradually enhanced. They learned the art of timely filling up job demand forms and enrolment in job cards. Community went to the extent for demanding job through C1 Form. In this process, about 989 job seekers of Goudagud GP demanded for job where more than 70% were women.

Under MGNREGS, the Block Administration sanctioned 5 special community projects along with 17 individual projects for Goudaguda GP. The special projects were mainly field channels where nearly 576 women job seeker were engaged in earth work for 3 weeks @ 207 rupees per day/person.

MGNREGS work in Goudaguda GP triggered a shift in both financial and migration situation. Poor, vulnerable and widows and single women household head benefitted largely from the project and stopped migrating to neighbouring cities. Employment was made available at their door steps for round 80 days during this non-agricultural season. MGNREGA scheme helped the villagers to break the cycle of borrowing and poverty during Covid-19 pandemic. Besides, CYSD with the support of Ford Foundation provided dry rotation kits to 220 MGNREGA Job seekers of the GP for a week.  This intervention also encouraged women to seek employment. Moreover, the assets like, Field Channel created in the process, became the source of  irrigation to cultivate paddy and vegetables on their land, as an alternative source of livelihood.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns more than seven lakh people mostly migrant workers had returned to Odisha losing their job and to escape from the deadly virus. Seeing the migrants’ situation, the government has made all round efforts to create job opportunities for the returnee job seekers, even declared to double the man-days under MGNREGA scheme.

But, barely two months later the Covid-19 pandemic and lock down, it has come to public notice that migrant workers from different parts of Odisha have started returning to their workplaces in whatever way possible fleeing the Covid infection, right across the country, to stave off hunger.

Migrant returnees mostly from the districts of Bolangiri, Ganjam and Gajpati have no second thoughts in boarding the bus sent by their employer – a carpet maker – to take them back to the Bikaner-based facility. Even in coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, a group of youth migrants returned to their workplace in Udaipur – a bag making unit, by bus through contacting a labour agent of the unit. 

It has been reported that on reaching the workplace, the workers are undergoing a COVID-19 test. And after testing negative, they are being allowed to join the workforce. This time, most of the employers have been assuring better payment with a condition that they will not step out of factory premises. Interestingly, a few factory owners are also offering advance wages for three months before employing them.

Though the State Government have given advance rice and ₹1000 to returnee migrants in view of Covid pandemic, apart from feeding oneself, there are lots of requirements to be met through hard cash. Workers in Ganjam, the most migration prone district of Odisha, are also getting impatient to return to work spots as their savings are depleting fast.

In the meantime, both the employers and workers are desperate as different sectors have started opening following easing up of lockdown. Undoubtedly, this situation has been forcing the migrant workers to return to workplaces across the country.

Therefore, this time, the government should set up a robust mechanism to streamline the labour migration. Workers should return to their workplace through registered labour agencies so that wage as well as working hours could be fixed.

Here the concern is that under desperation to return to workplace, workers should not choose anything coming in their way. Hence, the State Government should come up with a platform for both employers as well as workers to ensure migration takes place through the legal process. It will make sure that workers will not be subjected to pain and agony which they experienced while returning home after lockdown.

During a community monitoring process conducted recently in Bhakurguda village of Rayagada block, twofold concerns came to light. Firstly, the Aaganwadi Centre environment was filthy and unhygienic which obviously can affect the health of young children who visit the centre. Secondly, a defunct bore-well was noticed in the campus, which apparently was dug up for a long time that put the AWW difficult in fetching clean and drinking water on a regular basis.

Bhakurguda village falls under Rayagada block of Rayagada district. There are a total of 113 beneficiaries in the village, with 7 pregnant women, 10 lactating mothers, 20 adolescent girls, 38 children falling under the age group of 6 months to 3 years and 38 children under the age group of 3 years to 6 years.

As part of the community monitoring of basic health services, facilitated by CYSD, both service providers i.e. ASHA, AWW and service users, like pregnant women and lactating mothers were interacted with, exclusively.  The issue was dealt in great detail and it was observed that due to defunct bore-well within the Anganwadi premises, the Anganwadi workers were forced to travel distances to collect water for drinking and cooking purposes. On the other hand, the Anganwadi Centre has 38 pre-school children and it is a tedious task to collect sufficient water for cooking and drinking for all these children. Even the beneficiaries i.e. mothers of pre-school children complain of the unavailability of drinking water at the AWC. Secondly, the surrounding campus of the Centre remained unhygienic was leading to insect breeding and thus exposing children to diseases.  This resulted in absenteeism of children at the AWC.

With this backdrop, a village level intervention was staged where the service providers and service users participated. The issues were taken as top priorities by both service provider and service user and a possible plan of action was formulated. In an action mode, the mothers’ committee took up the responsibility to clean the surrounding of Aaganwadi Centre on every VHND. Similarly, for clean and drinking watersupply to the AWC, it was decided to bring the issue to the notice of the Sarapanch. The responsibility of writing an application was taken up by 10 mothers and they were assisted by one of the community resource persons of CYSD.

During the follow up process, it was found out that the Adolescent Club and 10 mothers together have submitted the proposed application to the Sarapanch. As a result, all the bore-wells inside the village including the AWC have already been repaired by a self-employed mechanic of the nearby village. The mechanic was also supported and assisted by the youth club members, adolescent club members, mothers of pre-school children and ward member. As a result, clean and regular drinking water is made available at the Aaganwadi Centre and cleaning of the Aaganwadi Centre has been taken up as a regular activity by the Mothers’ Committee.

Streamlining of health related entitlements in Bhakurguda was possible due to community vigilance and regular monitoring of the facilities created for the common people.

“Water surrounds the lotus flower, but does not wet its petals”, said Gautam Buddha. Likewise,tones the life of DasmotiKope, an 18 years poor but vibrant girl of Khairapally village of Nayakguda GP under Mathiliblockof Malkangiri district.Dasmoti’s poverty ridden family has been enrolled as sponsored familysince 2007-08 by CYSD with the support of Childfund India. But, the dices of destiny turned and the family was pushed into a different reality after 5 years. When Dasmoti was about 10 years, her father, the only earning member, left the family and settled elsewhere leaving both his wife &only daughter. Dasmoti’s mother struggled hard to earn the livelihood forher family. Even after long battle for survival, her mother never decided to disrupt daughter’s education. Dasmotiwas determined to build her career brighterwith good education.The continuous moral and mental support through project based child club meeting, adolescents meeting and different leadership activitiesinspired her a lot.

During this lock down and closure of schools, Dasmotivolunteered to support the children of her village byimparting educationkeeping in mind the COVID-19 related advisories. Looking at her interest, CYSD programme team guided her to conduct the classes with innovative methods for easy learning of children. She followed indoor creative learning process to develop the cognitive knowledge level of children. For her volunteering work, shewas supported with remuneration fromthe project.  Dasmoti decided to do cultivation of their small farm land, with her hard earned money. She hired a tractor for ploughing the field and bought paddy seed to sow with the saved money.

Apart from this,Dasmoti has always championed for different causes of the village like, taking lead role for campaigning against early child marriage, performing peer educator for adolescent health care and proclaiming child rights & protection.

Dasmoti has been dreaming to stand by her own and support her mother for rest of the life.With this vision shecompleted her +2 in Science education but the shadow of grapple has yet to escape her. After +2 Sc. she could not take admission for pursuingBSc degreelast year, but she is in the process of getting admission in a college this year. Life for Dasmoti is a long struggle in the dark, yet she strives to overcome it.

“During last winter, I have yielded a good vegetable crop from WADI cultivation and earned around rupees 30000. This return helped me to repay my outstanding loan and save some money in bank”, says Dumburu Pujari, a marginal farmer from Koraput.

Dumburu belongs to Bondaguda village of Khudi Panchayat in Similiguda block of Koraput. His family comprises of one daughter and two sons. Farming being the main occupation, he gets little income from his small landholding.

Among other villagers, Dumburu was motivated to adopt WADI plantation in his own land with the support of focus area development programme (FADP). He received 40 grafted mango saplings as input support for initiating WADI plantation.

With the help of family members, he made a boundary fencing of the land and planted the mango saplings as long term investment. Being a job cardholder, he applied for work under MGNREGS and using the labour payment he showed some vegetable, ginger and turmeric seeds for seasonal intercropping in the mango plantation field for livelihood.

In last winter, the vegetable crop yielded good result and he got a return of Rs. 30000 from intercropping vegetable cultivation. Besides, from ginger and turmeric cultivation he earned Rs. 18000. With this sizeable return he repaid the outstanding loan amount; has installed a drip irrigation for watering the plants; and deposited the remaining amount in his saving bank account for future consumption purpose.

Now Dumburu is quite optimistic to double his income by adopting different crop cultivation practices and approaches. His efforts has proved him to become a source of inspiration for the villagers as well as the neighbouring villagers of Khudi Panchayat.  This was possible due to his keen interest and enthusiasm to adopting new approach in agriculture and of course little bit technical guidance and boost from CYSD programme team.

In developing countries like India, there are various factors that lead to migration like poverty, unemployment, natural calamities and underdevelopment at the place of origin. Rural emigration is a survival strategy which is caused by unfavorable economic and social conditions of the backward areas. However, the impact of migration has mostly been observed as positive and comes as a remedy toalleviate poverty, inequality and contribute to economic growth anddevelopment.

It has come to notice   that the tribal population of Thakurmunda block of Mayurbhanj District of Odisha continues to migrate to Bangalore, Gujarat&Chennai for their livelihood as they do not get employment throughout the year in their native place. In Myurbhanjadistrict, about 57.87% of the total population consists of the tribal communities, like Santal, Munda, Bathudi, and Saunti tribes.

As per a recently conducted baseline survey by the CYSD Community Health Volunteers, 49% of the total population are farmers (depends on monsoon), 26% are daily laborers and others are migrant labourers. Thus agricultural activity alone does not support the tribal families for round the year and they look for alternative opportunities of earning livelihood. The region is gripped under poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment. This grim situation compels the tribal population to migrate to urbans  in search of employment and for survival. The study team further explored to know about causes of migration, impact of migration and  the difficulties faced during the migration from the migrant workers of Thakurmunda block, who were detained in Temporary Medical Center (TMC) for quarantine after returning from Gujarat.

RajendraNaik, 24 years, son of late FashiNaik from TalaSahi of Kendujiani village of Kendujiani Gram panchayat of Thakurmunda Block of MayurbhanjaDistrict is one of the returnee migrants quarantined at the TMC. 9 years  ago he was migrated to Gujurat  for employment.  His father died of phthisis (Pulmonary Tuberculosis), when he was only 13. He had to manage the household and the family consisting of two younger brothers, one sister, mother&grandparents.Their agricultural land too was small  to manage a six-member family round the year. So, his mother Durgiworked as daily wage earner inneighboringvillages.Rajendra was forced to discontinue his education after Std. VII and supplemented to the family income by joining daily labour. Rajendra’s story reflects so many intricacies of socio-economic-cultural factors that lead to mass exodus from rural to suburbs and urbans.

In Kendujiani Gram panchayat besidesagricultural activities, other employment opportunitiesare unheard of. In such a situation, migration has become an obligatory choice for the poor& suppressedtribals. It has been observed that many poor tribal families prefer to continue short term migration after the harvesting season for 3 – 4 monthsevery year to nearer urbans like, Balaesore and Bhadrak. This is called seasonal migration.However in case of Rajendra and many like him, financial constraints and household requisites compelled him to migrate to Gujurat with a distant relative in search of job and work as daily labour in a polythene packets producing factory.

While Rajendra was asked, he says sorrowfully, “I used to send around Rs. 2500 – 4500to my mother on monthly basis through money order to meet the siblings’ educationalneeds and medical expenses.But, this Covid-19 pandemic situation has divested our lives and livelihoods”.

The analysis further reveals that families of migrant workers also faced significant issues in the absence of male counterparts. Women from the migrant households, with their revised gender roles, endure double the workload and suffer regular loss of entitlements, owing to unequal treatment. So, Rajendra’s mother and family had to face added vulnerabilities related to safety, nutrition, hygiene and health. However, after his swab test, he was found COVID-19 negative. Now, after all this drill Rajendra is living with hisfamily members but facing the same pecuniary issues. Howsoever, the counselling support from CYSD volunteers has helped him get engagedin MGNRGA work.

The global Corona pandemic has adversely affected the vulnerable farmers especially the ones in suburbs like Malkhangiri. The lockdown doesn’t help the situation much, either. There was sheer apprehension among the local agricultural farmers of availing input support on time from various sources for the upcoming Kharif cultivation. Soba Jankia, a smallholder woman farmer, aged about 48 years from Duraguda village of Dalapatiguda GP, under Mathili Block of the district carried similar feeling of insecurity. According to Soba Jankia, “We did not have any means to access or procure seeds support for the Kharif season. My husband and Iwere quite panic and worried. This time the God became so unkind to us”.

Malkanagiri being the operational district, CYSD team had taken notice of the issue and planned to extend necessary input support to the vulnerable farmers to initiate Kharif crop cultivation getting out of the jeopardy of Corona. To materialize it, the team initiated negotiations with the M/s LAMPCS to help the farmers avail seed support at a subsidized rate. The organization anticipated that the proposal would benefit a total of two hundred and forty (240) farmers of sponsored households in terms of paddy seed and technical support.

To this effect, an immediate assessment exercise was conducted in Dalapatiguda GP by the project volunteers to identify the needy farmer beneficiaries.  Being one of the sponsored families, Soba Jankia was included in the beneficiaries list. As per the plan, necessary paddy seeds support was provided to the select families. Soba also received required support.

“Now, we are free from anxiety after getting timely paddy seed support. God has listened to my prayer during this critical hour. This Kharif season will bring a good yield and help restore the livelihoods of my family”, shared delightful Soba.

This small effort of CYSD in partnership with Child Fund India helped the poor farmers restore their faith, foot their bills and earn their living and proved a friend of the needy farmers.