Recent projects
Since 2005 Jeevika Trust (India Development Group) has moved its focus of activity away from supporting campus-based training near Lucknow with outreach into a few neighbouring villages, to expanding our presence and the impact of our operations to an ‘all-India’ basis. This has reflected the conviction that E.F. Schumacher’s thinking about rural poverty in India deserved to have far wider application, and to reach and touch far more rural people, than it had in the previous 25 years.
Working with Schumacher Centre for Development (SCD), our sister organisation set up in Delhi for this purpose in 2001, we have made big strides in connecting with village communities, and working with the most marginalised people in those communities, in the north, centre, east and south of the country.
In the past 2 years we have partnered with carefully chosen ‘grass roots’ NGOs in east and southern India with whom to plan and deliver a range of village livelihood projects.
Jeevika Trust’s role in all the following projects has been to develop concepts with SCD and other selected partners, based on researching the village communities’ needs, identifying appropriate funders in UK, planning the project in detail with our partner, then monitoring its implementation by regular reports and visits, and preparing a final evaluation report for the funder. At the same time we will typically be exploring and planning expansion or diversification of the project for a subsequent period, and/or its replication into other places. Unless otherwise stated all of the projects below have been implemented in partnership with SCD.
2005 to 2008
Project Shakti, the first bee-keeping project we attempted, in twelve villages in the Udham Singh Nagar District of Uttarakhand, helped 200 scheduled caste women to develop income-generation skills via beekeeping, honey production and tailoring crafts, benefiting up to 1,200 members of their households, and reaching the whole population of the villages through awareness camps on health & hygiene, and gender & human rights issues.
In south India, our first water project, Project Ooranie, was planned with partner Social Change and Development (SCAD) and revived three traditional rainwater-harvesting systems or ooranies. These ooranies were restored to provide accessible safe water to 970 families in three villages near Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu for household, livestock and agricultural use, eliminating or reducing the daily walking distances for women and children.
Developed as a pilot project with the Mithra Foundation, Project Mithra extended socio-economic support to village families affected by HIV/AIDS: it helped build their capacity to generate income from collective activity such as candle-making and goat-rearing, and provides a crèche facility for their children while they work. These livelihood activities enabled over 120 vulnerable people in three villages to improve their nutritional intake and afford access to medicine and treatment. Based in south Tamil Nadu, in an HIV+ catchment area, a key part of the project was to improve the general understanding of HIV/AIDS issues among the broader community in the area. This project has been expanded in year 2.
In collaboration with the Annai Mary Foundation, Project Annai Mary was a livelihood project for 100 Tribal and Dalit women beekeepers in 3 villages in south Tamil Nadu, and included a small number of women who have registered as HIV+. The women used the honey for household consumption, medicinal purposes and generating an income from surplus honey sold in local markets. Project activities also included organic composting and kitchen garden production, the vegetables from which improved family nutrition and generated a little income when there was surplus. After the success of this pilot project, Project Annai Mary-2 has been expanded.
The pilot year of Project Madhu was developed with Jeevan Rekha Parishad as a 2-year beekeeping initiative for 100 tribal women who live in the Chandaka Tribal Forest Area of Orissa. By providing Self-Help Group development, livelihood training and equipment for honey production as well as for medicinal herb and kitchen garden production, women beekeepers were able to provide honey for their families, selling surplus honey at the village market and contributing to household income. The bee colonies also made a vital contribution to pollination of fruits and crops and to help sustain the local ecology.
‘Give a Mum a Goat’, a pilot goat-rearing project, was started in late 2005 in Goharra and another village near Agra in partnership with SCD. We started by identifying a pilot group of 100 of the most vulnerable women in the villages to participate in the scheme. Each woman was provided with a female goat together with initial and follow-up training in goat-rearing and management. Starting with just one female goat, each woman was able to build her own source of milk, manure, meat and money for the benefit of her family. By late 2007, the scheme had established itself with a gradual increase in participating women receiving free female kids from the original participants.
In 2 villages in the Jajpur district of Orissa, our Bamboo Livelihood Activities pilot project benefited an initial group of 100 of the most disadvantaged women from the Dhol caste. Bamboo craft has been traditionally the sole livelihood of the caste, but this dependence had left the womenfolk increasingly marginalised. Until this project, a single piece of bamboo, purchased for 80 rupees and converted into baskets, was generating only 40 rupees of profit per woman after a whole week’s work. By organising the women into Self Help Groups, training them to make new bamboo products, supplying better tools to enhance productivity, we have been able to ensure women save time, raise efficiency and produce more baskets, earning up to 100 rupees a day. SCD has subsequently extended its bamboo-based livelihood initiatives in other parts of Orissa.
2001 – 2005
Among projects successfully completed prior to 2005 with Schumacher Centre for Development (SCD) are:
Our Integrated Women’s Rural Development project in 11 villages in the Lucknow district of Uttar Pradesh, directly benefited over 2,500 scheduled caste and tribal women and their families through mint farming and craftwork skills and the provision of crèche-schools for over 200 children to enable the women to work in the fields. By freezing the mint oil at harvest-time, and releasing it on to the market when prices had risen again, women beneficiaries were able to generate better income to contribute to the household.
Working alongside CARE India, the Integrated Nutrition & (reproductive) Health Programme helped benefit 40 villages in Uttar Pradesh (2001-2004), directly touching at least 40,000 people and indirectly many more. The project strategy was to sensitise health service providers and generate demand for them by the rural communities. The biggest achievement of the project was to enable women (adolescents, as well as pregnant and lactating mothers) to stretch beyond the traditional taboo of discussing issues of reproductive and child health.
The Community-Based Drought Response Programme in western Orissa, worked with the drought-induced migrant population who were living in kaccha or temporary mud housing without electricity, water supply or sanitation facilities. In January 2004 CARE India looked into the social housing project called ASHRAYA judged to be one of the Global Best Practices by UN-Habitat (2002). They approached SCD to provide training to landless, marginalized farmers and women in building-construction technology and material production under the programme called ‘Construction Artisan Promotion Initiative-CAPI’. In collaboration with Cooperation for Rural Excellence (CORE), SCD trained over 1300 artisans out of which more than 400 were women, forming 60 Artisan self-help groups.
In 2001 SCD’s Deepening Democracy project was set up to train 400 village leaders in Orissa and Uttar Pradesh on the working of the 1993 constitutional reforms of village democracy, thereby benefiting the entire communities concerned. By providing training, information and sensitisation to these grassroots leaders we contributed to the growth of vibrant, participatory and meaningful democracy at village level. Awareness camps engaged villagers in helping to define and remendy gaps in democratic functions – with particular reference to the role of women in decision making.
Our pilot project (completed in August 2005) promoting Health Education, and focusing on Reproductive and Child Health – touched 2000 people in 4 villages, near Agra, Uttar Pradesh. This project has had a ‘multiplier effect’, through training animators and health workers, and expanding into other nearby villages.
During 2005, our initial tsunami response projects on the Tamil Nadu coastline (Cuddalore, Karaikal, and Nagapattinam) provided a much needed mobile hospital unit which treated 12,000 children and adults, and contributed to rehabilitation of fishing communities through repair of tsunami-damaged boats. By directly repairing and putting back to sea 100 Karaikal fishing boats, SCD and Jeevika Trust, with funds raised in UK and France, restored livelihoods to some 500 fishermen and their families, touching up to 3,000 lives.
