Annual Works Report on Social Governance- Part-Two
Social Ownership
Second and last part of Annual Work Report (September 2006 to August 2007).
Please visit complete Annual Works Report in attachment. or
at www.localgovernance.org/workreport001.html
Koya Wes Organization
(Local Governance & Decentralized Economy Social Group)
South Bastar, Chhattisgarh
Koya Wes organization has been working in South Bastar Region, Chhattisgarh. This area has been suffering from internal Non-Violence for last many years. Hundreds of killings are going on in this region monthly in average. Paramilitary forces are here. Traditional Tribal have been suffering with their lives from both sides either from government forces or from non-government violent forces. Innocent Tribal are being killed from both sides.
South Bastar region is a dense forest area, minerals area thus Millions of Millions Rs capital are being generated in this area by forest and minerals each year. Big Indian Companies and MNCs are being occupied thousands of acres here for minerals. In this naturally rich area, minerals are available with the availability of water.
Here in this region, in some interior areas, people have no knowledge of currency. They do not understand the meaning of currency. They get only half or one kg salt after their work in whole day.
Head Quarter of South Bastar District, has no Bus Stop, no Railways Station, no Petrol Pump, no Hospital (hospital building is being constructed by government, we hope that within 2- 3 years, it will be a running hospital) and also has no Private Clinic.
In Dantewada (South Bastar) District, there are many people who have no land or no house for them of course they have no permanent village also. To these persons, Department of forest gives some land as VAN-GRAM (Forest-Village) to the communities for 10 or 15 or some more years in lease. In these VAN-GRAMs, about 20% land can be used to make a place to live and rest 80% land can be used only in animal keeping or in agricultural works.
This area has one of the highest rates for Child Workers; more than 70% of the total children in this district are Child Worker from their age of five (5) years or less age. They start to work with their age of five and work until their death.
The whole family works hard for 12 to 15 hours daily to collect costly forest products. They start with early morning (some time they start to work at 3.00 AM in morning) and work till late night (some time at midnight they reach their mud-bed). After this hard work of whole family, a family with 5-6 family members gets an average Rs 2000/ to Rs 4000/ (two thousands to four thousands) or some little more Rs per year. They buy one cloth to wear and they buy next cloth after two or three years.
To establish a permanent solution, we decided to establish some cottage production and marketing units and a Self-Sustained Residential Social Education Centre for Tribal Children. We needed help for only three years to reach stage of Self-Reliance Residential Education Centre for tribal children. Because this area is one of the most critical areas of India and people are very poor and are too exploited; thus, we were in ideological struggle inside us to apply for fund. We thought, before any project proposal, we should start to communicate to understand sincerities of funding agencies.
We tried to contact some funding agencies. However, we did not get sincerity in them; they were not able to think beyond their mechanical and conditioned processes. Moreover, because funding agencies have currency and thousands of NGOs are playing game for money thus we decided that we should establish this Residential Education Centre for Tribal Children even it will take some years to start.
We start to motivate local communities, local villagers and local individuals for this Education Centre. It took two years time, but now we are moving ahead to start this Education Centre in some months. Before two years, we were thinking to start this with 30 children but now we will start this with 20 children. We did not get any support for this Education Centre by any funding agency. This centre is being established with local community contributions, because this centre is for their own children. In this Education Centre, there will be a traditional and natural health unit.
Koya Wes will generate many Community Owned Residential Education Centres for tribal children in this region by this one Residential Education Centre.
Water Harvesting Structures
To motivate local tribal towards natural farming, Koya We has been working with its Social Centre. We constructed seven (7) water-harvesting structures in Kamalnaar, Bhogaam and Purantarai villages by community contribution.
Cost of constructions is from Rs 80,000 to Rs 1,20,000 for each water-harvesting structure. Koya Wes did not get any penny for all these water-harvesting structures. All seven structures were constructed by 100% local community contribution.
We constructed these structures to initiate people motivation to water harvesting methods without any out side help. Now we have started to get offers from some other villages for water-harvesting structures.
Agro-Industrial Economy Units (Social Economy)
Koya Wes has started a manufacturing unit for Hand-Made clothes. In this unit, we are using hand and leg driven traditional wooden machine. Ten local persons are working in this manufacturing unit. Because in this area, there is no crop of raw cotton thus we buy raw cotton from Jagdalpur District (more than 120 Kms from this area). We motivated some businesspersons in Raipur and few of them accepted to buy our hand-made clothes.
Mass Meetings
We organized continuous meetings as weekly, bi-weekly and monthly meetings in villages of our working area. We are working in more than seven hundred (700) villages in South Bastar Region.
We have a committed team of social-volunteers. Till present time, we are not paying any money to our volunteers, and we have no planning to pay them in future also.
Some time we organize local foot marches to have open discussions with local mass. We do not use Clothes Banners, Sign Boards or any mean of advertisement in our foot marches or in mass meetings in this region because we have no surplus money to spend on these things.
OTHER
We also work re-establishment works for last more than one decade in Natural or Man-Generated disasters as Flood, Fire or other in our working areas of Bihar and Chhattisgarh.