Tharu Community in district Lakhimpur Kheri

For past few days , I was thinking about visiting Indo-Nepal Tharu villages(Why?) so that I can understand their daily life and their background. I did some G-research and found out that there are few options Chandan chowki, Bilraya and Bela Parsuwa. I choose Bela Parsuwa , called a friend of mine with motorcycle, checked the following map and thus started from Palia around 1.00 pm. 

Reached Bela Parsuwa at 3:30 so around 2.30 minutes ride. Met members of Tharu tribe , impressed with their politeness and simplicity. Few points : 

- Tharu community is the most populous tribe in U.P.  

- In Kheri, there are 60,000 Tharu voters who live in Palia and Nighasan Tehsils.

- Many local Tharus depend on farming and forests for their survival. Most of the families have land, which is used for paddy,wheat cultivation. Flood is an issue but they are managing with it.

- Despite Tharus being the most backward tribe in U.P., the government’s focus on improving their situation has ended up helping a lot of Tharus and thus many villagers are employed in govt jobs.

- Mobile network is still an issue , though only BSNL has erected tower for them but its tower maintenance is 'Sarkari' . Locals depend upon nepal telecom as it provides better connectivity in border areas.

- Tharus have to spend much more on Healthcare as there is no good local expertise. 

- Tharu women - some of whom have never been to school wants to become self-reliant. This has led to them forming SHGs(Self Help Groups) but these groups' potential has not been tapped yet so there is scope of women empowerment.

Some of the products of these women are : 

Farms n Farmers - Incredible Bihar

"Some people refuse to accept things as they are, rather see how they should be - and leave no stone unturned to make it happen" - These are the lines from the heart of 2 young,hard-working and humble IITans.Treading a path less travelled, 2 have taken to agriculture after turning down lucrative MNC job offers and made a mark for themselves within a few months. They started their mission with an offbeat initiative in October 2010 in Vaishali district and now it has spread over 6 adjacent districts in Bihar.

Mission : Social service+Entrepreneurship (maximizing returns from land through natural farming)
Location : Started from Vaishali district,Bihar
Starting date : October,2010
Starting strength : 18 farmers to experiment on six acres of land
Method :
- Farmers are suggested to cultivate Cash crops eg. 'rajma' and flowers instead of the conventional crop of wheat/rice.
- Farmers learn and implement new techniques such as water harvesting and organic farming.
- Each technique is tailored to the soil content and land size.
- Farmers sell directly to food processing companies. It helps farmers earn more.

Organization :
- In February 2011, they founded an NGO, 'Farms n Farmers (FnF)', which does everything from soil testing to providing a market to farmers. Its activities have now expanded to adjoining districts including Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Banka and Purnia.
- FnF charges a nominal 10% of total sale value from farmers. It is planned to lower this figure in future as more farmers join initiative.
- FnF, which has more than 150 farmers associated with it, has an 8 member advisory team which includes Prof P K Sinha from IIM-Ahmedabad, Prof R Singh and P B S Bhadoria from IITKharagpur, and Dr Bimla Rai from RAU, Pusa. Manish and Shashank hold regular training programmes in different parts of Bihar.

Result :
- The farmers earned Rs 1000 per kattha with an investment of Rs 400. For wheat, they used to invest Rs 350 and reap 50kg produce per kattha, earning Rs 400 to 500.
- In Purnia district, where corn and potato are predominantly grown, farmers usually leave their land unused from June to September. They are advised to sow baby corn. As baby corn is reaped within 50 to 60 days, farmers had a bumper harvest just before raising another crop.Several Purnia farmers harvested 25kg baby corn per kattha of land and sold it for an average amount of Rs 750, earning more than Rs 300.
- In Buxar, the farmers, facing water shortage, were advised to grow medicinal herbs, which need negligible irrigation.

Future Plan :
- Though they are currently not using organic methods of farming, they said "organic is best." "Now that we have gained farmers' faith, we have started to work on organic farming. We are advising farmers to avoid using chemical fertilizer," they said.

Last but not the least the Guys..................
1.Shashank Kumar: IIT-Delhi graduate (2004-2008 batch):
- "If I had to go for an entrepreneurship, then why not this sector because no one is ready to work for this sector. This is ignored yet one of the most important sectors, so I have decided to work in this sector,"
2.Manish Kumar, an IIT Kharagpur postgraduate (2005-10 batch):
- Son of a retired clerk.
- Belong to Chakdariya village in Vaishali district.
- "A job in multinational companies wouldn't have given this satisfaction as this job is giving. Here we are changing lives of so many people attached with us."
Link to Video...

If they want to ...they want to

It seems all of us have the habit of saying 'I don't like this/that' and then get busy with our life...we do not think that if the whole society is just going to say the same then the things will ever change?. Our kids learn from us and they continue the same rely race.
The reason why we do not want is take lead varies from people to people....Many times people think that one need to be empowered socially/financially/politically to drive changes but it is not the case always......We need to make something actually happen instead of all of this talking. Some people should make things happen and following example shows that if somebody wants to covert dreams/idea/vision into reality then there is possibility.........

Name : Nine star school
Location : DASDOI Gram Panchayat,KAKORI,Lucknow(25 km away)
Description : one of 8 village-level private schools that have been started since 2001 by a group of young Bahá'ís working under the guidance of Foundation for the Advancement of Science (FAS), a Bahá'í-inspired NGO located in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.
Strength : 80 students
Run by : Sri. Ram Vilas Pal( trained in television repair )
Project : to train and support educated rural youth in the processes and profession of primary education, with the goal of starting small, sustainable, and effective private rural schools.
Challenge : Most important challenge before these young innovators is to keep their schools profitable - which is the key to long-term sustainability. Problems include spiralling costs, regular defaulting in fee payment, and children being pulled out of school to be used for agricultural labour.

Highlights:
1. The owners of these schools, who are also their principals, come from unlikely backgrounds. Mr. Pal was trained in television repair. Another school founder dispensed medicine in his village as a local "doctor." Another was a farmer.What is common among all eight principals is their passion for social transformation and their conviction that school is the place for this to happen. Indeed, as the soft-spoken Mr. Pal says, "The community and the family depend on the school to create a responsible citizen out of the child. When a child is found misbehaving, people ask him, ‘Is this what your teacher teaches you in school?'"
2. School in Dasdoi has a 50-50 ratio of girls to boys, which is unusually high in the region.
3. FAS is not a funding agency and, in fact, has adopted a policy of providing most of its support in the form of training and encouragement, although the foundation does occasionally provide salaries for one or two teachers when the going gets tough.FAS acts as a catalyst. It is just helping people use their potential to find a useful area of work - and to help them satisfy an important need in society.