The following is an abstract from report and plan of action bearing the same title presented during the Workshop organized on Waste Management for an Integrated Vibrant Village Economy for “WaterAid” in August 2003.

The Background:

The BLESS has been working with WaterAid. WaterAid’s vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water and effective sanitation. The TRSP [Total Rural Sanitation Project] implemented by BLESS in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu has the following components.

1. Construction of locally appropriate toilets
2. Educating the intended beneficiaries on the total hygiene and
3. Empowering the rural sector, in general, and rural women, in particular

The BLESS has adopted successfully the technique of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in the project area as a way to involve the villagers in the assessment of their own resources and planning of village development activities. In the process of implementing the TRSP, the third component started engaging the thinking of the BLESS. The BLESS started feeling that the SANITATION needs to be linked up with the strategy of over-all well being of the village. Sanitation is not a stand alone terminal. It is part of the destination – AN INTEGRATED VIBRANT VILLAGE ECONOMY. The following questions came onto the fore.

1. How to link sanitation to the dimensions of sustainable integrated development of a vibrant village?
2. What type of roles the TRSP enlightened women may be asked to take up?
3. What outcome of the Sanitation project is to be the input for the strategic village development process?
4. What are the appropriate technologies oriented infrastructural requirements?
5. How to ensure adequate intellectual capital to manage the development process of sustainable Vibrant Village?
6. How to go about awareness and training programs to the beneficiaries to make the village a sustainable vibrant village with developmental impulses put in place?

The purpose of the Auroville meet in a Workshop mode is to find approaches to answer the above questions in a Project format. In the process, there may be new dimensions that may come onto the fore.

Now, let us see the blue print of AN INTEGRATED VIBRANT VILLAGE and understand the concept of the IVV. Thereafter, we shall work out the mechanisms to translate the concept into a workable model. It focuses on institution building at different levels, sustainable agriculture [to start with, kitchen (home) gardens/ farming, essentially by women] and environmental conservation, off-farm employment and income development in the secondary sector, infrastructure development and gender.

The Concept of IVV:

The Integrated Vibrant Village in cooperation with the local Government, voluntary sector, academic experts in the area of rural empowerment and funding agencies – both domestic including philanthropic organizations & corporate bodies and foreign foundations to facilitate the initial process – work to ensure that poor village women formed into groups met their families’ basic food needs and were able to make an income through integrated self sustaining efforts.

The efforts are, among others, in the following areas.

1. Continuation of the hygiene orientation
2. Usage of water and solid waste to raise kitchen gardens [home farming]
3. Generation of marketable surplus from the kitchen gardens

The target group may consist of 4 TRSP villages. For the above to sustain, simultaneously some structured interventions to improve the knowledge, skill orientation and attitudinal change among the intended beneficiaries are needed. They include awareness building programs [reinforcement programs on total hygiene, gender sensitivity, sustainable livelihood practices, literacy improvement, child growth and development, parenting, need for personality development of the children in a competitive economy, workers’ rights and responsibilities] skill formation/ development programs [communication, organizing abilities, leadership orientation, marketing skills, team/ group orientation, accounting] and attitude changing programs [confidence generating programs, assertiveness training, change agent orientation and such other human development orientated ones].

How to capture all the above elements in a work model?

Brief discussions between and among BLESS and Dr RP Raya on the experience of BLESS in TRSP and those of SHGs they promoted resulted in the following model. The components of the Model1 are provided hereunder.

1. The SHG members of the TRSP will be encouraged to grow home [kitchen] gardens. The seeds/ seedlings will be provided by BLESS. The BLESS may approach ANNADANA and others engaging in the seed development. The initial funding for the pilot efforts may be obtained from appropriate government agency or from other sources. The members of the home spend quality time [may not be full time always] required on water channeling, manuring [compost], weeding, using the natural [mostly] pesticides, and such other operations.
2. The members will be given orientation and training in raising the kitchen gardens. The funding required needs to be looked into. Convergence strategy may help.
3. The children of the SHG members will be lead to schools. The SHG members will be tuned to the long term dream of seeing their siblings grow and develop with IC [Intellectual Capital].
4. The SHG members are provided with the awareness on the dynamic changes taking place around them and the need to cope up with them. They include, among others, environmental degradation, falling and contaminated water tables, need to preserve [through Rain Water Harvesting and no-water wastage orientation] and protect water sources and storages [including local tanks], to name a few. The BLESS endeavors to rope in experts, motivators and others needed to run the programs, systematically, on regular basis. This ensures the retention and internalization of the given orientation. For pilot project, the funding may be drawn from internal sources or from the strategy of convergence [using the government policy and agencies] wherever feasible.
5. A group of SHGs may consider taking the local available land, in their neighborhood, on lease for purposes of small household group farming. They may grow, for instance, Napier grass. The SHGs with dairy activity may utilize the grass during summer, in particular. Or, the demand for floriculture may be converted into an economic activity.
6. The process may lead itself to ensure food security. The reason: the strategy of home [kitchen] garden provides economic gain and self confidence which ensures purchasing power on one hand and also ownership of economic resources including the ability to grow food crops either on small owned lands in a cooperative spirit for mutual gain or on leased lands. In either case, it is a vehicle to ensure vibrancy to the village economy and to the empowerment of its drivers – the members of SHGs.

The project may be formulated after debate, discussions, visits to the seed farms, and water conservation sites. The objectives of the Project may include the following.

OBJECTIVES:

General objective:

Contribute to poverty reduction through sustainable economic and ecological development in Cuddalore district by promoting the involvement of women in the socio-economic development process.

Specific objectives:

1. Increase the insight in the development process of villages in the district of Cuddalore.
2. Develop income generating activities for poor women with or without land
3. Provide economic and social infrastructure in key areas.
4. Protect environment through village and farm reforestation, integration of trees on farms, environmental education and soil conservation activities.
5. Increase coordination, institutional strengthening and participation in planning.