One good thing
among the visit was most people kept thought of helping these people
out of their mind and faced people with an open mind.This thing
helped us in understanding the organisation's work we visited ,
people here, their problem, ways in which they are dealing with them
and beside all this how they are celebrating life. Visit consolidated
my belief that without seeing the problem through peoples eyes,
without putting oneself into their shoes no solution can work.
Anandwan is
located near Warora in Chandrapur district Maharashtra state.
Maharogi Sewa Samiti (MSS) who spearhead all the activities here is
conceived by Baba Amte. When we see the journey of Anandwan from
barren land, handicapped cow ,few rupees and some leprosy patient to
hub of innovative projects, leprosy people with dignity and whole
batch of volunteers dedicating their lives for this cause one get
awestruck.
Some of these
project are Greeting cards, handiwork, wooden art, leather work,
printing press, hand-loom, power-loom, welding workshop, recycle
product unit, dairy which has turnover of rs 1crore and Agriculture
all these activities are run and managed by leprocy patient and
physically challenged people, MSS act as a facilitator. One such
project which must be elaborated here is Swaranandwan is an orchestra
run and managed by physically challenged people. All artist in the
orchestra belongs to this special group. Orchestra is quite famous
and make tour of Maharashtra every year. They are profitable too, a
tour fetches more than a crore for them. This team of 200 odd people
are motivated and anchored by Dr. Vikas Amte.
Anandwan visit
gave chance to interact with people discarded by society and see the
changes that has happened in their lives. It was also an opportunity
to meet people like Dr Vikas Amte, Sadashiv bhau, Prabhu Sir, Gajanan
Bhauand Ganesh who have dedicated their lives to make things we see
today. Each one of these people have done phenomenal work here and if
try to write bout each one it would be book itself.Through need
assessment activity I got a new friend, Ganesh. In need assessment
activity we spent one whole day with the one person managing various
activities in Anandwan, observing closely task carried out, nature of
work , scope for improvement and a detailed interview and presented
this case before secretary of Maharogi Sewa Samiti. Participation in
Garba, Shram-Dan was also quite an experience.
Visit to
Hemalkasa where we met Dr Prakash and Dr Manda Amte Magasaysay Award
winner couple exposed to the phenomenal work that is being done for
the tribal people in the remotest part of Maharashtra. Its been 40
years this service to the Madiya community is going on and their next
generation has taken over the responsibility to carry it forward.
Getting to know about this 40 year journey showed me what it takes to
make change in society. Patience, persistence and commitment is
really important in order to work in this sector.
One thing learned
from Prakashji is love can make even wild animal love you which is
evident when he takes us through Animal Ark here. Apart from hospital
facility they manage residential school with capacity for 650 student
to provide them with an education up-to 12th standard. This school has
produced many doctors, teachers, government officials, engineers some
of them have came back here to work. Keeping local youth in mind
they have started training centre on dairy and poultry also.Hemalkasa
project trains people in handicraft , buys handicraft produced and
sells during various exhibition across Maharashtra.
Interaction with
villagers here gave insights about their lives, agriculture is not
only things people do here activities such as handicraft, bidi are
also source of income for these people. People are aware about the
importance of education and send children to school. As it is Naxal
area when asked about it people said they are neither supporter of
police nor naxals as they are becoming victims in clashes between
police and naxal group.
Hari kaka took us
to the complete tour of Somanth project , managed by Maharogi Sewa
Samiti. It is spread over 1250 acre , all the land was barren but
brough under cultivation by leprosy patients over so many years since
1967. One can see various innovations there such as Kolhapuri
Checkdam , Electric Fencing , Fishery Project and Checkdam from waste
materials such as tyres , plastic etc. A very interesting thing about
all 17 lakes is they are interconnected and designed in such a way
that these lake won't overflow. People from various parts of
maharahtra come here to see these innovations and take them to their
home. Every year Somnath holds Shram Sanskar Chhavani for youth in
month of may 15-22 May where children from various part of
Maharashtra participate , this year onwards they have restricted
children to 500 due to administrative difficulties. Dr. Abhay Bang is
well known for his work in remote area of Maharashtra got inspired
from this camp. Now a days they hire labor from nearby villages as leprosy patients are older to do labor work.
Shivganga hosted
us in Madhya Pradesh. Our stay was spanned over Jhabua and Ali Rajpur
district. Organisation has started their work in 1998, Maheshji who
heads operation have studied Bhil community for 5 years and with the
help of locals started organization's work. Bhils has been
stigmatised as thief, robbers and for their backwardness many reasons
are given like illeteracy and drinking but after working with them
for so many years he says people here are not like that. Interaction
with Maheshji, Rajaram and Bhavarji onsolidated my conviction on
giving solution only when you understand community has been
consolidated. During our stay we visited and interacted with people
from 15 different villages. People we visited were from Bhil ,
Bhilala .
Interaction with these people gave us idea of the
way people live, their traditions and what it means to them. People
here are heavily dependent on Agriculture and due to large family
size and small land holding almost some people from each family goes
to Gujrat in search of work. In villages there is Faliya (colonies)
structure and education has reached up to faliya level.
They have
community work called Halma where people from village help other
person if he is not able to do his work and they do not expect
anything in return which is in contrast to what these people being portrayed. People festivals such as Divasa and Navasa festivals.
Divasa is celebrated after sowing while Navasa is celebrated after
harvesting. Tradition of paying dowry to the girl's family was
completely new to us people here feel this tradition is responsible
for indebtedness and migration of people to Gurjat. Silver is heavily
used for ornaments and these ornaments sometimes heavy upto kilogram.
We also visited Samoi hill, revered by all people here. God has no
embodied form here and people revere tree or stone. During visit we
came to know about Bhakti movement here, the ones who joined this
movement known as Bhagat who is vegetarian and does not drink alcohol
while others known as Nagad. During Navratri festival people
organises “Badwa” dance which thrill to watch. We had an
opportunity to perform another dance called “Garba / Garbi” a
traditional Bhil dance where people form teams and compete through
song and dance.
Throughout our visit people welcomed us whole
heartedly, shared their lives , tradition and culture with us. One
thing I can say is village life here is not different from the rest
of India of course it differs in tradition but way of life is same as
any village of the country.
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