COMMUNITY
In our community development initiatives our first birth is
ABBHAYA
A Women Empowerment Program of
Green Valley Charitable Trust
Objectives:
- PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN
- INCOME GENERATING PROJECT
- PROMOTE SHARING OF STRATEGIES FOR ACTION & EMPOWERMENT
What we do.
In todays world we see how women are subject to violence and all sort of abuse. Thus we in a small way started a self help group for women and set up a
creche
(Little Mountain) with the support of Vitae International Accounting Services, Coimbatore. This is our first step to create bigger projects to create income for such help groups.We Cherish Women like
Arunima Sinha, the girl who lost a leg in battling snatchers becomes first amputee to scale EverestArunima Sinha lost her leg in 2011 after she was thrown out of a moving train for resisting a robbery attempt. It is a story of the triumph of will. Arunima Sinha, the national level volleyball player who lost her leg after being thrown off a train, has scaled Mount Everest. Arunima achieved the fete at 10:55 am.
Arunima climbed the Everest with an artificial leg.
Life took a complete turn for Arunima after she was pushed out of the moving Padmawati express for resisting a chain-snatching attempt by hoodlums in 2011. She was hit by a passing train and was seriously injured. She was hospitalized with serious leg and pelvic injuries and in a bid to save her life, doctors had to amputate her left leg below the knee.
On April 12, 2011, Arunima Sinha lost a leg after she was thrown out of a moving train.On April 12, 2013, Arunima was happy to leave behind the Summit of Island Peak (Height - 6160 metres). She was on her way up to the highest point on the planet.
On May 21, 2013, Arunima Sinha was on top of the world, 8,848-metres above sea level. Mount Everest.
Arunima lost her right leg, not hope and her heart was in the right place. She had boarded the train in Lucknow for Delhi where she was to attend a sports workshop. Then some hoodlums attempted to snatch her bag and chain. A national-level volleyball player, Arunima wasnt letting them get away, she lunged at them and overpowered one of the hoodlums but then the men outnumbered her and threw her off the train.
She was badly injured and the injuries to her right leg were critical. Doctors had to amputate that leg. "When I was undergoing treatment at AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) for four months, I could not do anything on my own. But then one day I decided to climb the Everest."
Arunima, 26, became the first Indian woman with an artificial limb to achieve the feat. A 61-year-old American woman Rhonda Graham, a left-leg amputee, climbed Mount Everest in October 2011.Arunima was trained for over a year by Bachendri Pal, the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest.
Arunima proved to the world that legs may help you climb mountains, but what one really needs is a heart, a brave heart.
One another initiative under community development is Tribal Welfare program
Project area:
Project interventions will be implemented in Kallar village near mettupalayam, Coimbatore District and Anaipalam, Pillur Valley, The Nilgiris districts in Tamilnadu.Target group:
Overall, the project will cover about 250 households. The project target groups will include tribal households, including approximately 1000. Particularly, vulnerable households, women-headed households, rural youth subject to substance abuse and below poverty line households within selected area. The project will ensure full participation of women in self-help groups.
Facts about the Target Group:
Irula or Irulas, a Scheduled Tribe, are one of the major tribes of Tamil Nadu and are distributed in twelve districts which includes the Nilgiris. In Tamil Nadu, the Irula are known by several names as Irular, Iruligaru, Iruliga, Iruvan, Villiar, Kadu Poojaris etc, but the Irula people who are dwelling in Nilgiris district prefer to call themselves as "Irulas". The name Irula is supposed to be derived from the Tamil word "Irul" meaning darkness which may refer to their black skin complexion. The Government of India, identified the Irula as one of the six primitive tribal groups of Tamil Nadu.
In Nilgiri District, Irulas are spread over in four taluks, Kundah, Kotagiri, Coonoor and Udhagamandalam. They speak Irula, a dialect which is a south Dravidian language of the Tamil-Malayalam sub group. Irula settlement is called as aral, represent many houses built contiguous to each other. Typical man wears a short piece of cloth around the waist and a towel on his shoulder, woman wears thundu, (a piece of cloth) around the waist in combination with the modern blouse. They are non-vegetarians.
They practice cross cousin marriages. Monogamy is the common form of marriage. Child marriages is common, they are rigid regarding taboos connected with pre delivery, Post delivery, tonsure ceremony, puberty and death. Irulas were hunters and gatherers. Shortt (1868:62) wrote that, " Irulas collected wild fruits, herbs and roots to appease hunger along with beeswax, drugs, dyes, gum, honey and medicinal herbs. The gathered products where exchanged with lowlanders for cloth or food". Their main occupations are snake and rat catching. They also work as labourers (coolies) in the fields of the landlords during the sowing and harvesting seasons or in the rice mills. Fishing is also a major occupation. Now most of the Irulas are wage labourers working in tea estates. The Irula have headman called "Maniyakara". Who presides over their tribal council. The Irula are partly Hinduized, but have their own autochthonous-indigenous religious system .An Irula priest performs rituals at the famous Rangaswamy temple of rangan peak in Nilgiri hills. They suffer because of much interference of non- tribals into their aesthetic, social and cultural unchanged preserves. According to some anthropologists, the Irula of the Nilgiris afford a case for study of modes of adaptation, acculturation and modernization.
Photo from Basel Mission Archives
Project objectives:
The project goal is to improve the living conditions of tribal people in general and in particular empowering and enabling the communities to adopt livelihood options based on sustainable and equitable use of natural resources.
Project description:
The strategy to achieve the overall objective will be through education, awareness campaign, counseling, empowering women and enabling the communities to adopt livelihood options that are native and do not require much change to their life style.
Few lines from volunteers who strode the path with passion:
" KRISHNAMMAL YI-NET STUDENTS EXPERIENCE IN KALLAR VILLAGEOur visit to kallar was the most unforgettable experience. To talk about the people of kallar, they are down-trodden as in the case of education and there is a bias decision about early marriage. Some support child marriage, where as the others supports education of their children. Some seeks rehabilitation where as others doesnt. The result of the survey proves that the elders in the village needs education for their childrens to their utmost. Marriage at early age was strictly opposed by the people. The request made by the villager is they need for public toilet in their locality as the sanitary conditions are not good in that village. The people in the village most of their job was working in pakku thotam for weekly earn. And most of them consume drugs and other alcohols. The women in each family seek rehabilitation for their husbands. The childrens in that village was unaware of education. They dont have sufficient staff to make them involvement to get education. The people in that village shared their feelings and emotions on child marriage and alcoholism was noted. According to our opinion, there should be sufficient staff for that village to educate that unaware childrens.
When, I reflect over my experience that I had today at Odenthurai panchayat , Kallar, I regret over the past 10 years where Independence day had always been a day to speak about Freedom struggle or about the contributions of great souls who strained themselves to relieve their motherland from the clutches of British. But today I have realised that to be a True Indian at heart and soul, one need to live with commitment not only towards oneself but also towards our fellow beings.
This day has made me understand that like every other Indian, I too have a responsibility towards this society. From the way how the children over there show an urge to get themselves educated, the way how their parents in spite of their difficulties strive to see their children grow to greater heights, these leave a lasting impression in everyones minds. The way how the women over there who were married at a very young age has a strong desire to see that the same does not happen with their next generation, reveals that they strongly understand the importance of educating women before letting them shoulder the responsibility of a family.