Sometimes India is just really hard…

Yesterday we had a Development Committee Meeting in one of our villages. It is a village we are doing lots of activities in this year through funding from the Australian Government. Mostly the activities were already decided upon by our NGO from a project proposal that was written over a year ago but there is some scope to have input from the community as to what they want, so we get their feedback and suggestions in these Development Committee meetings about once a month. Yesterday about 30 people came- aged from about 6-80 all offering suggestions. Yesterday’s meeting was held in the colony-the colony is where the scheduled caste live (Dalit caste), we usually hold separate meetings in the colony because colony members are not often confident enough to talk up in the other meetings because they are of lower caste. I recall one meeting we had with all the village heads and the head of the colony didn’t even come and sit in the circle,

he just stood at a distance and I am told it’s because he didn’t feel comfortable/worthy.

Yesterday we reflected on some recent developments: they made comments on the new solar street light that we had installed (commenting especially how it doesn’t go out when the power is off like all the rest!) and we talked about the water infrastructure upgrades we have done. (With a group of youth we changed all the taps and pipes in the village that needed changing, Chris had tested the water at various points and found that drinking water supply was being contaminated by poor pipes/taps even though it was fine at the source to drink, the cost of changing infrastructure to about 86 households was about A$150 now every family in the village has a clean drinking water supply at their homes!)

One of our next projects is to build a new home for one family in the village, we thought it was going to be a really tough decision to make, deciding on one worthy group of recipients. We have funding for about A$2250 and with a government subsidy of about $1875, we will have enough to build a simple home- one bedroom, kitchen and a small lounge. There are so many worthy candidates, in this part of town where the daily wages for a family are about $2. Also with the onset of the monsoon this week- leaking roofs and crumbling walls, it is hard for many families to find a spot to keep dry. (One family’s roof caved in last week and 4 family members ended up in hospital!) When we raised the issue of finding a suitable candidate, the group made a unanimous decision. It was someone from outside the colony, not even a member of their caste/community. A lady with 3 young children, aged 27, recently widowed (her husband died from “drinking problems”) who is also supporting her parents-in-law. Even though there were so many people in the colony who could have justifiably put their hand up for a new home they nominated this woman.

In closing the meeting we asked if they had any more requests, these are the things they asked for:

· To help them with a means to transport their children to the High School (about 5km away) currently they walk barefoot, they just want some assistance during the monsoon, for the next few months as the kids are walking everyday in the pouring rain!

· Literacy classes of an evening- for students and village members

· A carom game (board game) that children can play under cover during the rainy season, as they can’t play volleyball of an evening.

Certainly worthy requests so we are looking into funding possibilities and hopefully we can work something out. While the work here is mostly very rewarding, it can also be pretty challenging and very humbling at times….