Field update and start of youth work

Full millet plants. This is not my photo.

Close up of the grain structure of millet. It's a hardy grain eaten by many people in the world, including in India. However, I believe consumption by people has gone down in India due the increased consumption of wheat (I've picked this up from the workers saying they used to eat more millet). Still, it is a critical crop in rural areas because it sustains the lifestock on which the rural areas are very dependent for food and income. This is not my photo.

Mother and baby buffalo in the foreground. In the background, on the left, a small silo for storing millet, which is often used to feed the buffalos. From my visit in 2007

So, it's been a while since my last post. The main reason for this is the busy life of a physics graduate student at Berkeley. However, there was also a two-week period in October where not much work was done in the field because both the workers (who are also farmers) and the people in villages in which they are trying to work were busy harvesting millet, an important crop in India (see above pictures). It is hard to strike up conversations about starting new SHG and youth groups when the people are trying to get work done in the fields. Hence the hiatus.

However, since then there has been considerable progress. There are now women's self-help groups in four villages, including Kukrela and Derki, with discussions with at least 3 more villages about starting up SHG's there. So, we are slowly building up the group of villages in which we work. Our plan is to really solidify ourselves, both in terms of our SHGs and our youth leadership and technology groups (see below), in a small number of villages, say 5-10, in the next year or two. We'll try out different strategies in this trial period and see what is most effective, especially with regards to the youth groups, since those are relatively new to the field workers. After this period we'll try to expand our reach to more villages and perhaps try to do some large scale environmental work, such as water harvesting. This should be easier once we have a reputation built and are can receive funds from a wider variety of sources (Indian law restricts intake of funds during the first three years of operation). Our planned pace is slow and steady, with an eye towards trying out new and innovative strategies tailored to the village areas.

Speaking of the youth groups, we are currently in discussions about getting work started up for that. We have set the budget for next year and it seems like we'll have about 5 computers in the village areas by the end of next year. This is a crucial first step, as the presence of the computers and an opportunity for the youth to learn about computers is very important to gain the buy-in of their parents. Computer knowledge is a concrete skill that is very highly touted in India and is rightly seen as a possible avenue to bigger and better things in rural India. This computer work will be a primary focus of ours, and we will look how to best impart some computer skills to the youth in the villages in which we work. Any suggestions are welcome. I will keep everyone updated on this as the situation changes.

That's it for now.