World Ark Magazine - March/April 2009 - (Page 15) 3,000 families throughout the state of orissa. The animals generate income, but the real priority is social change: improving women’s status in their families; addressing mental poverty; loosening the bonds of caste. here in Bhodal, about 250 families within walking distance of the milk co-op’s cement headquarters received livestock through the program in 2006—but only through collectives, beginning always with the founding of a women’s microcredit group. Upstairs in the building, one such group was now meeting. They’d spent months working with consultants from the cooperative outreach of india and the Bhodal milk co-op, whose members had long experience in women’s self-organizing. first the new group made a livestock plan for their village, choosing an animal to raise—in this case, meat goats. while hindu populations elsewhere adhere to legume-and-rice based vegetarian diets, most people here are landless; gardens are a luxury. goats penned in a tiny yard, fed on waste rice stalks gleaned from neighboring fields, can provide protein for a family. poultry can be managed with even fewer resources. The decision is villagewide, and crucial. Next came the cornerstones classes, discussions of the 12 principles that provide entry to every heifer-supported project on the planet. The children got involved, too, forming a club whose first project was to demand their school’s sole teacher begin showing up, for a change. in the airy upstairs veranda that serves as school and meeting room, the kids’ drawings of “my ideal Village” showed water pumps and latrines among the hindu shrines and lotus flowers. as the women sat on the floor for their meeting, i asked what had changed because of their goat project. “people are more likely to go to another family to ask, if we need help,” one participant volunteered. “we take more responsibility for everything we do,” another offered. “The group management training has led us to better ways of solving our conflicts.” Their husbands are seasonal agricultural laborers, away from home for months at a time to harvest rice or cane. how do the men feel about this transformative project? The question invoked a pause before Busbalata Senapati answered. “Now that i have an income, now that my kids are smarter because i can send them to school, my husband respects me more. he had a lot of pressure on him before, being the only income earner. So it’s better for him now. he encourages me to go to the meetings.” Sarojini mishra, a co-founder and 20-year veteran of the milk co-op, has been a powerful mentor to these w w w. h e i f e r. o r g women. “working with this project Children put on has changed my mind about so-called a play about the charity to the poor,” she said. “The cor- positive effects nerstones training includes a contract of their village’s for passing on to someone else exactly goat project. the same number and kind of animals they originally received. That makes it very clear: we are not involved in charity. every recipient becomes a donor. it affects how people feel about themselves, and their position in the community. we see mutual generosity. one daughter is everyone’s daughter, for example. everyone pitches in to help with the wedding. in 20 years of working with self-help groups, that is the biggest change i have seen here.” a dozen kids from the children’s club clattered in, shucked their shoes at the door and announced they’d prepared a play, written by the club’s no-nonsense president, modismita, who looked 8 but was 11. (low calorie intake means slow maturity for these kids.) it was a fascinating kid’s-eyeview of the changes in their village. act one: the tallest boy played a drunkard, sipping from a flask and reeling as he staggered home from harvesting cane to shout at his wife. a cluster of girls dressed in pinned-up saris pretended to be bickering gossips. a trio of boys dressed as monks in white robes arrived chanting and set up shop. a “father” carrying his sick “child” (who might have outweighed him) came to the monks to plead for the child’s life, followed by a girl march/apri l 2009 | worl d ark 15 http://www.heifer.org
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