Chapter Coordinators

Penn State

  Caption

Disha beneficiaries receive diesel engines. These beneficiaries are salt pan workers (Agariyas). Families own small pans from which they harvest salt. The diesel engines will be used to pump salt water in the pans. Before the project they were doing this manually.

  Summary

The proposal was received with a good recommendation from Gautam Desai. It was reviewed by 3 chapters: State College, Minnesota and Duke.
After several rounds of questions, and feed back from Gautam after visiting all the 3 project sites, we decided to vote on the project.
All the 3 chapters approved the three projects in full. it has been decided that the amount will be sent in two instalments over a period of one year.

  Achievements

All three livelihood generation projects were implemented successfully. The following is the summary of achievements for each project. *********************** SALT PAN WORKERS (AGARIYAS) # Diesel engines to pump sea water and salt crushing machines were distributed to families in Oddu, Degam, Kharagoda, Navagam Sadla villages in Patadi Taluka #Increased salt harvest #Improved the income of beneficiaries: Approx. 74 percent earned Rs.30,000 in 2002-03 compared to just 2 percent in 2001-02 #3 savings groups formed: two of them with women. #As of October 2003, Oddu village beneficiaries had deposited Rs.41,000 in their savings group. **************************************** SHOE MAKING PROJECT # Helped chammar (shoe maker) community of Banaskantha district # Raw materials provided to make shoes # Help was provided for marketing of the finished product. # Involved 40 shoe makers who earned Rs.60-70/ day. #Started two shops for marketing the product. #Rent for the shops paid by the beneficiaries themselves. # 50 people showed interest in making mojdis (type of shoe) Raw material procured from Chennai. ********************************** AMBAR CHARKHA PROJECT # To help supply Ambar charkas (spinning wheels) and necessary raw materials to affected families in Patdi taluka to enable them to rebuild their livelihood using traditional weaving skills. Target: 480 families Earnings: Rs.65/person/day #The Bhal Nalkantha Saghan Shetra cooperative people collect spun thread from women every fortnight and finished cloth every month. The beneficiaries deposit finished product and collect raw material and their wages as per the work About 10333 meters of cloth were woven in one year from one village which earned the beneficiaries Rs. 87,000. #Persistent drought in Gujarat. Insufficient demand for cotton cloth in winter. The ambar charkas were modified to weave woolen cloth to make shawls during the winter season. Nine women in Limbdi talkua participated in the program and made 755 shawls of which 750 were sold.

  Goals

To regenerate livelihood oppurtunities for the earthquake affected people in banaskantha district and patdi taluka for gujarat. The three occupations being considered are weaving, crushing and packaging of salt and shoe making.