pro-poor, pro-nature & pro-women.
Biovillage
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| Coastal Bio-village for Livelihood Rehabilitation | |||
| Post tsunami, extensive fieldwork was carried out to understand the community's perceptions of it. Relief measures and rehabilitation plans that came in its wake in the coastal villages of Tamil Nadu have helped to get a better understanding of the extent of damage-- in terms of human loss, natural resources and basic livelihood assets. | |||
| A tool kit titled 'Coastal Bio-villages' is under preparation. With the practical experiences gained by the M.S.Swaminthan Research Foundation while working in the bio-village project from 1991 in the villages around Pondicherry and from 2000 onwards to strengthen alternative livelihood of coastal communities in the Gulf of Mannar region. | |||
| The economy of coastal villages can be strengthened through the bio-village model of rural development. The Coastal Bio-village movement relies on the sustainable use of natural resources and the introduction of market-driven, non-farm livelihood options as well as value addition to primary products. It also involves a paradigm shift from unskilled to skilled work, resulting in the addition of economic value to the time and labor of the coastal community. One of the important components of this programme is the establishment of aquaculture estates, that can help confer the power of scale to fishermen communities in the production, processing and marketing. Seawater farming is another potential area which could support enhanced livelihood sources if the technology and services are right. | |||
| There are plans to organize orientation programmes on the Coastal Bio- village tool kit from March 2005 onwards to different implementing agencies at State and at district level. The participants at the State level are government officials and bankers, while at the district level it involves officials of the relevant government departments, representatives of NGOs, Panchayat Raj Institutions and Community Based Organizations. | |||
| Supporting the orientation and training programmes is the State Directorate of Rural Development, Tamil Nadu as part of the Tsunami Rehabilitation Programme. | |||
| Catalytic interventions to confer a life of Hope: | |||
| Restarting the livelihood in the Tsunami affected villages | |||
 It
is now almost three months passed after the Tsunami
waves hit the TamilNadu coast. The distressed coastal
communities are in the process of preparing themselves
to restart their livelihoods. Rebuilding the livelihoods
is a Himalayan task, which requires the efforts and
initiatives of several agencies with different capacities.
In this context M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation
is making a modest effort to support the livelihoods
in the selected villages. |
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| Based on the experiences from several visits made to different affected villages and meetings held with the men and women of the affected families, village leaders, Panchayat leaders, local government officials who are involving in the relief measures and NGOs, M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation has identified the following three villages | |||
| 1. Madavamedu in Kollidam
block Nagapatinam district 2. Muzhukuthurai in Killai town panchayat in Cuddalore district 3. Samiarpettai in Parangipettai block in Cuddalore |
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| to initiate activities related to restart the livelihoods. | |||
| The visits also help us to observe the actual situation and collect the first hand information on the relief measures and the communities' perception on restarting the livelihoods. The three hamlets were found to be more appropriate for synergizing MSSRF efforts in the three areas of a) Coastal biovillage b) Bioshield and c) Village Knowledge Center network in the course of time. | |||
| Needs assessment and prioritisation | |||
 Need
assessment has been carried out through informal interviews,
Group Discussion with men, women, youths, traditional
panchayat and elected panchayat leaders and field observation
on the ongoing relief activities. Discussions were also
held with the local government officials as well as
NGOs working in these villages. These meetings and discussions
especially with the villagers revealed their intention
to restart the fishing activities for which they need
immediate help. More than ten needs (purchase of boat
and net, repairing of boats, positioning big boats,
house construction, identification of place for house
construction, revolving fund, enterprises for fisher
women, infrastructure facility like road, landing centre
and storage facilities etc) were expressed by the different
sections of the fishing community and at the end the
following three were prioritized for immediate action.
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| 1. Boats and Nets 2. Repairing of boats (catamarans and small boats) 3. Starting of traditional microenterprises (fish vending by women,) |
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 The
other minor items included in the prioritized lists
are icebox and artificial fish baits. The women vendors
requested to extend financial support to restart their
vending business again and it was supported by the men
fisher folk, that it is very vital to market the landing
fish. At present though the external support could not
able to meet the requirements of all the households
to restart the fishing activity, hence, it was expressed
by the communities, that they would pool the resources
contributed by different agencies and develop a system
to share the available assets among themselves on rotational
basis. This will provide opportunity to each of the
household to start the activity to the minimum two or
three days in a week. |
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| Community is the main stakeholder | |||
 Both
at Planning and implementation stage the village men
and women, Meenavar panchayat leaders, leaders of Panchayat
raj institutions, local government officials from rural
department and NGOs are being involved. Community based
group/structure was developed in each village with representation
from leaders of elected Panchayat, Meenavar Panchayat,
women SHG leaders. The Community based group is the
active implementing agency at the village level. An
agreement was signed between M.S.Swaminathan Research
Foundation and the local community based group, indicating
clear roles and responsibilities for each of the partners,
monitoring mechanism and sharing of the resources and
benefits. |
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| An apex structure of the SHGs at the village level with the leaders of the SHGs was formed in each village to manage the revolving fund to initiate the traditional microenterprises. It was decided in the meeting that the fund will be utilized only for starting fish vending and any other economically viable income generation activities. | |||
| Activities initiated | |||
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