Visit to SRUJAN (Society for Rural and Urban Joint Activities, Nagpur) - 13th January 2010

After almost a year, yet again I get a chance to visit one of the development centres tucked in a small district(Yavatmal) near Nagpur. Started by an environmentalist and a wildlife

enthusiast Mr. Ajay Dolke and his wife Yogini Dolke, a social worker, the centre aims at improving the livelihood of one of the most the extremely deprived Kollam tribes of the forest regions of Vidharbha.

Built on a 10 acre land, SRUJAN stands alone amid the vast expanse of fields with the nearest village almost a km away. The main work involves running "Non Timber Livelihood

Programmes" that involve generating livelihood mechanism out of the forest produce that these tribes are so dependent on. Their main program involves generating different produces from Honey And Mahua plants. Ms. Yogini has an interesting story to tell on how they had to fight with the Government to get the legal rights to grow Mahua plants and make it a source of income for the forest people. They have set a path for many other tribes to follow.

Their main job is capacity building, skills training, liaison with research institutes and building a

market for these products. Apart from these main programmes, they run several educational programmes for adults and children.

Our association with them comes through a ChildTution (http://www.childtuition.org), a Netherlands based organisation that aims at building computer aided English language competency so that children get exposed to the vast knowledge network through the internet. HiWEL's Learning Stations became the source of delivering their programmes.

It always heartening to see the children clamour around the Learning Stations, curious, shy yet so much wanting to touch it and play with it. But our joy is much more than theirs!

And ofcourse, apart from all this, the lovely Maharashtrian meal, the awesome weather (We Delhiites are such suckers for a good weather!) and the roadside Bondas and Mirchi Vadas was worth the 40 hours of travelling!

During moments of self-doubt, we just need to look around and find more such people and it helps us move on further.....

VISIT TO BAREFOOT COLLEGE, TILONIA
(March 1-3, 2009)

As a part of a field visit, I and my classmates from NGO management went on a visit to Barefoot College, in a village – Tilonia in Rajasthan. The 2 day trip turned out to be one of the most enriching experiences of my life. This is where I saw development in the truest sense of the word. The development was not just on the face of it but it was truly in the mindset of the people. Being one of the most conservative states of Rajasthan, it was a welcome surprise to see men and women talking about development, education, women empowerment as a matter of fact. Started in 1972 by Mr. Bunker Roy, they have come a long way with the complete participation of the local villagers.

The Tilonia campus, which runs several development projects, was beautiful, reflecting the beauty and peace of a village. The people were warm and we were made to stay in a modest yet very comfortable hostel. We were escorted by them to see the several projects run in the campus.
During their briefing, what they emphasized was the difference between literacy and education. For them both are different and that has formed the basis for their work. With total disregard to their education levels, the villagers have been employed in several schemes.

Believing in “Learning By Doing and Doing By Learning”, there are completely illiterate people especially women who are employed as “solar engineers” building solar units/lamps/cookers and imparting training to people from several countries to replicate their designs.

There are women like “Noorti Devi” who have worked in women groups and have talked about women rights and their empowerment at various international summits including the UN summit and the Beijing Women’s conference. She is illiterate yet has been able to educate herself enough to work on the computer and impart computer training to several other women.


Tilonia and its adjoining villages breed self sufficiency. They have their own housing schemes, rain water harvesting structures, bio gas and solar energy and education for their children.
They run balwaadis (day care centres), day schools and night schools for children working during daytime. One striking concept was that of “Childrens Parliament”.
With the idea to teach them good governance the children go through an electoral process and elect their own prime minister and cabinet ministers. These child ministers meet every month and talk about the development programmes being run in the villages. The people working on these projects serve as cabinet secretaries to them. A beautiful and a novel concept – something which could surely be replicated among the urban schools!


They have several communication programmes – the community radio; and the traditional medium of puppetry. They have their own puppet mascots who are used to convey social messages among the villagers. The puppeteers are simple village people; however their thoughts and messages conveyed deeper meaning.


Due to paucity of time, we could not see all of their projects. However the brief stay was enough to portray the success story of the village. As mentioned earlier, this is the level of development one should endeavour for. If majority of villages could replicate this model, India would surely be on the fast track to development.


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