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.....
