wafd ranichauri report 2011 - 2013

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ACTIVITY REPORT // RANICHAURI 2011 - 2013


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All images and text Copyright 2013Womens Action For Development // wafdindia.org

PARTNERS:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland (Finland) // formin.finland.fiASDA Ry (Finland) // asdary.netINSEDA (India) // inseda.org

HIFEED (India) // hifeed.org

No part of this publication, or any part ofthe contents therein may be reproduced inany form without the written permission ofthe Executive Director, Womens Action ForDevelopment.

REGD. OFFICE:

WZ-34/5, Asalatpur, A-2 Janak Puri,New Delhi - 110058 // (91) [email protected]


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Foreword

Ranichauri was a 2 year pilot project and based on the outcomes and

peoples needs, the project has been extended by another 3 years to

consolidate and strengthen the activities.

We are encouraged as people from the more remote villages are

already coming to us wanting to be a part of the project. While the rst

year involved setting up our activity base in the villages, the second

year saw more involvement from the village women with WAFD

providing mainly technical assistance and implementation knowhow.

We envision that with continuing support from ASDA Ry and theMinistry of Foreign Aairs of Finland, and active cooperation of both

our Indian partners, the project will eventually turn Ranichauri into a

model of sustainable development where through business practices,

the villages will be able to create a rural economy by being able to

market and sell organically produced food.

Zareen Myles, Executive Director,

Womens Action For Development


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About WAFD // 5

The Ranichauri Ecosystem // 6

Stories from Ranichauri // 7

Activities: April 2011 - March 2013 // 10

Trainings: April 2011 - March 2013 // 15

Impact of the Project // 16


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Womens Action For Development (WAFD) was registered under

the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860 (Registration No. 9670

dated September 18, 1978) as an endeavour of committed socially

responsible people.

WAFDs vision, mission and philosophy are based on the belief

that women are central to any sustainable development eorts.

Women have to be recognised as the primary stakeholders in their

own development and growth. The role of WAFD becomes that of a

facilitator to equip the women for creative action through participatory

implementation, management and maintenance, so that ultimatelythey can take over these projects.

AboutWAFD

One of our leaders with a compost unit and a roofwater tank


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The RanichauriEcosystem

Situated at an altitude of 6500 ft. above sea level, Ranichauri is a

small village in the Tehri region of the Tehri-Garhwal district of

Uttarakhand. The Ranichauri ecosystem comprises of around 20

villages, and is situated 6 km from Chamba.

Ranichauri acts as a mini-marketplace and a transit hub for Chamba.

Ranichauri enjoys a certain pull from Chamba as villagers make 3-4

trips a month on an average, for their festive or recreational purchase

needs. Chamba, being a major marketplace, also acts as a major transit

junction for Hrishikesh, New Tehri and the Himalayas.

Between the villages, there is immense social connect. There is a

high degree of familiarity between the villagers and social gatherings,

celebrations etc. are attended by families from dierent villages.

Walking is the primary mode of travel and the mountainous terrain is

frequented rather always on foot, with heavy luggage at times.

WAFD is currently active in 4 villages in all - Jagdhar, Dargi, Savli and

Maun (including the Guriyali and Salamkhet divisions).

The ecosystem with Chamba at the top left, Ranichauri on the right and Savli at bottom left


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Anita with her solar driers

Stories fromRanichauri

For the year 2012 - 2013, this section will cover two of our women

leaders - one, our rst change agent in the area, and the other, one of

the newest additions to the WAFD family.

Anita is a resident of village Savli just bordering the central

marketplace of Ranichauri, Anita was the rst woman volunteer to

join WAFDs vision in the area. Anita attended the very rst meeting at

Ranichauri and was sent to Bharatpur to get acquainted with WAFDs

methodologies, principles and work ethics. Back from Bharatpur,

Anita started the rst self-help group (SHG) in Ranichauri with 25

members, each contributing ` 50 per month.

Anita recalls one of her rst experiences with the SHG by asserting

how SHGs help mobilise the villagers. Vimla and I went to Dargi,

helped them open their bank accounts and also educated them

about the benets of organic farming. Since then, Anita has been

monumental in the formation of the other SHGs in the 6 villages

WAFD has been present in.

Being the most experienced WAFD member in Ranichauri, Anita

clearly understands the business implications of the various

programmes. Bee-keeping has been the only business generating

programme, she states, but some of the bees escaped. When asked

about the acceptance of other programmes, Anita has a detailed


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picture to paint. We started with word of mouth. I was associated

with Pant Nagar University and was taught agriculture, farming and

business basics. But what do we do with that knowledge when we

cant implement it anywhere? Enter WAFD, I found a whole new

opportunity in my own backyard. I understood that time, money,

resources and communication was necessary to make my fellow

villagers understand the benets of the things I had learnt. Through

the SHGs, we were able to ease the process as things were otherwise

dicult.

So what benets have come out of the programmes? The reply is shortand as direct as possible, See for yourself, and the pause turned

into, people have become less interfering in womens lives. SHGs

have managed to bring people together to a great extent. We not only

carry out programmes, but also conduct social and cultural gatherings.

Kirtan mandlis are a regular aair, we organise trips, we raise funds

etc. We do all this so that this village doesnt stay behind, and at the

same time, all other villages move ahead thats all that we want.

Anusuya is one of the newest additions to the WAFD family at

Ranichauri. Always greeting her guests with hot tea, delicious snacks

and sweets, the generally talkative Anusuya holds herself and WAFD

with a lot of respect. I got to know about WAFD through word of

mouth. The amount Ive learnt after joining WAFD is immense and

Anusuya with her mist harvester in the background


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Im truly grateful to them, says Anusuya whose husband is the

principal at a school in Chamba and a part-time priest at a local

temple, and has two sons one a B.Ed. and M.A., and the other a

Ph.D. both from Pant Nagar University.

In her short association with WAFD, Anusuya volunteered for two

of the newer programmes the polyhouse and mist harvesting.

Anusuyas polyhouse measures 250 sq. ft. and had malta and dhaniya

(coriander) saplings ready to grow. A high density mist harvester also

awaits the mist on her terrace. Please come again, consider this your

home, is her standard goodbye line, always delivered with a smile.

Anusuya at her polyhouse


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The vision we had for Ranichauri at the beginning of the project aimed

at turning the area into a small economy with a number of business

opportunities. While year 1 involved mainly setting up and knowledge

transfer, in year 2 we saw a wider acceptance and awareness to the

programmes. The knowledge transferred to the village women has

turned to practice, through implementation support and technical

assistance from us, thus inching closer to our overall vision.

The following key results were achieved in the 2 year pilot phase.

A total of 6 womens groups have been formed in the 4 projectvillages (there are 2 groups each in Maun and Savli as both the

villages have an upper and a lower reach). Each of the womens

groups includes the senior women as well and these women are

taking an active part in the implementation of our project.

Each group has also formed a self help group for encouraging

thrift and learning how to get credit facilities. To accomplish

this, savings bank accounts have been opened in local banks and

the women have started to take small loans for their needs. Theyhave also started repayment of the loans as per the rules that they

themselves have formulated.

1 demonstration biogas plant had been constructed at the

HIFEED campus in 2011. Their sta has been trained on the

regular feeding of the biogas plant with rabbit droppings, and the

gas that is produced from the plant is used for making tea for the

sta members twice a day.

8 roof water tanks have been constructed in the project areas.

The rst one of these was constructed at the HIFEED oce and

the remaining seven have been constructed in the homes of

the beneciaries in the dierent villages. All of these tanks are

functional and in regular use.

A total of 83 small individual organic farming units have been

established by the women in their plots of land. These units areestablished on a plot of land the size of 1 nali each (local unit of

farmland measuring about 250 square yards).

96 bamboo-based composting units have been woven and

constructed by the women for their organic farming units. This

helps them to get good quality organic manure for their farms.

Each basket composting unit provides enough organic manure for

a 1 nali plot of land.

14 bee keeping units have been set up. However, the bees

ew away from 8 of these units after about a year. We will be

organising another training/workshop soon to investigate why

this happened and to plan for such contingencies.

Activities:April 2011 - March 2013


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Over 100 kitchen gardens have been established and more will

be started as the women are nding these very useful.

7500 trees have been planted by the women in their elds/

homes and in the local school. However, since there hasnt been

enough rain in this region many trees have not survived. This is

especially true of those trees that were planted on public land.

We will be revisiting our strategy in the next phase to determine

a way to make people take ownership of the trees planted in the

plantation drive.

During the project period, 5 solar driers were constructedof wood and bamboo. INSEDA designed and trained a local

carpenter to make these. These are working successfully.

2 polyhouses were also designed and a mason and carpenter

were trained by INSEDA so that they could install these in 2

villages. This initiative is working successfully.

2 mist harvester nets were set up as an experiment to harness

water from the mist and fog in the area.

A baseline survey of all the 4 villages was completed under the

guidance of INSEDA and the data from these surveys has been

digitised.

An average of 24 monthly meetings for each womens group has

been achieved in the pilot phase.

3 awareness meetings were held on Earth day, Environment

Day and Renewable energy Day. Women from each village

participated, along with the enthusiastic participation of children

and youth as well as other village folk. Rallies were taken out

in Rani Chauri with school children holding placards with pro-

environment slogans.

International Womens Day was celebrated in March 2012.

This was the rst time that womens day was celebrated in the

area. More than 160 women came from the villages. This event

also included the participation of women from the WAFD project

areas in Delhi and Bharatpur to help the local women organize

the program, share their experiences with them as well as show

their solidarity.


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Programme Units

Womens Groups 6

Biogas Plants 1

Roofwater Tanks 8

Organic Farming Units 83

Composting Units 96

Bee Keeping Boxes 14

Kitchen Gardens > 100

Tree Plantations 7500

Solar Driers 5

Polyhouses 2

Mist Harvesters 2

Table 4.1: Activity summary for 2011 - 2013


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Closkwise from Left: A roofwater tank, composting unit, solar water heater in action,

red chillies drying in a solar drier, a wooden solar drier, and, a bamboo solar drier


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Closkwise from Top Left: A polyhouse in Savli, biogas-fuelled stove, pickle jars, and, a high density mist harvester


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The following trainings have been conducted at the village level:

Food preservation pickle making and fruit juice

Making and using hay box for energy reduction in cooking rice

Using the solar cooker for daily cooking

Use of solar dryer for drying fruits and vegetables

Assembly of solar lanterns for youth

Womens training in weaving of the bamboo structures for bio

gas plants, roof rain water harvesting structures, and composting

baskets.

Making compost in the composting baskets

Training of mason in construction of biogas plant and roof

water harvesting structure.

Training in bee keeping

Training youth on how to make base line and household

surveys

Field training of youth and women in pit digging for tree

plantation

Training of women in organic farming

Training in HIV/AIDS for women

Training of project sta and village volunteers in understanding

concept, project objectives, methodology and implementation

strategy. This was carried out right at the beginning of the project

in May 2011 at the WAFD Bharatpur oce for a week.

Fruit preservation training for 20 women at HIFEED campus

by the Government Horticulture Department sta.

A three day training workshop was organized with 6 women for

making posters for creating awareness and teaching people about

climate change and how it is aecting the womens lives. 4 posters

have been prepared but we will be making a few more to completethe series.

Trainings:April 2011 - March 2013


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Impact ofthe Project

Being a geographically remote area with its own resource problems

(natural, animal, manpower etc.), the project was a challenge to being

with. However, with continuous support from our women leaders

in the villages, the benets became apparent in the rst year itself

due to which, the acceptance to the project and further activities also

increased. To summarise, the project resulted in the following key

qualitative benets:

The project area has had many NGOs implementing a number

of government programmes. However, their methodology did not

encourage participatory implementation. The rst question wewere asked when introducing the project in the village meetings

was what will you give us? So, it took us time to explain that

we had not come to give them anything, instead, the project

was aimed at demonstrating and teaching them. Our rationale

was that the programmes that would be implemented would be

nanced partly by our projects contributions and partly by the

recipients. We wanted to emphasise that nothing would be given

completely free of cost to help the villagers be more invested

and serious. One of the biggest achievtements of the project

has been that the women have now understood the meaning of

participatory work, and now completely accept it.

Womens condence has increased as their awareness on issues

of environment increases. They are able to explain and talk about

these with the womens groups.

The area has water scarcity and women had to walk long

distances to carry water. The roof rain water harvesting structures

have helped in storing the rain water from the roof which can be

used for some months.

In this two-year period, the women have now become used to meeting

regularly for mutual support as well as for discussing various issues.

They use the knowledge they have gained and the practices theyhave picked up to collaboratively nd solutions to personal and

environmental factors that aect them directly.


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THANK YOU

wafd ranichauri report 2011 - 2013

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