Stories of Common People

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Cases

A NEW RAY OF HOPE IN DUKHNAA’S LIFE:

Dukhnaa - age 47, lives with his four sons in village of pariganwa (in block of shohratgarh,u.p). Life was bad for dukhnaa when there were less resources & flow of cash was insufficient for livelihood. Local moneylenders made life of her family miserable. Though, she had land of 1.5 bigha but not fulfilling her livelihood needs. shohratgarh environmental society initiated creation of self help group in that village named-siddharth mahila bachat samuh. dukhnaa came to know about this self help group. Initially, she was hesitant to join the group as she has her own doubts about the group. Later, she came to know about benefit & importance of the group, she joined it. She starts saving with support of shg. at the same time, she was searching for new possibilities of employment. workers of ses told her about organic farming .she start rowing cash crops with organic farming method of nadep, vermi compost, c.p.p .the same land on which she was farming paddy & rice earlier & getting little money .the farming of cash crop helped her very much. in cash crop, she invests only rs.500. She used that cash crop for daily meal of her family (she saves rs. 250). Rest of crop ,she sell in the market & earn rs. 3000/-.in her own words of confidence “the method is simple & need less investment. It is good source of income. Now, i am targeting to farm in all three season & increase my annual income by rs.12000.”
Now family of dukhnaa is happy, they said naa to dukh….(bye bye sadness which is just opposite to meaning of her name). she has her own identity in the village- not beacuse she improved her lives but also showed way to others.
 

MODERN AGE SUDAMA:

Sudama lives in Kusmhi village of Jogia block. His 13 member family includes wife, 7 boys, 3 girls & his aged father. He is owner of 8 bigha land & they cultivate 4 to 6 bigha land but the return from the land was meager. The first reason of dire stait was that he can’t invest largely on it. Secondly, regular occurrence of flood was obstacle in blooming of kharif crop. So, he had to move to city as laborer. But his migration & crop of rabi didn’t help to fulfil the needs of family. Here enters SES. remembering the days one worker of society said “when we first met sudama,we can feel his pang & helplessness. he looks older than his age because of large family burden & bad economic conditions.” it is universal saying that hope is last resort for hopeless. sudama got first ray of hope when he met with workers of ses. he came to know that he can’t stop flood but change in agriculture time period can reduce the problem. SES gave him seed of paddy narendra 97. He sowed it & in 90 days cycle he got good result. Earlier, he was just getting 1 quintal paddy, now he is getting 20 quintal paddy from the same piece of land. With support of SES, he visited various agriculture institutes & learned new techniques for growing crops. He also started cultivation of cash crop. Now, he doesn’t need to go to city for earning. he insured his family member & start saving money. Time to time, he gives necessary advice to his fellow farmers. Many of them are following sudama. sudama is the torchbearer of kusmuhi village. In word of sudama “ SES helped him to raise his standard of life” but reality lies in his hard work & determination. Those qualities helped him to take a u-turn in his life & improved his standard of life.