Winning with villages

CHENNAI: World over, development has been closely linked with education of girls and equal job opportunities for women. While most of the country is far from adopting this vision and reaping its benefits, one town in Tirunelveli is years ahead of the rest of us. In just a handful of years and a little influx of funds to address the major shortfalls in these two avenues, Thirukkurungudi has found tangible results in the spheres of family income, health, sanitation, waterbodies management and pollution control too. All this growth, just 45 kilometres south of Tirunelveli town.

There are many things that make us sit up and take notice of the village as we drive in. Lakes filled to the brim and the utter lack of plastic waste is bound to hit you first. Then, we witness the bigger things. Almost all of the adults in the village, irrespective of the gender, are employed. All the girls are enrolled in school. Men and women (young and old) working through dealings with the bank with such ease. 

Advent of the golden age

Diving a little deeper, we learn that Thirukkurungudi is the original home of the TVS group, where the company’s social arm — Srinivasan Social Trust (SST) has taken numerous initiatives to turn the place into a model village. Over the past 22 years, SST in collaboration with the local government has provided a host of schemes to the villagers in Thirukkurungudi’s three panchayat unions — Cheranmahadevi, Nanguneri and Kalakkad. Their efforts towards building toilets, enabling loans for businesses, training self-groups and upgrading schools have helped the entire population of 3,09,810 people. 

Our first halt is outside a small house in Eruvadi village. Even as a dozen women peer at us, curiously, from the other side of the tiny windows, Peer Banu of the Bismi Self-Help Group (SHG) steps out to talk to us. “A few years ago, most of the women here could not even think about stepping out of the their house by themselves. After SST trained us, they now have work in many fields like animal husbandry, tailoring, making sustainable bags, marketing clothes sourced online,” she narrates. We talk to the women from various self-help groups who had gathered there to meet us. 
They tell us that it had not all been easy in the beginning. Their husbands (and themselves steeped in conditioning) had been very hesitant about letting the womenfolk work. All that changed only when we brought our earnings to the table, they say.

Building empowering networks
These self-help groups have helped develop strong networks of working men and women. And businesses have grown vastly in this shared working model. It is evident when you see Dhanalakshmi’s venture. As we enter the shed, we notice a group of men seated in a corner, tying bamboo sticks around coloured chalk outlines. A set of women, on the other side, are clipping bulbs of different colours together to make a serial light wreath. Dhanalakshmi is busy supervising their work and assisting wherever necessary. 

When she and her husband began Dhanalakshmi Lighting at Arasanarkulam village in 2014, there had been no group of men or women. “Serial lights are famous here. We make them for village festivals, weddings and other functions. When we started, it was only the two of us. In this many years, we have grown and empowered over 500 women,” shares Dhanalakshmi. 

These women belong to Gandhi SHG, one started through SST. “They helped in expanding my business. Even three meals a day was a luxury then; today, we earn about `10 lakh per year. At the same time, we also enable other women to earn a decent livelihood,” she says, not without a glint of pride.
SST had, initially, facilitated a loan of `5 lakh for Dhanalakshmi to expand her business and `3 lakh for material investment. Today, her company supplies serial sets to Kerala, Chennai and Puducherry, apart from Tirunelveli.

“Women working in villages is a rare sight. In our village, it is now rare to find unemployed women. It is not just about money, but the feeling of being empowered and self-sufficient; that feeling of being proud of oneself,” says Dhanalakshmi. The women employed in her unit say their income has given them a voice in household affairs. “My husband has started respecting me now. Earlier, the decision-making was only in his hands, but now we discuss things together,” reveals one woman. 

Many a benefit
The chance to work also allowed them a great deal of financial agency. SST having also facilitated loans and provided the women with ATM literacy has helped build their business drive, says Jesima Bhanu. And much more! Bhanu now earns `5,000 a month. This means healthier food, better clothes, and — most importantly — access to education. From prioritising education of the boys over the girls’, the families began regarding their sons and daughters as equals, giving them the proverbial wings to fly. “My daughter is now in an English medium school and aims to become an engineer,” says Bhanu, beaming with obvious pride. 

Of schools and sanitation
It was schools that the village and SST paid attention to next. Until last year, the Government Higher Secondary School at Kalakkad with a total student strength of 1,200 was equipped with only one toilet. “Lunch break is the only time these girls could use the toilet and most of them have to skip their meals to stand in long queues. Yet, at the end of the 30-minute break, not even half of them would have had the chance to relieve themselves. These girls are having to control their bladder for over eight hours, till they reach home,” says P Vijayalakshmi, headmistress of the school.

To resolve this issue, SST pooled in funds from individuals, like-minded organisations and gathered `15 lakh to build 12 washrooms in the school. They event put in an incinerator to dispose of used sanitary napkins. “Now, we have student volunteers from classes 11 and 12 who inspect the maintenance of these washrooms. It was a much-needed facility and we require similar facilities in all government schools as many schools, particularly in the villages, tend to overlook the need for enough washrooms,” says a girl student at the school.

With rural education and improvement of sanitary facilities being one of their prime objectives, SST volunteers often look into Panchayat unions to identify schools like this one in Kalakkad. Once SST finds a school with poor sanitation facilities, they pick someone from the school to act as an Education Development Facilitator and open up lines of communication with the institution. Then, they get to work, fulfilling its needs as they come up. After SST’s work at the Kalakkad school, its authorities are expecting more students to enrol into it this year. Meanwhile, members of SST tell us that two educational institutions — including a model anganwadi at Moolakaraipatti village — that they have adopted for development are among the only four ISO certified rural childcare centres in Tamil Nadu.

An end to water woes
SST has also been contributing significantly towards the conservation of waterbodies. Despite there being hundreds of ponds in the area, the farmers were still forced to grow crops like plantain that does not require much water as the waterbodies remained bone-dry due to lack of rain and poor maintenance. With the state facing a drought in the past few years, the water crisis only worsened. This is when SST came into the picture in 2015.

“Pappankulam runs for 2.5 kilometers; 400 families in nearby villages are dependent on this waterbody (a major water source) for irrigation. If there is no water here, there will be no food on our plates. Over the years, silt has accumulated in the lake and left us penniless. There are about 400 acres of paddy fields in the vicinity and this is the only source of water. It was a welcome relief when the Trust spent `8 lakh on the lake’s renovation. Now, it looks even better than how it was four decades ago,” vouches N Ramathurai, former Panchayat head, handing me a fresh tender coconut with a straw made of papaya stem. “Once you realise how important waterbodies are, you begin taking care of them like its your family. Our lives are dependent on it, so all of us in this hamlet have opted for sustainable living. We protect the pond, ourselves. Chennai-dwellers too must adapt a similar mind set before their precious resources perish,” he warns.

It takes a model village
SST has left its marks in many other aspects of these villagers’ lives. Farmers are being educated in organic farming to reduce the damage caused chemical fertilisers. Women’s financial literacy has empowered them to not just take part in self-help groups but also maintain its accounts and manage the savings. The women from the villages have also managed to bring the community closer. Working past religious differences, they get together and work to make the schools, mosques and temples clean. These villages have now become role models for communal harmony.

By the end of the day, one thing is clear. Be it Dhanalakshmi who helps empower fellow women, the villagers at Pappankulam who monitor the lake each and every day to ensure that plastic is not discarded there or the school children who oversee the cleaning of the washrooms during every break session, the villagers have — as much as SST — have gone out of their way to preserve the place and develop it with the things at hand. It is a model town that would put any metropolitan to shame. (This reporter travelled to Tirunelveli at the invitation of TVS Motor Company)