Team: Amit Awasthi – Conservation Officer
Sampathlal Dhurve – Field assistant
Suman
Uikey – Assistant at centre
Highlights
- Celebrated Wildlife Week programme in villages
- 3 awareness programmes on vegetable farming
- 2 voluntary work programmes for community
assistance – one to clear area next to hand pump and one to clear area
next to well
- Organized visit of members of women’s SHGs to
Mandla to attend a government-organized awareness programme on organic
farming, horticulture, poultry farming
- Distributed vegetable seeds to members of women’s
SHGs & 5 youths in 3 villages
- 1 capacity-building workshop for women’s SHGs
- Environment education programme conducted in 10 schools -
attended by 293 students
- 6 nature and wildlife film shows attended by 408
students
- 3 unemployed youths placed in resorts
Conservation
During October, we organized two voluntary work programmes (voluntary community work). On October 16, Amit and Sampath led a team of 6 people in a programme to clear wild growth around a well in Samaiya. Due to heavy rains, wild growth had proliferated around the well and water was stagnating. Access to the well was also difficult. Our team removed the wild growth. The participants included 2 women and 4 unemployed youths from the village.
On October 19, Amit and Sampath led a team of 11 unemployed youths in a programme to clean the area around a hand pump at in Patpara. Due to heavy rains, wild growth had proliferated around the pump and water was stagnating. Our team removed the wild growth, cleared the area and also cleaned and repaired a soak pit next to the hand pump. Photos below.
Education
During the month
our team organized environment education programmes in 10 schools in the
villages in our area of operations.
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| Kutwahi classroom talk on environment |
Employment Cell
We helped three youths get jobs during the month of
October.
 |
| Vivek Kurveti of Chhapri at his new place of work |
Livelihood programmes
As part of our
programme to help villagers find alternative livelihood options which will
reduce their dependence on forests, we have been encouraging villagers, in our
area of operations around Kanha, to take up vegetable farming. Due to the
presence of several resorts around Mocha and a steady flow of tourists, there
is a good demand for fresh vegetables. Over the past 2 years we have assisted
around 30 villagers in taking up vegetable farming and they are earning between 500-1,000 rupees a week in additional income. The vegetable patches are
typically of small size and located in the backyards of the residences. Some
villagers have now got enough confidence to expand and are planning to use part
of their farm land for this activity. To encourage more villagers to take up
this activity, we conducted three awareness programmes in October at Manegaon,
Patpara and Kutwahi.
We also distributed
seeds to some women’s self-help groups (SHGs) and unemployed youths to help
them get started in this activity. Details are given in the table below.
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| Manegaon: awareness programme on vegetable farming |
Vegetable seeds distribution
SHG capacity building programme
As part of our assistance to villagers in
alternative livelihoods, we help women set up SHGs to start their own business
units. During September, we organized a workshop for a total of 11 SHGs and
taught them how to how to maintain documents and conduct proceedings. The SHG
members were also introduced to livelihoods that they could take up. The
workshop was organized jointly with Ajiwika Mission – a project by the Madhya
Pradesh state government to help empower women.
 |
| Ajiwika official addressing the SHGs during the workshop at Mocha |
On October 22, Amit organized a visit for 40 members of women’s SHGs to visit a government-organized fair at Mandla where officials promoted awareness about organic farming, horticulture and poultry farming.
Education van programme
There were 6 film shows on nature and wildlife conservation in October.
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