Empower Women Farmers in India

Dear Friend,

I very much hope that you are enjoying the holiday season. From all of us here at Seva Mandir, a very Happy and Prosperous New Year to you. May 2012 brings peace and success to you and to your family. We thank you for your kindness that you gift us always. With this letter, we love to share some key highlights of year 2011.

For Seva Mandir, the year 2011 has been a year of changes and success. Ms. Neelima Khetan stepped down after 12 years of her excellent leadership (total 25 years of association with Seva Mandir) in March. Ms. Priyanka Singh became our new Chief Executive in April 2011. Seva Mandir is ready to see many more years of its successful engagement with rural communities in Southern Rajasthan in her leadership.

In October, Seva Mandir became the implementing agency for the MNREGA projects for 32 sites in rural Udaipur. It is a significant achievement as well as an indicator of the faith of the 74 Panchayats in Seva Mandir's work. These Panchayats have endorsed us to be their implementing agency for MNREGA. Of these 32 sites that were sanctioned, the work has begun on the 22 sites. Most of these sites of pastureland development and currently the building of boundary wall is going on.

In 2011, Seva Mandir has been included in two working (sub) groups - {i) Child Survival & Development and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and ii) Girl Child} constituted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development to review the existing priorities, policies, strategies, programs and their implementation for fulfilling the rights of children to survival, development (including early childhood care, early learning, elementary education). Also, to highlight emerging issues and recommendations, resources allocation and utilization for Twelfth Five Year Plan of Government of India.

Several of Seva Mandir's programs have seen a maturing in the last years. For example, in the villages where Seva Mandir organized regular immunization camps, the complete immunization of children is 60%, while in comparison villages it is only 35%.

Similarly, the work on Natural Resources is yielding a lot of benefits to the poor. Every year grass worth Rs. 52 lacs (5.2 million rupees) is being harvested from the common lands developed under this program.

In April 2011, Champa Devi from Vassela village was awarded the "Woman Exemplar Award 2011". It is another reason to look back and feel joyous to see that a community member of Seva Mandir was being recognized by rest of the society for her selfless services.

We are privileged to experience exciting stories of women like Champa Devi. A big credit goes to friends like you for this. Your support has always been the source of our emotional strength. It helps us keep going with our work. It is gratifying that with your support we have been able to create spaces where ordinary people can exercise truth force to bring about social and political transformation.

We hope you will continue to be with us in future too. Your faith and untiring support is very critical to us at the moment. Especially, when national and international scenario is changing rapidly for civil societies and the definitions of 'development' are being re-explored.

We believe that the full and deep impact of Seva Mandir's work lies not so much in the tangible development activities that it promotes, but more in bringing the poor and rich together and enabling them to work for the commons of building more just and oppression free communities.

We look forward to your continuing contribution in the year 2012 too. Wish you a very bright and successful New Year.

With warm regards,

Deepti

Dear Friends, Greetings from Seva Mandir! I hope you are well. Many thanks for supporting farmers living in remote villages of Kotra, Udaipur. This time, I have brought you a letter from the farmers themselves. The letter below accounts the recent happenings at their Dal Mill that you are supporting. At the same time, a small request for you from these farmers - they wanted to repair their machine because they were facing constant problems at the technical end. They got someone to evaluate the status of the machine and eventually got it fixed. However, in their evaluation of machine, it turns out that if they have a stone separator, it will help them produce a better product (final dal) as well as overcome causing damage by the stones in raw tuar/dal. So enjoy reading their letter and please consider to support the farmers in buying the stone seperator. Please write to me if you have any queries. Thanks you again. With regards, Deepti --------------- "Hello, The procurement for raw tuar began early this year. The target was set to procure only 3,100 kg of tuar so that we can process it before the raining season starts in July. However, we couldn't process it entirely and still had 1,000 kg of raw tuar dal yet to be processed, by the time it began to rain in our region. The procurement remained significantly low this year, primarily because we had been facing a number of technical issues with our machine. The milling therefore has been affecting our business a lot. In the meantime, we got an expert from OSAW industries, Ambala, Haryaana to guide us about the technical issues we were facing with our Dal Mill Machine. The expert advised us to either we could get the existing machine repaired and buy a brand new stone separator. Or we buy the entire machine altogether. The technician couldn't himself repair the machine because he didn't have sufficient knowledge and tools to repair a machine of a different brand. It was decided that we contact our manufacturer who has originally built this machine. After much persuasion of two months the company sent their technician from Sri Ram Associate, Akola, Maharashtra. The same person came who had come in the past to install the machine for the first time. He examined the machine and gave recommendations with costs as under - Work to be done: Expected cost Replacement of the Roll (Stone) Rs. 6,500 5 filters (Jaali) Rs. 3,000 8 bearings Rs. 600 2 eccentrics Rs. 400 1 Stand for the vibrator (18*12) Rs. 300 Expected service charge (TA, DA) Rs. 5,000 Others Rs. 2,000 Rs. 17,800 (USD 400) We also hired a welder for a day for quick fix some problems. However, the technician suggested to buy a stone separator for separating the stones from the dal while milling. Even though the raw dal is manually cleaned and sieved before processing. He explained that sometimes iron particles and stones cause damage in the machine. The roll which splits the tuar into two pieces has been causing problems. He showed these to us and we observed ourselves the marks made by the stones and iron particles on the filters (Jaalis) which cover the roll. He strongly suggested us to have a stone separator so it saves our machine and also saves stones to go in our final product. The expected cost of a stone separator would be around Rs. 50,000 (USD 1,000). Ultimately it was decided to get the machine repaired first and later around the time of procurement in December 2011 onwards, if we secure enough funds, we will buy a stone separator. In August the technician came and repaired the machine. If the machine is ready we could go for the increasing our product portfolio. We will also have the Green Gram and Black Gram coming in October and November. So our machine in good condition is the need of the hour. This is all what is happening Nala Dal Utpadak Sangh. Till now we have sold the entire final product (Dal) that we had in our stock from previous harvest. We are receiving more demands which is a good sign. Around July-August, we also did some plantation in our premises of Dal Mill. In total we planted 50 saplings with the staff of Seva Mandir. The team at Nala Dal Utpadak Sangh"

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