A report by Mr. Sagnik Chattopadhyay, February 2012
On a cold foggy morning of 24 December 2011, I set out from Kolkata to visit Itarai Ashadeep (IAD), an NGO in the village of Itarai, Amta II block of Howrah district, which was funded by the 1% Fund in 2004 and again in 2009. I only had a vague notion of the place and therefore called up the Secretary of the NGO the day before and informed him of my intention to visit. I was told it would take around 3 hours to drive to the place and as I would not know the way he would come over to Kolkata to be my guide. Fortunately for me, as promised, he was waiting and I picked him up from a place in Kolkata on route to the village.
I have long been associated with NGOs in India and have worked with them. My experience has not always been positive. While many of them are engaged in serious work there are others who are simply scams and deciding to give funds from Geneva was an almost impossible task to get assurance from applicant NGOs. Although this particular NGO had successfully completed their project, they had only sent pictures and their reporting was not up to the mark. I was not sure what to expect on the ground and therefore made up my mind for the worst. On the way to Itarai Ashadeep It took us nearly 4 hours. In the last leg of the journey, I walked through village lanes and then through paddy fields to reach the centre.
I was pleasantly surprised as I was greeted by a group of children barely in primary school age, who were attending their 4 times a week learning session. The NGO building had two large rooms and one small room which was being used as their office. I was told a benefactor from the USA had donated the money to construct the centre. Some members of the NGO were already waiting for me. A small boy welcomed me with a big smile. He took me to the room where they were all sitting on the floor on a tarpaulin, reciting rhymes in Bengali. I couldn’t help but ask what they all liked better, singing rhymes or playing. They all said “Both.” I was impressed with their mentor, a young teacher; she was committed to her cause.
The NGO, «IAD» worked directly in five villages in the neighbourhood, and supported many others beyond and were often invited to participate in joint programmes of NGOs, government agencies and different village panchayats [village councils]. They work on mother and child health, adolescent health, pre and post natal care training, including assisting pregnant mothers in child birth. I was told that five years ago, due to absence of proper roads, no doctor would come to their area and women in these villages would have to be transported with great difficulty to district hospital in case of any birth related complications. The NGO also trained and supported women self-help groups. There was no doubt that IAD’s concerted efforts had slowly started to yield results. I was going through their reports, event logs, survey reports, meeting minutes in various village centres and attendance sheet registers of mothers and young women. All documents were properly maintained. Next I targeted their finance report. For a small NGO, they received support from various organizations. They showed me the copies of the audited statements over the past five years that they had submitted to the authorities. I started to wonder if the records were a bit squeaky clean but perhaps IAD had sophisticated professionals supporting them. I was bit stumped by what was revealed next. Until then I hadn’t asked what the members of the NGO did professionally. To my surprise the core members were volunteers and each had different professions. Like the Secretary of IAD who came with me from Kolkata some 190 kms away, worked near Kolkata in a shipyard as a mechanic. He came during the weekend to be with his family and the NGO. Among others there was one local doctor, three primary school teachers, some day labourers, a small trader and a few farmers. It was a mixed group, some were trained but all of them were deeply committed. Whoever had spare time devoted it to working at the Centre.
It was time for me to see around and meet the people of the village. I first went to the adjacent large room which housed the frames for weaving zari in the saris. Earlier in 2004 IAD had approached the 1% Fund with a request to support the Zari weaving project. This weaving is a laborious process and each sari takes between five to seven days to complete, depending on the design. The room could accommodate three frames. Self?help group members who didn’t have space to fit a weaving frame in their houses used the space in the centre to weave.
The self-help group started with a small capital (some assistance had been given from the 1% Fund) which had considerably multiplied and was currently around one million rupees with 350 women involved in weaving. The business was running well following steady demand of such saris in the wholesale market in Howrah. The women showed me how they were weaving and creating the wonderful artistic patterns. I asked one young woman, what it meant to her; she shyly smiled and said, “Quite a lot in family of six.”
IAD was eager to show me their other projects, but I wanted to meet the beneficiaries. Having reached there at an odd hour people were busy in their daily work. I met a few women and children and asked them how they felt about IAD. One mother simply put it, “They are the people who look after us unlike the authorities.” One interesting thing that caught my eye was the dry water level mark on the walls of the rooms in the Centre. The marks were at a level higher than me. I was told that it was the flood water mark, a regular occurrence being in a low lying area between two rivers. The Secretary, seeing the surprise in my eyes explained, “We are trying to do something to protect the poor villagers during the floods, but resources are inadequate to build a flood shelter on raised platforms. I want to convert our centre into a two?storied building that would prevent the poor people having to flee to high grounds some 3 kms away.” It was the spot where I left my car to walk to the village. The requirement to build the flood shelter was around two million rupees. It was beyond my own capacity to provide the sum and I was not sure if the 1% Fund could even give the whole amount …