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Anand Mazgaonkar
AID started a new chapter in engaging with grassroots
movements in Gujarat when we elected Anand Mazgaonkar as our
Saathi. Anand is based in Rajpipla in Gujarat and is a
senior activist with Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS) and
National Alliance of Peoples' Movements (NAPM).
Anand was raised in Mumbai, completed his Bachelor of
Commerce in Mumbai and post-graduate studies in Baroda. He
was in his early teens when he became involved in activism
during the emergency. In late 1970s, when emergency ended
with the change in the government, he saw that people's
problems did not get solved. He realized that one of the
main causes of people's issues was unequal resource
allocation, where a small percentage of urban population
takes away most of the resources, depriving the rural poor
of their basic needs. He also realized the need to be at the
grassroots level to have a deeper understanding of people's
problems.
He moved out of Mumbai and settled in a small village in
the district of Bharuch in Gujarat. He worked there with a
small non-governmental organization (NGO) called Sarvangeen
Gram Vikas Mandal. During his work with the NGO, Anand
realized that the "Project-Program-Target" model adapted by
NGOs is detrimental to mobilizing people as both the NGO and
the beneficiaries look only at the short-term success or
gains of a project and not at the root of the problems.
Hence he decided not to form an NGO of his own but instead
to form a network of friends and work on issues at the
grassroots level as well as those at the macro level. In
1991, he moved to Kantidra, a small tribal village, 65 km
downstream from the Sardar Sarovar dam and stayed there
until 1999. By this time, he had started taking on a larger
role on issues such as tribal rights, economic policies and
communal harmony. So he decided to move to Rajpipla from
where travel and communication was easier.
Anand was introduced to AID when AID Jeevan Saathis, Ravi
Kuchimanchi and Arvinda Pillamari, met him in Mumbai in
1998. Since then Anand has helped AID to get in touch with
many grassroots organizations in Gujarat. A humble Gandhian,
Anand earned his living by selling jaggery while focusing
the bulk of his time in environmental struggle and people's
issues. Highly recommended by senior AID volunteers, Ravi
Kuchimanchi, Arvinda Pillamari, Gautam Desai and Dr.Mohan
Bhagat, Anand became an AID Saathi in 2004.
His honesty, humility, commitment and intellectual
abilities are beyond doubt. Anand's grassroots work along
with his abilities to organize and the anti-communal stand
that he has taken are critical to furthering AID's education
in these various developmental issues. AID bay area chapter
has been coordinating his saathiship and proudly stands by
Anand and his work!
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Arvind Kejriwal
Arvind Kejriwal is an
social activist and crusader for greater transparency in
Government. He was awarded Ramon Magsaysay Emergent
Leadership award in 2006 for activating India's "Right to
Information" movement at grassroots and social activities to
empower Indian citizens to fight corruption by holding the
government answerable to the people. Currently he is
spearheading an awareness campaign for RTI across India.
After graduating as a
mechanical engineer from IIT Kharagpur in 1989, he joined
the civil services in the Indian Revenue Service (1992). He
soon realized that much of the corruption prevalent in
government was due to lack of transparency in the process.
Even while in his official position, he started crusading
against the corrupt practices. After several years on
Extra-Ordinary Leave from the Government, he resigned his
official post and now devotes full time to his work as the
founder-head of Parivartan - a Delhi based citizens'
movement trying to ensure a just, transparent and
accountable governance.
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Bhargavi S. Rao
Bhargavi S. Rao graduated
in Environmental Science and is a Botanist with an M’Phil
degree in Aerobiology from Bangalore University. She also
has a post graduate diploma in Journalism from the Symbiosis
Institute of Mass Communication, Pune. Her initial research
experience was in the areas of Microbiology and Cell Biology
and she has worked at the Microbiology and Cell Biology
Department of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
She has co-authored research papers in journals like Current
Science and Virology. She has had teaching experience as a
lecturer in Botany and Microbiology at The BMS College for
Women, Bangalore and also as a high School Teacher in
Geography and Economics at the Sri. Aurobindo Memorial
School, Bangalore. While in Sri. Aurobindo School she
initiated a Nature club called ‘Prakruthi’ and mobilized
students to take an active interest in bird watching,
trekking and understanding urban wildlife. The club is still
very active and has a large membership of students from
class 5- class 10.
Her interest in education
inspired her to facilitate summer camps for children and
covered a variety of issues such as nature walks, theatre,
pottery, music and rock climbing with an organisation called
‘Aarohi’. The camps caught a lot of children’s interests and
were even covered on local Kannada television media during
2000.
Her interest in environmental and social justice issues
brought her in 1999 to Environment Support Group (ESG), a
not-for-profit research, education and campaign
organization. At ESG she initially volunteered for two years
and has since taken a leading full time role in a wide
variety of Research and Educational projects and Campaign
initiatives.
Some key initiatives
include research on the impacts of mining on the flora and
fauna in the Kudremukh National Park. As a Lead Researcher
in development of a range community engagement and worker
training techniques in municipal solid waste management in
Bangalore and Raichur Districts of Karnataka with projects
of ESG funded by the United Nations Environment Programme
and the Indo Norwegian Environment Programme. She has worked
as senior researcher in documentation and development of
Guidelines for Segregation, Collection and Safe Disposal of
Hazardous waste in Karnataka in a joint project of ESG with
the European Union under the Asia Pro Eco projects in
collaboration with the University of Dresden, Germany,
University of Bremen, Germany, Can Tho University, Vietnam,
and Cardiff University England.
She has also been
studying the socio-economic impacts of the Bangalore-Mysore
Infrastructure Corridor Project, initiated a survey and
documentation of the health impacts of West Coast Paper Mill
effluents on tribal communities living along Kali river in
North Karnataka, supported the socio-economic survey studies
of the Project impacted communities in Chamalapura where a
thermal power plant is being proposed and involved in
enhancing awareness on environmental governance issues. More
recently she has supported the campaign against
privatisation of lakes in Bangalore and in contesting the
road widening project in Bangalore.
She primarily coordinates
educational programmes at ESG with a focus on enhancing
student awareness and critical engagement in social and
environmental justice issues. She has co-worked as
Coordinator of the India sector of the ‘Cities of the 21st
Century’ and ‘Health and Community’ courses of the
International Honors program where she also co-teaches
courses on Contemporary Urban Issues and Culture and Health.
She has helped develop a
project to raise awareness on the Environment Impact
Assessment Notification 2006 and its implications on
communities. She is part of the team working on developing a
manual on the same with the intention of building awareness
and empowering communities to engage in environmental
decision making processes in order to protect their land and
livelihoods. As a result of this ongoing process she
believes that capacity building of communities across the
state of Karnataka and across the country is possible.
She has also been keenly
working in the area of developing experiential educational
and training programmes for a variety of groups such as
activists, journalists and students. She strongly feels that
Education and Enforcement are two important criteria and
focuses her work on raising awareness on a variety of
issues. She has helped raise awareness on equal rights to
property for women in many of her social circles. Her
interests include Environmental Education, Experiential
Education, Gender Issues, Environmental health and Urban and
Community studies.
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Chandra Anil
Chandra is an AID-Chennai volunteer who has
been working with TNSF to set up primary education support
centers in Chennai. She has set up some 60 of these centers,
catering to around 1000 children.
She is also the state level coordinator for
the Makkal Palli Iyakkam, in charge of expanding the program
to around 1000 centers. In addition she along with
Ravishankar Arunachalam has taken over coordination of
AID-Chennai.
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C Srinivasan
Srinivasan's work integrates reforestation, solid waste
management, livelihood generation and cattle rescue. His
models in SWM have been applied throughout Vellore District
and is being adopted widely in TN and elsewhere.
Srinivasan has designed an innovative and scalable solution
to managing solid waste and has generated more than 1,000
jobs, mostly for poor women (also men), who form self-help
groups. Srinivasan has saved more than 200 cattle from being
slaughtered and is using their dung and urine to generate
biogas in 6 plants and for composting in 40 projects, which
have so far generated 50,000 tonnes of good quality manure
to be used instead of chemical fertilizers by the farmers.
This compost is also being used in 4 organic vegetable roof
gardens, which improve nutrition levels of people and
increases greenery in the city. He has also designed a
scheme whereby people can register to have coconut trees
planted on their wedding and birthdays. 22 poor villagers
previously involved in environmentally destructive (felling
trees) activities are working full time to rest more
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Dhanada Mishra
Prof. Dhanada Mishra of AID Orissa has been
elected as our latest Saathi. Since he moved back to Orissa
in 2003, Dhanada, along with Pete Bakos, has led AID's
efforts in his home state. In his position as Principal of
JITM in Gajapati district, he was instrumental in setting up
an AID base along with Peter, Ravi and Aravinda, in the form
of ARTRC (AID Rural Technology Resource Centre). His
decision to work full-time for AID-India has the potential
to take our efforts in Orissa to the next level in the areas
of education, RTI, NREGA and rural technology.
His involvement in AID since late 1999 and his various
social activities even before that clearly show his constant
drive to make a useful contribution to the society.
AID-Orissa's NREGA efforts in the past few months have
unearthed much corruption and gobbling up of public funds in
the employment guarantee program.
Click here to learn more about Dhanada Mishra
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Kanchi Kohli
Kanchi Kohli is a social and environmental activist who has
been working on environment and forest clearance issues, and
their impact on the local communities and the biodiversity
of the affected area, for the past nine years. After getting
her degree in social work, she proceeded to work in the
Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka for two years where she
worked with local NGOs on issues related to the impact of
development projects on the environment and the local
community. In 2000, she moved to New Delhi and has been an
active member of the organization, Kalpavriksh Environmental
Action Group (KV). As a part of KV, she has been central to
the Campaign on Environment Clearance of Development
Projects and the Campaign on Biodiversity. As part of these
campaigns, she has engaged with policy research and also
collaborated with several other civil society groups, and
has been a central part of networks such as the Campaign for
Environmental Justice, India (CEJ-I).
The core part of Kanchi's work is providing support to local
groups across India in responding to development threats in
their areas, both in the form of strategy support and
information. This national level support is critical to
local campaigns and movements.
Click here to learn more about Kanchi Kohli
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Latha Anantha
Latha is a unique individual with a firm foot on
environment and communities.
Her work in athriapally struggle (and patharakadavu
struggle in silent valley national park) might as well as
turn be to be a case study for those involved in anti-dam
struggles in South India.
She works extensively with several departments of Kerala
for which no stipend/remuneration is paid since the work is
voluntary by nature from Latha's side. (Eg: Water, sand
mining, river mgmt, forest).
Click here to learn more about Latha Anantha
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Malika Virdi
Malika is an avid mountain, people and nature person. She
has worked for nearly 3 decades on various human rights and
women rights related issues in many places across India
(Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat and Uttaranchal). Presently she
is the Sarpanch of our (Sarmoli - Jainti) village Forest
Council (Van Panchayat) and is a founder member of a womens
Collective in Munsiari called Maati and is associated with
several regional and national womens and human rights
groups.
She was also part of a seven month long women's Trans
Himalayan expedition that trekked across the Himalaya from
Arunachal Pradesh via Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Uttaranchal,
Himachal, right up till the northernmost point of India
called the Karakoram Pass.
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Nammalvarji
Nammalvarji's main work is transformation of Agriculture
into a system of community based self reliant and
ecologically sound and sustainable, poison-free food
production.
Eighty percent of Indian farmers are resource poor, owning
land holdings of less than one hectare. Most of them are
less educated. They need demonstration and practical
training in natural and material resource management.
Nammalvarji has been working on this for more than 30 years.
In order to fulfil this objective, he has already set up
more than sixty training centers around South India. He
travels extensively giving advice in organic farming and Low
External Input and Sustainable agriculture. He has published
his knowledge already in pamphlets and books which he
distributes to farmers free of charge, and he needs to
continue that. According to him, organic seeds and cattle
breeds are to be collected and conserved. A number of farms
are maintained by NGOs and farmers. They need to be upgraded
and more and more youth are to be trained. This Saathiship
will enable him to continue his work.
Already more than 60 model farms are set up in Tamil Nadu,
fifty of them functioning as Training centers. Also several
farmer, NGO networks (Tamil Nadu Organic Farmers Network,
Tamil Nadu LEISA Network etc) have been set up. Nammalvar ji
performed several Padyatras over the last decade for
awareness and campaigning. For his work he got an Honorary
Doctorate from Gandhigram University, TN.
Nammalvarji led special task force for de-salination of
Tsunami affected land and he is one of 5 people who
successfully fought the Neem Patent case..
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Nityanand
Jayaraman
Nityanand Jayaraman a.k.a Nity is a Chennai-based writer and
researcher who specializes in investigating and reporting on
the environmental and human rights track record of
corporations. After his undergraduate degree in electronics
engineering, he spent two years in the US, getting a Masters
degree in journalism, hitchhiking in the US and working in
the salmon fisheries in Alaska. He returned to India in
1994, and was a traveling journalist, during which time he
traveled to most parts of the country specializing in
investigating industrial pollution and related human rights
violations. He has been associated with the campaign for
justice in Bhopal since the time he visited Bhopal to do a
story on water contamination in 1996. He has also worked
with Greenpeace India and Corpwatch India.
Nity is a part of a voluntary collective called Corporate
Accountability Desk which is a coming together of close
friends who extend technical, logistics, legal and strategic
support to communities that are fighting corporate crime and
globalization in any form. Learning from their experiences
where organizations take up democratic space rather than
create it for communities, one of the principal organizing
principles is to let communities speak for themselves.
Currently, the collective is involved in a fledgling effort
to consolidate public opinion against water privatisation in
Tamilnadu, in promoting wastewater recycling, in supporting
pollution-impacted communities in Mettur, Cuddalore and
Gummidipoondi, and to a lesser extent in Kodaikanal.
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Peter Bakos
Peter Bakos has worked extensively in
establishing AID Orissa, linking with NGOs and training
artisans in bamboo and other handicraft work. Prior to his
association with AID, Peter was a master trainer at Academy
of Developmental Sciences (ADS) in Karjat Dt, Maharashtra,
Bhubaneswar.
When Peter visited the TN
villages he got the first boat repaired and was able to give
demonstrations with the interlocking brick machine that he
carried there.
Peter currently works actively with AID Chennai.
Click here to view an Album of his work
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Prasanna Saligram
Prasanna Saligram has been involved actively with AID for
the past 8 years. He helped organize the first AID India
Conference and worked on the Hundred Block Plan (HBP) in
Tamilnadu. After a brief stint in Germany, he returned to
India to work with the
People's
Health Movement, a global alliance that of health
networks and activists that works to promote the
participation of people and people's organizations in the
formulation, implementation and evaluation of all health and
social policies and programmes. He served as the
Communications Officer for the People's Health Assembly held
in Cuenca, Ecuador in July 2005.
Prasanna coordinated a campaign opposing amendments to the
Indian Patent Act. He has played a significant role in
explaining the impact of these amendments to AID volunteers
and the community at large.
Since 2005, Prasanna has been working with AID India on a
full-time basis. He coordinated tsunami relief efforts from
Bangalore, especially some medical camps. Currently, he is
working on a comprehensive health Ppogram in some blocks in
Karnataka, a sustainable agriculture project in some
villages near Bangalore and other AID activities.
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Ravindra Sharma
For past 2 decades, Ravindra Sharma (fondly
referred to by everyone as Guruji) has been working with
artisans in the Adilabad district of AP and is the founder
of Kala Ashram. Kala Ashram is meant to be an ashram for
traditional arts, science and technology. Guruji himself is
an encyclopedia of information about the traditional rural
Indian arts, science, and society.
1) Resource provisioning: Kala Ashram's museum also serves
as a resource base for artists and artisans who do not have
access to tools and accessories. For instance, the Dakkalodu
or the community historian of the Maadiga (leather crafting)
community in the Adilabad region often borrows his musical
instruments and the scroll from the museum to perform to his
local audience. These scrolls, painted by the Naquashi
community, are expensive and take years to prepare.
2) Karigar gurukuls: Every year, Guruji organizes karigar
gurukuls, where artisans improve or innovate techniques,
pass them on to younger members of their community, or teach
them to groups belonging to other communities.
3) Study of traditional social organization: Guruji has been
observing and studying the traditional social organization,
and one recent effort is to document/record the dying arts
of the Bhiksha vruttis, who sing/tell the oral history of
other castes, while living off their patronage.
4) Documentation: Guruji intends to document much of his
understanding of traditional arts, science, technology and
social organization in the form of booklets. He also intends
to document many of the activities of Kala Ashram such as
the workshops and the performances of the Bhiksha vruttis.
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Revathi
"Whenever
we visit farmers who have attended our training sessions to
found out how they are doing, they ask us, 'Why did it take
you so long to show us these techniques?'"
While working on a science project with her 8th Std.
students in 2002, Revathi, a school teacher and
environmentalist discovered acute discontent, frustration
and indebtedness among farmers. Further investigation
revealed that India's green revolution and heavy reliance on
chemical inputs and hybrid seeds had rendered the farming
community resource-poor and debt-ridden. She realized that
organic farming techniques could be a simple solution for
farmer's problems.
She quit her job to work with Nammalwarji, a leader of
organic farmer movements in TN, to provide training and
support to farmers throughout Tamilnadu and beyond. After
the Indian Ocean Tsunami in Dec 2004, she visited
agricultural villages in Nagapattinam dt. where, due to the
inflow of sea water, large quantities of agricultural lands
turned saline and crops were destroyed. This motivated
Revathi to work in one of the worst affected village South
Podhigai Nallur (S.P.Nallur). With funding from a German NGO
and AID, she started work in this area in March 2005. With
able support from the collector of Nagapattinam and the
villagers and more funding, she brought the lands of SP
Nallur and 3 nearby villages back to full productivity.
Revathi is currently working on a number of projects -
training and resource center establishment, developing a
group of trainers who can further spread the word and a
magazine on organic farming 'Thai Mane Vanakkam'.
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Richa Singh
"Inspite of realizing that people will
leave us and join us too, I have been worried about
maintaining the unity of our collective under any
circumstances. Now, after meeting various groups and
learning from them, I realize that this is part of the
process. The issues we raise and the struggles we undertake
are important other things will fall into place as we
proceed on our journey."
Richa started her work on women's empowerment and related
issues with an organization in Uttar Pradesh, rising through
its ranks to become the district-level coordinator in
Sitapur. She facilitated a journalling project with 7
field-level staff members and Richa Nagar, a Women's Studies
professor at the University of Minnesota. Working on this
project, which culminated in the publication of a book 'Sangtin
yatra' ('Playing with Fire' in English), the women developed
a voice and perspective on the local and global issues
affecting their lives. A few years ago, they had formed an
organization, Sangtin, and begun operating schools in the
area. Now they decided to do more.
Income generating activities such as a milk collection
center and chikan work were taken up. Richa quit her job in
order to focus more on Sangtin's activities. Through
sustained discussions with villagers, the availability of
water was taken up. Two of the women in the group have
contested local elections. In August 2005, 5 members of the
collective went on an exposure trip to Gujarat and
Maharashtra to visit 3 NGOs/Peoples' movements and learn
from their work.
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Shibu Nair
Shibu Nair is associated with Thanal since the past 10 years
and has worked on varous environmental issues in kerala.
Currently AID-bayarea is supporting a project Zero-waste
Kovalam in kerala.
Shibu is the main coordinator interacting with the
government, the local hotel and trade associations and the
local people
Since 2003, Shibu has been involved with the zero waste
kovalam project, that aims at alternatives to incinerators
and landfills, and generate livelihoods based on recycling
and reusing the waste products. The idea is to setup small
community based centers where waste is processed within the
community.
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Smitha Kalyani
Smitha Kalyani was one of the first AID India volunteers.
While at BITS Pilani, she was active in the AID chapter
there, involved in running tuition centers and libraries in
the area. After graduation, she moved to Bangalore and
continued to be active with AID. After quitting her job with
Wipro, she became a full-time volunteer with AID Chennai.
She played a central role in coordinating AID India's Relief
and Rehabilitation work after the Indian Ocean tsunami in
December 2004.
Since becoming an AID India Saathi, Smitha has been working
with AID Chennai and AID Bangalore on a number of health and
education initiatives, including an Integrated Block program
in Sulagiri block of Krishnagiri district in Tamilnadu.
A number of teams from AID Chennai, along with Smitha and
other AID Bangalore workers, have running Integrated Block
development programs in Sulagiri. A report of their work for
May to December 2005 can be found
here
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Souparna
Lahiri
Souparna Lahiri has been
a social activist since 1985, having worked with PUCL
(People’s Union for Civil Liberties), Butterflies (Delhi
based NGO), Center for Education and Communication and
lastly with Delhi Forum. He has worked on issues of the
rights of street children, campaigned for the labour rights
of the informal sector, bonded labour, fishworkers etc. He
has also been engaged with many small people’s movements in
the northeast and other tribal regions of India. He is a
prolific writer and has published articles in many journals
and magazines. His intellectual work is informed and shaped
by reality at the grassroots.
During his work with the Delhi Forum he has interacted
closely with leaders like Medha Patkar and Thomas Kocherry.
Souparna has interacted with various ministries of the
Central Government and has a good understanding of the
processes required in engaging with the State.
Lahiri sees himself as a campaigner and a campaign builder,
trying to bring together many small movements and taking
their voice to the corridors of power. His primary focus
area for next couple of years will be northeast.
AID will strive to learn from Souparna Lahiri’s work in the
northeast, the aspirations and perceptions of the people
there; how issues and movements are connected at the local
and national level and mechanisms of engaging with the
State. We also hope to work with him on evaluating and
critiquing policies put out by the government.
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Swati Desai
Swati Desai and her husband Michael Mazgaonkar, are social
and environmental activists who have been living and working
in Juna Mozda, a tribal village in the Bharuch district of
Gujarat, since 1991. In Mozda, they have been involved in
soil and water conservation, organizing a women's
cooperative for tuvar dal processing, savings programs and
dairy, primary health care, and in training local youth for
community projects. In 2002 they won the Rural Development
award (instituted by the Development Support Center in
Ahmedabad) for their work in watershed management.
Michael and Swati are also two of the founders of Paryavaran
Suraksha Samiti (PSS), an organization campaigning against
environmental pollution in the "golden" and "silver"
corridors of Gujarat. An enthusiast in the field of
appropriate technology and renewable energy, Michael was one
of the key participants in the pedal power project funded by
AID. Michael and Swati are members of the coordinating
committee of the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM).
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Sridhar R
Sridhar is one of the four full time
activists working with Thanal. Sridhar joined Thanal in
1996-97 after he quit his decade long professional
engineering carrier, which encompassed stints with National
Thermal Power Corporation, teaching at an Engineering
College and also functioning as the acting head of the
department in the college before leaving to take up full
time activism. Sridhar is very involved in political
advocacy, research and policy related campaigning work
related to sustainable agriculture in Kerala and Tamilnadu.
Sustained efforts by Sridhar and Usha are bearing fruit in
the form of invitations to various fora for holding wokshops
on sustainable agriculture, paddy field conservation,
landrights discussion, organic food marketing so on and so
forth. Sridhar and Usha are part of various consultative
committees set up by the govt of Kerala with reference to
paddy land conservation, making Kerala GM free and other
sustainable agriculture issues. In addition Thanal has
initiated a bi-weekly organic bazaar in Thiruvanathapuram
providing the space and support for women from farming
households to run their own organic market. The bazaar has
generated considerable interest in natural food and has a
mix of new and regular customers and invariably everything
is sold out.
Sridhar is also involved in formulating successful
organic/natural food marketing strategies for farmers and
farmer group in Kerala and Tamilnadu. Sridhar has been
constantly touring southern states to meet farmers,
students, agriculture department scientists and thereby has
been successful in the three prong strategy of influencing
policy, building alternatives to the dominant paradigm, and
creating awareness. Activism is woven into his personal life
as well. With active support from his father, a retired
professional, sridhar is in the process of encouraging the
households in their neighbourhood to shift to a zero waste
program which involves creating a vermin-compost pit in
every home.
Another area where Sridhar has defied the established
paradigm is in choosing to educate his son in a small
parent-child friendly Malayalam medium school. It doesn't
stop there, he has become an active participant of the
parent teacher group and through that has influenced the
school to start gardening and agriculture awareness
activities for the children.
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Swetha Narayan
Swetha Narayan works in SIPCOT-Cuddalore area in the areas
of environmental protection.
Her main areas of work include:
1.
Community Environment Monitoring by setting up volunteer
groups that monitor and collect periodic and systematic
health information.
2.
Setting up and maintaining socio-technical research groups
that conduct research about the pollution affected areas in
the country and start documenting data.
3.
Bringing various pollution affected communities from all
over India (including places like Bhopal, Jadugoda,
Cuddalore, Mettur etc) into a National Federation of
pollution affected communities for discussions.
4.
Educating and encouraging youth to pursue areas of social
work and public interest professions.
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Tara Ahluvalia
Taraji has been working with women's issues in the
Bhilwada dist. of Rajasthan since 1986. She started her
stint in the area as a social-worker in UNICEF funded
"Women's Development Program." After the decade-long project
ended, she stayed on to serve as an advocate for the rural
women who continue to seek her out. Taraji holds degrees in
Psychology and Social Work, and has authored many articles
on women's issues. Her book on witch-hunting in Bhilwada is
awaiting release.
Taraji continues her fight to raise awareness about
violence against women in every form- female foeticide,
dowry deaths, domestic violence, rape. Her work with
witch-hunting victims has led to the Govt. of Rajasthan
drafting the "Dayan Virodhi Act." She is working to educate
UNICEF and other organizations about "natha-pratha." Her
sustained work with women has led to a community that is
more sensitized towards this issue and a more supportive
judiciary.
She hopes to continue with her initiatives and ideas in
Bhilwada with some upcoming projects like Sangharshsheel
Mahila Mela, which is a mela inviting about 200 women who
have fought brave struggles to provide a platform for
collective strength to emerge. The mela can build a
solidarity and help in identifying women who can take this
work forward. The women will be honored and the team of
lawyers and sensitive police officers will also be honored.
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