ASK-ing for More and Getting it...

Joy comes with Passion... and Passion usually fuels the will to do things...

My joy came a few weeks ago when I managed to visit Ambikapur and 3 villages near the place on a project related to Sanitation being managed by ASK

Some information about the project before I carry on with what I did there...

"The Chattisgarh PMU is a Gender Sensitive Sustainable Sanitation improvement and management through community initiative project. This was a demonstrative project over a period of one year. The project was implemented in areas where ADB funded rural road project has been completed.

The project has two main objectives. These are:

* To successfully demonstrate a sustainable sanitation program model implemented and managed collectively by the community stakeholders
* To ensure the availability of a practical process based manual on implementation of sanitation program

The strategies applied for the project were:

* Strengthening of Self Help Groups
* Formation of women federation
* Formation of Village sanitation committees (VCS)
* Formation of Project management committee (PMC)."

My journey from Chandigarh to Ambikapur took almost 18 hours...
Chandigarh - Delhi : Train in about 4 hours (including the road travel to home from station)
Delhi - Banaras flight : about 2.5 hours
Banaras- Ambikapur Road trip : About 9 hours

The best part of the travel was being introduced to the sleeper class buses.. not that I had not seen them before but getting to travel in them on a hot and humid evening, was something that i was not really looking forward to :)

Finally after being in an auto with about 10 people with all my bags on me, and a wait of about 30 odd minutes somewhere almost outside Banaras, the bus finally moved... Had Bindiya for company and that helped me forget most of the issue i was having so far... Manas Da who was travelling with us, also made me pretty comfortable with his presence. Never felt as if I was meeting him for the first time... My faith in the vibes and that they matter a lot actually got strengthened after I met him...

So Bindiya and me spent a lot of time chatting off in the bus and she also managed to freak me out my moving her legs in the dark... scary !!! phew... did manage to sleep for a while though after getting scared !!! The bus stopped at a place called Renukoot for dinner around midnight, and we had some amazing dal and roti there...

Finally managed to reach Ambikapur, which is the project office, around 0300 hrs on the morning of 21st July... Met Puneet who has been instrumental in the success of the project and slept for a couple of hours before moving towards our destination... the first village of the three we were to visit... Hirratikra... about 30 odd kms away from Ambikapur, which is the district headquater for the Sarguja District in Chattisgarh, This village is the second on the road built under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY)

Out of the five villages on the road, three were chosen by ADB and ASK to work on the project, namely Hirratekra, Korea and Kandrai...

We spent the 21st in Hirratekra talking to the people there... Here is what I learnt...

SHG - SelfHelp Group
Small groups made by womenfolk of the village. And women in the group pool small amount of money say 10 bucks or 20 bucks a month to the group account, which is usually there in the bank. In case of a need, a request can be made to the lead of the group for a loan and the interloaned amount is returned to the group at easy installments... This basically serves to make the women stronger in managing their activities and also thinking....

VSC : Village Sanitation Committee
This is now renamed as the VWSC, the Village Water and Sanitation Committee, and works mainly to ensure that sanitation and water related issues in the villages are looked at. Instrumental in interlocking with the govt and administration and is recognised by the Govt. as a team as well.

So the SHG and the VWSC worked together after about 6 months of efforts put into strengthening the teams in these three villages.

About the context of the project:
Before the road was constructed, the people in the villages used the area around the paths for their daily sanitation needs and after the construction of the roads, the immidiate effect was on the sanitation needs of the people especially women as now they had to go to the fields at odd hours and far away from their homes... It caused more trouble to the old women and the young girls as they needed someone to accompany them... the solution to this is individual toilets in all the homes.. and both the groups that i mentioned above with some very very active support from ASK and some funding from ADB worked together to achieve the target....

Our two days (First in Hirratekra, and the second in Korea and Kandrai) were spent in identifying how the project went, what is it that we started from? what is it that we have achieved? what is it that still needs to be done? is the work and the project sustainable, even after ASK and ADB move out?

Also asked the representatives of the villagers to rate the various activities on various scales... nothing different than what we do in our work places... exactly the same, the difference being that there are no fancy boardrooms they work on, there are no whiteboard markers or emails.. but there still were Minutes of meeting registers, account books, meeting schedules, fine payer lists, etc etc etc... amazing professionalism by people who are probably not even well educated...Made me wonder what is it that us educated and so called literate people are all about... is there a difference? it seemed to me that these people were much more better off than most of us in the cities...

ASK has done some amazing work in making these internal groups very strong and give them enough motivation in the last one year to keep the project going even after they move out... simple salute to the people who have made this difference... and continue to do it over and over and over again... Even the people recognised that effort and i could see it in their eyes when we were moving out... Some of the things that the villagers made were related to how they could not get more information and were keen on understanding what is happening in the world more than before, the way the women in the villages have gathered to own the improvement of the entire system around... fantastic effort and good response... God Bless...


On the more personal side, I was scared by Snake scares and Naxal presense in the area by Mr Puneet pretty successfully...
Made some amazing friends with Manas Da and Puneet over the few days I spent with them...
Got closer to one of the nicest people I know, Bindiya... and knowing her more is very nice...
Drove around a honda activa with a scared Bindiya as the co-rider :)
Had an amazing sweet called HeeraMani in Ambikapur...
And had a great time... full of happiness, fun, warmth, excitement, pride, and more...

And going away from Ambikapur while the rest of them were still there was not easy... anyway... I left and managed to stay for a day in Banaras showing myself and my camera some parts around the holy river Ganges and the famous Banras Ghats... not much to write about Banaras... will let the pictures speak soon...

Pictures here...