Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

Project Diary
The first phase involved walking the whole project area. In the April workshop, teams for
walking in all the Panchayats were constituted and the team leaders were selected. The
original idea was to constitute two teams for each Panchayat but the idea did not
materialize in the way we expected. Two teams operated in vallikkunnu. In Tirurangadi
and Parappanangadi, the volunteers decided to work as single team, dividing into groups
whenever necessary. In Nannambra, two groups began to operate, but was combined into
one. Peruvallur had only one team, which covered the whole area. Munniyur failed to
develop a tangible team, as majority of the original volunteers, who were students,
dropped out. The research team intervened and completed walking with the help of the
available volunteers. In Thenhippalam, the team was led by a retired teacher and local
political activist. With extensive knowledge of the area, and the research team helped him
to complete the work along with the available volunteers. In overall terms about 75
volunteers participated in walking, besides the research team. Women formed about half
the number of volunteers.
We wanted to complete walking by the end of June, but it could be completed only by the
middle of August. As mentioned earlier, we depended for the most part on the volunteers
recommended by the Panchayats, who were literacy preraks or other types of volunteers.
They were working under the constraints of their own work as well as the frequent
workload given to them by the Panchayats. Hence, they could find time only for one or
two days a week. This meant that walking took about seven to eight weeks in many
Panchayats, and in some Panchayats, it took about twenty walking days to complete
stretch. Some panchayats, like Nannambra and Munniyur, lagged behind, and extra effort
was required to reconstitute the team and complete walking.