Trail Blazers - IFAD

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Sustained living and happiness Lalita Majhi With having to invest nothing but her labour, Lalita Majhi’s success brought her admiration from the entire Kutia Kondh community in Nuamunda village Nuamunda Village | Tumudibanda Block | Kandhamal District 26
Drum beats and Kutia Kondh women dancing their traditional tribal dance greet us as we enter the Nuamunda village. They don’t forget their hospitality and make you feel very welcome with a hand-strung garland of sweet-smelling flowers. Lalita Majhi is among the crowd. Mother of three, Lalita has this perpetual frown on her face and looks tired from shuttling between her banana plantation and her suckling three-month old daughter, this apart from her regular household chores. Belonging to the primitive tribal population of Kutia Khond or Kandh – an aboriginal tribe in Orissa (they have been hunter-gathers traditionally dependent on the forest resources for survival), Lalita has shown such tremendous capabilities turning her neighbours green with envy. “I feel so jealous every time I see her able to do so much better and earn much more money,” admits Ramakanth, member of Maa Parvati SHG, “I too want to begin cultivating but my land is in between two other plots and is difficult to reach.” The 32 families of Nuamunda village are used to living only on wild roots, mango kernels and intoxicating palm liquid, and with not enough low lands near the village, the people resorted to podu (shifting) cultivation. Podu involves strenuous work of clearing a patch of forest; cultivating minor millets like niger, ragi, etc., or rice, which the tribals use for daily consumption. When the season is over, they would burn that patch of land and move on to another location for cultivation. All of Orissa hills are speckled with podu cultivation. If the crop is bad or if they don’t have money to buy grain, the women folk would search the forest for anything edible leading to a natural compromise in nutrition levels. Sometimes they would engage in daily labour under Government schemes. But finally, for almost five to six months, they would end up at a money-lender’s doorstep to make ends meet. Money-lenders stress on repayment in kind during harvest time leaving the families with next to nothing. This forces them to borrow again and return in kind, leading to a vicious cycle. Food scarcity and unpaid loans are the causes for farmer suicides throughout the region. “ “I am so busy working in our plantation and taking care of my family, and when I see so much money coming in, it makes me feel very happy. Now, I don’t want to go back to podu cultivation.” Lalita Majhi and her husband Chandra Sekhar Majhi, along with other villagers of Nuamunda were living very insecure lives when Bakiram Majhi, a youth from the village encouraged the women folk to form two Self-Help Groups (SHG). The year 2002 was when both Maa Parvati SHG and Ratangesur SHG were started so that the women of the village could help each other out rather than go to a money-lender. It was decided to contribute INR 20 (44 cents) per person and that the savings would go to the needy member of the group, but the money collected from Maa Parvati’s 13 members was insufficient. Lalita Majhi saves Rs 100 every month for her daughter Santhi. It was at this time that Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihoods Programme (OTELP) began work through the Village Development Committee (VDC) in Nuamunda. So it became even easier for Pradata, the Facilitating Non- 27
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