Indian women fight battle for survival after tsunami
26/12/2005 11:39
Fisherwoman Rukamani shows you detergents she has made.
"We all sell
this and feed our families," she says, pointing to other women with
her.
Making ends meet is the biggest challenge for tsunami survivors. For,
many fishermen fear the sea and refuse to venture out into the deep waters.
Others who do venture out get little catch and earn little profit.
With men
refusing to opt for alternate employment, it is the women of some Nagapattinam
villages who have taken on them the onus of feeding their children. And are
going all out weaving palm baskets, making candles, stitching stuffed toys,
making photoframes and grinding cooking powders.
Women's self-help groups are
what they call themselves. And the district administration as well as
Non-Government Organizations ( NGOs) took the initiative to get them into that
business.
Although the income is meagre, they say they hope that these
alternate professions are able to help them in the long run.
While the local
administration's District Rural Development Agency has been helping women of
village Pattinachery learn flyash brick making, it is a non-government
organization, Yusuf Meherauli Center (YMC), helping women of village P. R. Puram
make coconut oil and palm-leaf products.
YMC supervisor P. Karpagavalli tells
me how fields in some villages got ruined after being flooded with salt water.
Now, the land cannot be tilled. So, husbands have picked up petty jobs and women
are earning for a living.
Muhilosai, Vasantamallar and Malarvanam are some of
the self- help groups.
The administration and NGOs have mobilized women into
batches of 10 to 15, with each self-help group having a few groups under
it.
The Building Center working with District Rural Development Agency has
about 40 women under it, project engineer P. R. Senthil Kumar says.
Sister
Lilly Pushpam, who has been working with women since May, 2005 says that the
main problem was trauma counseling. "Men refused to move out. So, we used
therapies and counseling to get them out of the trauma. Now, women are gradually
stepping out and are getting life back to normal," she says.
Nagapattinam
District Collector Dr. Radhakrishnan tells me how they got orders from
Netherlands for gel candles made by children. "Recently, greeting cards made by
children fetched 800,000 rupees, " says Dr. Radhakrishnan.
He says the
biggest challenge for them is to ensure that the community is capable of
responding to disasters. "Preparedness for disaster is a must," he says.
The
administration and NGOs helped women market their products. Recently, one group
went to Delhi for an exhibition and fetched profits.
Well, women tell me they
earn 50 to 60 rupees per day. It is not too good but something is better than
nothing, most women say. And they hope that other jobless fishermen and
fisherwomen too finds employment. "Hope the future is bright for us," says
Aklya.
Xinhua News
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