Our partners in India support women’s self-help groups to build their capacity to earn a living and support communities involved in environmental education and the reforestation process in Tamil Nadu. India is now an emerging economy, but in this land of contrasts many are still living in extreme poverty.

Environmental Education in Tamil Nadu

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Innovations Program

This is a new one year program which began in December 2009 with all of the funding from AusAID. It is located in Nadukuppam Village, Tamil Nadu in Southern India and QSA is working with the existing project partner of Pitchandikulam Bio Resource Centre (PBRC).

The Government of India is committed to reduce carbon emission and has invested heavily in several sustainable solutions in recent times. However, several of the intentions and ideas in renewable energy have not been translated into action and projects. This is possibly due to a lack of adequate models, and that the initiatives are more suited to industry and larger scale ventures. This program hopes to address this deficit by providing a model of a range of environmental initiatives more suited to a village setting. The development of a rural design centre, with demonstrated environmentally sustainable methods of addressing water and power supply, building materials, fuel efficient and smokeless stoves all suited to a village setting will be the focus of a range of educational meetings and workshops for widespread dissemination of these concepts with a view to influencing public and government opinion.

This year in particular the government of the state of Tamil Nadu has, in an unprecedented move, allocated substantial funds for rural housing, targeting 135,000 new rural houses to be built through this government subsidy. Such large investment provides an opportunity to either adopt sustainable practices or to take the unsustainable route. The current good relationship enjoyed by PBRC with the state government provides PBRC with the unique possibility to interact and engage with the government, and use the model to demonstrate possible alternatives to the standard approach to redevelopment. This program will showcase new housing styles, as a replacement to the existing thatch roof and mud walls that many are living in now, and be an alternative to the plain cement redevelopment styles. It will include bamboo composite roofing material, traditional granite pillars and thatch varieties for verandas alongside modern eco-friendly technologies for clean energy and water, and encourage the community to participate in the design and building processes. This approach to the community will encourage pride and ownership of the building and of the community as a whole, and reduce the stigma of being low cost housing. This social problem is particularly pertinent to the Scheduled Caste who live on the periphery of communities and do not have equal access to resources.  

This program aims to:

• Create an optimal combination of local resource material and external materials for producing the most efficient and eco-friendly energy, including fuel efficient and smokeless stoves for household use, and building solutions, for rural usage
• Create enterprise and service provider career options for the village youth in designing, building and managing eco-friendly infrastructure, facilities and applications through capacity building with 4 interns, approximately 50 workers and 200 trainees in new building processes and technology.
• Create newer areas of renewable energy usage that can make the village energy needs self-sufficient and carbon neutral, and also provide additional earning capacity to the community by feeding into the government grid through the Feed in Tariff programme and income generating SGSY scheme.
• Conduct technical, economical, social and environmental studies to prove that an optimal combination of traditional knowledge and modern eco-friendly practices can ensure a carbon neutral rural habitat

Photo: example of electric bikes staff will use to visit project sites

Women’s Self Help Groups

Another project of Pitchandikulum Bio Resource Centre is the formation of 26 Women’s Self-help groups.  From its beginnings in the village of Nadukuppam the work has expanded to more than 26 groups in eight villages, with the Women’s Centre located at Nadukuppam being a focal point for activities and training.  Training in indigenous plant species, tailoring, vermi-composting and food growing and processing has taken place. There is also training in sanitation, health matters and hygiene.

Practical support in small business management has also been provided, which allows groups access to microfinance and small loans from the Tamil Nadu Government. There are now more than 130 income generating activities underway, including goat rearing, sheep rearing, a group nursery to produce seedlings, a tailoring shop and a variety of other agriculture initiatives. Support for additional sewing machines is requested through this year's Living Gifts Catalogue.

As part of the health and hygiene component of the work, QSA is seeking funds through the Living Gifts Catalogue to support families and communities to build toilets, either for communal use or for individual homes.  Priority is given to families and elderly members, and teenage girls to enhance their safety and privacy. You can be involved in the building of a Toilet and Bathroom facility through the Living Gifts Catalogue.

Vasandham Environment Resource Centre, Tamil Nadu

The centre is called Lyarkai Tholamai which means “friend of nature” in Tamil.  This project aims to bring practical knowledge of environmentally sustainable agricultural and agro-forestry techniques to a remote rural area of South India.  The area selected to create the resource centre is in a valley formed by the Vaigai river, which flows most years from October – May, and is surrounded by hills with deep gullies, rock outcrops and forest. Most of the area has been de-forested over the last 70 years and is severely affected by soil erosion.  The valley suffers from a lack of rainwater storage capacity and so the groundwater level is low and desertification is taking place – 90% of the land is ‘dry’.  Land productivity is very poor, and most of the target population are either marginal or small farmers or landless agricultural day labourers.  Agriculture provides the only potential source of employment in the area, which means that migration out of the area for work is a common feature by the men to cable laying, or road building or construction work, and by young women to work in the spinning mills.

The Vasandham Society has a long history of engagement with environmental issues; and this program aims to combat environmental degradation in the target area over a five year period.  Half the land will be cultivated according to environmentally sustainable agricultural techniques, with an emphasis on composting  and organic soil enrichment processes, and half will be re-afforested using indigenous plants and trees. There will also be work done on water management with the creation of small water storage areas (called a kanmai) and specific measures to address the erosion that has taken place. It is planned to provide training in all of these techniques, as well as agriculture and re-afforestation to groups of farmers. It is also hoped that the improvements to agriculture in the area will result on fewer people leaving to look for work, thus strengthening the community.

This program is in its early phase, and work is currently underway to locate water sources, fence the area and survey plant species. This is being undertaken with advice and support from other organisations in India, including Pitchandikulam Bio Resource Centre, another of QSA’s project partners, and university students from England.