Finger Millet - A Disabled Friendly Crop

This is a guest post written by Ms. Rachel Belda Raj. Rachel serves as Project Manager of the project on Community Based Rehabilitation for the Disabled in NJH.

Working with vulnerable groups for their rehabilitation and empowerment is a challenging task and then there are People with Disabilities (PWDs) who often are the most vulnerable, trapped in the cycle of poverty and disability. The rehabilitation process is time consuming as it involves both helping them discover opportunities as well as facilitate a change in their thought process. In the process of our working with PWDs, disabled friendly opportunities are rare as society is a long way from main streaming. A change in attitude may occur but without the right opportunities, they are not fully rehabilitated, unless they create the opportunities themselves.

Here is an account of a created opportunity towards rehabilitation.

Like most rural communities, agriculture is the main source of income for our community part of the Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Project for PWDs. Unfortunately the area we work in is a drought prone area affecting the main source and for most people the only source of income or food. The PWDs also find themselves most vulnerable as their mobility impairments affect their agriculture as well. Surprisingly, this issue has been a recent one as for generations, this area has been a drought prone area but people have survived by cultivating drought resistant crops. But with the green revolution and introduction of cash crops, traditional drought resistant crops were abandoned. Now, with the climate change issues and lack of rainfall, the community finds itself vulnerable as neither they have irrigation facilities or timely rain for the cash crops nor the traditional knowledge of drought resistant crops.

The Community Based Adaptation Project had discovered the long forgotten drought resistant crops of the area especially finger millet which had been part of the community. They are now working to promote Finger Millets both for its drought resistance as well its nutritional content aiming to tackle poverty and mal nutrition.

As a spill over effect of the project work, the PWDs in the CBR Project area had also heard about the work to promote finger millet. Both out of curiosity and desperation, they enquired about finger millet. Most of them had idea as their ancestors had grown and consumed in their homes. As predicted, the lack of rain fall left most of the fields barren. Meanwhile, the CBA project had arranged a training regarding drought resistant crops at Satbarwa, the block headquarters.

The PWDs from the village Patna were encouraged to attend so they would get an idea of Finger millet and its benefits. The meeting was facilitated by Prof. Haider from Birsa Agriculture University, Ranchi. As they presented fascinating facts about Finger Millet, the PWDs were convinced to at least give it a try. As in the end of the meeting seeds were sold at nominal prices, almost 18 PWDs bought about 200gms to cultivate.

The Finger Millet was cultivated and unlike many other crops, this doesn’t need much effort or regular supervision. This was beneficial to most PWDs as they most of them had mobility impairments and were dependant on other people for agriculture. This crop reduced their dependency as there was hardly any effort involved. Of course, regular care of the crop would definitely give higher yields.

When Professor Haider visited the region last week, one of the fields he visited was that of Mr. Manoj who had done cultivation of madwa in one plot of land. He was elated on seeing the yield. In fact, Professor Haider was also taken aback at how finger millet farming has become a boon to a disabled farmer.

The team at Manoj's field . . . 

Prof. Haider interacting with Mr. Manoj . . . 

They now look forward to the harvest. Cultivation of finger millets has not only ensured them some source of food and income but also re kindled hope for the future. 

System of Wheat Intensification

As part of the CBA Project, we had started off doing demonstration plots in various crops since last October. In one small plot of approximately 70 square metres, we did wheat cultivation as per techniques used in System of Wheat Intensification. Abinash Biswal, one of our project staff took the leadership in doing it and he's put it in his blog. 

Snaps of the same . . . most of them taken by Mr. Thomas John, Co-ordinator, Climate Change, EHA. 

From left to right - Prabodh, Mahendar, Rajeev, Sr. Rita, Mathias, Dinesh, Amit William, Jeevan, Dr. Roshine, Ms. Meghala, Ebez, Rachel, Sheron, Abinash

A closer look

Beetroot

The champion plant - had 46 heads from a single plant

Thankful

The last Friday of every month, the staff at the hospital meets together for a whole day of prayer where we remember the blessings we had over the past month and put forward specific prayer requests. On 29th November we met, and had a wonderful time of sharing the blessing we enjoyed over 2013 and thanking the Lord for each of them. 

Apologies for the delay in sharing these with you all . . .

Please join us in thanking the Lord for each of the blessings. 

1. The hospital has been done well in 2013 in spite of major challenges. The absence of a surgeon was a major challenge as traditionally we are known as a surgical centre. We thank the Lord that the requirements in terms of finances and other requirements have been met so far especially in the light of a salary revision this year. 

2. Sampoorn Development India, one like-minded organisation has facilitated the construction of a water-tank in the campus. The Lord willing, the construction should be over very soon. 

3. The hospital has got an exclusive electricity connection to the campus and the electricity supply to the region has improved tremendously with us getting an average of 20-22 hours of electricity every day. 

4. There was a portion of land which was donated to us by one of our staff about 2 decades back. Unfortunately, few of the locals had been preventing us from taking occupation of the land. The Lord worked in the minds of these locals and has enabled us to take possession of the land. We could construct a boundary for this land and last week, the Maintenance Department started to cultivate on this land. 

5. Our Community Health Projects have been doing well so far. The impact made by the Climate Change Project, Community Based Rehabilitation Project is being slowly seen in the community. 

6. Our engagement with the government has increased over the last year. In the sphere of Tuberculosis Control, the Tuberculosis Unit caters to a population of over 750,000 population and the Global Fund Project increases awareness about the disease in the district. The UNICEF had requested us to oversee the mentoring of Labour Room facilities in Palamu and Latehar districts, thereby influencing Reproductive and Child Health in the region. Today, we were informed that we have been once more been authorized to disburse funds under the Janani Suraksha Yojana. This scheme was discontinued about 2 years back saying that we did not qualify as we did not have the requisite facilities in terms of personnel. 

7. We live in a region with tremendous amount of social unrest. We estimate that our hospital vehicles travels an average of 300 kilometers every day. We thank the Lord for safety and protection from accidents. 

8. We had some amazing stories of miraculous healing over the last year. We thank the Lord for each of these patients. Many of these patients had come to us as a last resort. 

9. There have been few constructions in the hospital. We thank the Lord for the funds that has enabled us to do these constructions. Please remember the burns unit, critical care unit, the sarai etc.  for which we need more funds. 

10. We thank the Lord for the new staff who joined in 2013. Dr. Roshine Mary Koshy (Medicine Consultant), Dr. Grace Mary George (Medical Officer), Dr. Aroma Tirkey (Dentist), Ms. Meghala Ramasamy, Mr. Jonathan Hongsha (IT Manager), Ms. Sheron Mathew (Physiotherapist), Mr. Asherush (Pharmacist) and Mrs. Tavitha, Ms. Priyanka, Ms. Premadini (Staff Nurses). 

These are the first ten items of thanks and praise which came. There were many more . . . 

Community Based Adaptation

This is a guest post written by my colleague, Mr. Avinash Biswal who serves as a Project Assistant in the Community Based Rehabilitation Project. This is in response to queries from readers about Community Based Adaptation towards Climate Change. Mr. Avinash is a graduate in Psychology who has done Masters in Social Work from Manipal University. This is his first assignment after his Masters. 

Community Based Adaptation (CBA) in simple terms is an approach which facilitates the communities to adapt to the Climate Change. Climate Change enhances hazards like Floods, Cyclones, Droughts, erratic rain fall etc. Even though it is a global issue, its impact is falling excessively on poor communities as they are highly vulnerable. In order to adapt to the Climate Change, many new and effective technologies have been developed and new developmental strategies have been adopted but all this is immensely failing to reach the most marginalized and vulnerable communities in today’s world. Therefore, CBA projects are especially focusing on the most vulnerable communities and work to empower them in increasing their resilience towards the impact of the Climate Change.

Ancient communities have extensive knowledge on climatic conditions and since many generations, they have been using their own strategies to adapt to the changes in climate. But due to reasons like Unsustainable Development and Irresponsible Planning, complications in climate have been increased drastically. Thus it has gone beyond their capacity to adapt to the present Climate Change. Hence, CBA in its strategy never encourages communities to adopt outside strategies, instead it facilitates communities to develop local strategies and enhance their capacity in the adaptation to the Climate Change.

Nav Jivan Hospital has recently undertaken the CBA project in the local community. The target is 30 villages with an approximate total population of about 40,000. The community is severely affected by droughts whereas most of the members of the community depend on the agriculture for their food as well as income. The organisation is working with the community to cope with drought by helping them to adopt drought resistant crops and alternative livelihood.