Designing Sustainable Livelihoods: The TARAgram Initiative (Mar 1997)

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Designing Sustainable Livelihoods: The TARAgram Initiative

Geeta Vaidyanathan, March 1997

Most predictions indicate that the world is heading towards economic, environmental and social catastrophe. At TARAgram, however, we believe that the human story has just begun to unravel. We believe that our society is capable of taking stock of its situation and reversing this trend. One such effort is our story; the TARAgram story.

TARAgram is today an appropriate technology resource and training centre for Bundelkhand located in Orchha, Madhya Pradesh. What began as an effort at setting up a pilot hand made paper unit of Development Alternatives in a rural area has today evolved into a model for creation of livelihoods in the villages in the vicinity of the centre. It has set the ball rolling for training and establishing large number of home based livelihoods and enterprises which will be sustainable for the reason that they all respond to the local need, and feed into the local economy. It aspires to be an expanded version of what Gandhiji envisaged as a self sustaining village society : meeting local needs with the local resource base in a decentralised manner.

In the beginning....

"The earth was without form and void"

In July 1995, the 10 acre site of Bawedi Jungle was leased to Development Alternatives, Jhansi for an Appropriate Technology centre. The technologies envisaged then were hand made paper, cleaner fuel and building materials including ferrocement, Micro Concrete Roofing tiles, Compressed Earth Blocks and Stonecrete blocks. These solutions were derived from surveys conducted to assess the local resource base and the needs in Jhansi and Tikamgarh districts while searching for a suitable site for the project. A core team was immediately formulated consisting of a multidisciplinary staff from Delhi and Jhansi.

The guiding theme was ‘Regeneration to sustainable utilisation’. Some of the first efforts were at rejuvenating the existing root stock, checking soil erosion through gully plugging and ground water charging by building a check-dam on the stream running along the site boundary. This also led to training of the workforce on land and water management practices. The labour engaged was also trained on making charcoal from Lantana and Ipomea harvested during site clearance. The charcoal was effectively used for the cooking needs on the site. This pioneering team assumed the role of TARAgram stakeholders; each developing a specialised skill and moving up from the unskilled, underemployed category to the semi-skilled and even highly skilled category. We began dreaming together of a future that aims to be sustainable.

The task of doing the master plan would have normally relied on a contour plan and a few site visits to evolve the zoning. This was a different experience. We had for the initial layout of the handmade paper unit, a 2.5 acre drawing board and pick-axes and trowels as the drafting tools. The design has been evolved almost organically on the basis of site topography and existing vegetation, ensuring that minimum number of trees were cut but without sacrificing the functional requirements of the buildings. Zoning was also done segregating the areas of high noise levels from the silent zones through provision of buffer zones. The bottom line in the design brief was that this should be a fun place to work in. Today the building bears a testimony to the synergies that existed between the structural engineers, the architect and the process engineers, without forgetting the users.

The evolution

While the design was being evolved, there was on-site training of the local masons on good construction practices. Building construction began and stone available on site was prolifically used as its collection and dressing improved the labour component in our buildings. As the buildings emerged from the red murum of the site it was early September. While buildings were being completed for the paper unit all our building technologies were being validated, our work-force being trained and our dream slowly turning to reality. It also offered us an opportunity to expose women to some of our technologies and upgrade them in tune with the evolutionary process of TARAgram. Women were encouraged to be equal partners and not mere objects to lift materials and weights on construction sites. It was a learning process for all of us. It became evident that if women were to be equal partners in earning the bread, the children would either be made to takeover the household chores or would be left unattended. This would actually jeopardise the future of these children. If we were to impact the lives of our workers in totality, we needed to readjust our on-site activities to include a balwadi for these children. This was how the balwadi was born. Soon children of school going age joined the balwadi. A vehicle has been organized to take them to the school at Orchha. They begin the day from the balwadi on site and finish again on our site, returning home with their parents.

The selection of the trainees for the unit involved a rigorous procedure where need for income was a major deciding factor along with the willingness and enthusiasm to earn a livelihood. In the case of the paper unit comprising today of 35 people, likely to double very soon, more than 70% are women. Of this, half were selected owing to their potential to be leaders while the other half were truly needy. An artisanal profile is being maintained which traces the progress of the trainees on site at work as well as back home outside our sphere of direct influence. With the constant effort to upgrade skills, we also have literacy classes for half an hour everyday for three basic categories: those with no education, those with primary level education but no accounting skills and those with secondary level education. Each class has teachers appointed from among themselves. There are monthly exams and trainees are encouraged to move up in the classes. It is encouraging to know that the unit does not depend on the Development Alternatives staff for such routine operations.

The physical health of all, specially the women who are normally neglected in the rural areas, is monitored regularly by doctor. Besides routine examination, he is also available for counselling of all the trainees as well as their family members. A lady doctor was also engaged for the check up of the women trainees. An area of equal stress is of occupational health and precautions are taken upfront specially for those exposed constantly to dust. The effluent from the paper unit is treated through settlement tanks before being allowed out. We take pride in showing everyone our pollution treatment area which is being developed into a landscape garden.

January 1996 saw us completing the buildings and the machine installations began. Recruitment commenced in the month of March and during April our first batch of paper trainees were welcomed aboard by the older building material and energy group. The family had grown and with majority of the new recruits being women; the centre had ensured gender equity.

The birth

22nd April 1996 is a historic day in the TARAgram calendar. Our baby had arrived. Our first handmade paper was produced while the unit was totally off the power grid (as it is today). We generate our own electricity from ipomea; a waste weed growing along the nullah beds. We are actually almost self-sufficient with respect to all major raw materials.

While the commissioning of the paper unit was a turning stone for TARAgram it also marked the formal entry of about 70 of the trainees, from 25 villages around our centre. There is a six month gestation period during which all of them have been given an opportunity to establish their stake in the sustainability of the entire operation. They are made aware that their progress is linked with the productivity of the centre and its self-sustaining ability.

Today while the hand-made paper unit is operating at still half its capacity, the levels of efficiency and productivity are commendable for relatively inexperienced staff. The building material units are in the process of influencing the state of shelter of their region by augmenting supply of building materials which are also environmentally sound. At least four new materials for roofing and walling are being processed for developing into technology packages, so that they may be liberated through enterprises for large scale dissemination. Many of our trainers shall graduate into entrepreneurs while others shall be trainers to potential entrepreneurs. TARAgram has pledged to become a model training ground for new technologies appropriate for the region, liberating the proven ones while initiating newer interventions. It will provide a single window access for technology services for all the districts in Bundelkhand.

The working model

TARAgram is presently attracting a workforce from about 25 villages within a 15 km radius. The map of our region indicates Orchha as our epicentre of operations and flowing out from this we have two concentric circles at 5kms and 10 km radius. We have targeted at least 5 villages in the 5 km radius, within the first concentric circle (map) for impacting through our off-site interventions within this year. Eventually we hope to bring in more villages into our fold. A similar level of activity is expected to grow with Bijouli as a secondary epicentre which currently provides roofing services. This node is expected to grow gradually to cater to other needs also. It is now clear that TARAgram will gradually develop into a place for value added products and at the village we would set up small home based enterprises for part processing of materials.

A small beginning has just been made in the field of green manuring using dhaincha : Sesbania bispinosa. Between the rabi and kharif period when the fields are normally left fallow, we have encouraged the farmers to grow this legume which produces root nodules which fix nitrogen. The plant may be ploughed back in 45 days providing the required nutrients for the wheat harvest, or may be harvested in late November. If properly grown, the stems can be used as fuel for the gasifier, while the fibres can be removed and used for ropemaking. This versatile plant can also be used to make gum from its seeds and the residue can also be used as cattlefeed. Last year‘s harvest from the farmers field; has already established the potential of the plant and this year we have mobilised more farmers, besides trying it on a test plot ourselves to reap further benefits and establish the potential for value addition to this fibre. This could actually be an important venture into biomass based micro-industrial estates, a truly sustainable livelihood base.

We are committed at TARAgram to a reconstitution of our future : " Meet basic needs without compromising the environment". We make our own destiny.

Today we have a destiny to create.

The team

80 shareholders from 25 villages:

AVM Sahni, Dr. Arun Kumar, Wg. Cdr Pramode Sawhney, Prema Gera, Sanjay Dubey, T.N Subramanian, Geeta Vaidyanthan, KK Singh, Rajeev Gupta, Hriday Rai, Dileep, Shilendra, Ashok, Pramod Dubey, S P Singh, Kailash, Sanjeev Sen, Lala Ram, Vinay Sriavastava, Om Kumari, Neeta Goel, Naval Garg, Subroto Roy, Anand, Mishraji, Manish, KL Kohli, Rai Babu, Param Lal. Rajesh Bajpai, Rupinder, Neetu, Shashi Mohan, Nuruzzama, V. Sriraman, Zeenat Niazi, Aswini Pai, Bhaskar Goswami, Akhilesh Tiwari, S. Suresh, J.P. Singh, H.S. Hora, Narayan Sarma, Ramesh Sharma. Also Development Alternatives Jhansi and New Delhi.

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