KHATIMA, UTTARAKHAND – Meet Shrimanti Devi, a 50 year old woman who lives in Bhudakishni village in Khatima, Uttarakhand with her family. She belongs to the Tharu tribe of Uttarakhand. The Tharu tribe is the largest primitive tribe of the Uttarakhand, the tribe lives n the interior forest sustaining a close relationship with their environment. The main occupation of Tharu people is agriculture. Most of the work in agricultural fields is done by women folk. They are known for their traditional knowledge on medicinal plants. Shrimanti has about one acre of agricultural land. Her main source of income comes from farming the tiny patch of land. Her husband is also a farmer and he too works as a daily wage labourer in other people’s farms as their farm does not yield enough to feed their family. Shrimanti can barely read and write as she could not complete her schooling due to financial problems that her family faced while growing up. She was forced to drop out of school and helped her family at home. Things were looking bleak for her and her family as they struggled to make ends meet.
Spreading Joy and Making a Difference
Shrimanti’s life turned around when she invested herself into one of the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) of the Operation Blessing’s Micro-Enterprise and Livelihood Project. She has been an active member of the SHG group and attends monthly meetings regularly. Thanks to partners like YOU, she has been trained on the techniques of organic farming and how important it is. Shrimanti now makes her own vermicompost fertilizer to grow vegetables on her land and feels that it’s a waste of money to buy fertilizers from the market when she can make organic fertilizers on her own. The vermicompost she uses is made in vermicompost pits constructed by Operations Blessings and generous partners like YOU.
Shrimanti has put all the farming knowledge that she got in the SHG group in to her farm and as a result, her farm is now flourishing. She has also started growing Ajola grass which is a very nutritive feed for dairy cattle. She has been spreading hope in her village by sharing all the good things she has learnt and the villagers are quite pleased to learn from her. She is thankful to Operation Blessing for giving her this wonderful opportunity to learn and grow.
