Purpose of tour: To conduct a socio-economic survey for better understanding and practical need-based approach towards the villagers for uplifting their day to day life. Three senior members (two male and a female) from LIFE visited the village in question from 21st January to 25th January 23 for conducting door to door socio-economic survey.
Location: Jilingsereng (lat 23 deg 16.7 min N 086 deg 1 min E) is located in the southwestern part of Ajodhya Hills in Purulia district, West Bengal at an altitude of 500 meters. Under PS /block Baghmundi.
Weather
During this time weather was pleasant with average parameters found to be
Temperature 12 – 22 deg
Wind mainly easterly. Light to moderate.
Sky: Sunny with morning haze.
Pollution: No instrument was available to ascertain the degree of pollutant. It was observed that we breathe fresh crispy air with good feel.
Flora fauna: The hill is covered with moderately dense forest mainly of sal Segun, piyasal, hartiki, Bahera, Kenda (all local name), lantana shrubs etc.
Villagers claimed that this jungle is inhabited with wild boar, peacock, rabbit, fox, jackal, civet and varieties of snakes’ lizards, monitors etc. Varity of birds sighted during the stay. Sighting of Elephant heard is not uncommon in this vicinity.
Jilingsereng : The village is surrounded by Murguma dam, Bangasur, Nawaghar and Village Mamudi in the south and consists of four paras as namely a) Nich Para, b) Kolaygora, c) Sarjomdi, and d) khorbera. There are more or less 90 families within this village.
Mainly People live here in thatched house and living is depend on collecting fire wood from jungle and sell it in the local market Kalimati. Due to no irrigation facility those who has cultivated land depends on rain and single crop of paddy.
Tomato, mustard seed are occasionally grown within village which needs less or no water.
Most of the cultivation is done with organic fertilizer (cow dung) only.
Portable water is burning issue for the village. People depend on well where water is available for 4 to 5 months only. Next alternate is block supply water by solar power pump which does not guarantee regular supply either.
Last option left for them is to fetch water miles away from perennial River or falls (quality of this source remain in question).
Villagers have domesticated animal such as cow, goat, and backyard poultry etc to augment their earning.
Background: LIFE (Livelihood Initiative for Empowerment) is associated with the village Jilingsereng for the last four years and extends supportive hands for upgrading their living, livelihood, environment, health and hygiene, basic education for children particularly. Also works /support as a bridge between local administrative authority and villagers with regards to availing various government benefits, and schemes etc for the tribal.
Why LIFE chose to work in Jilingserang: The villagers of Jilingsereng are simple , poverty stricken lacks basic facility for living , knowledge and education. They shy away from representing to government authorities for their legitimate right due to lack of awareness and education. Few young people have basic education but most of them are literate in the sense of only signing their name.
Also we observed that there are few spirited local young boys who took the helm of education for the children during the outbreak of Covid and successfully continued to upgrade the morale and education of the children when government education institute in that village was failed to provide basic service rather basic primary centre was shut down for years. LIFE without any hesitation came forward to support their cause and kept the children in the main stream of learning.
Door to door survey finding: :
Villagers showed very keen interest and came forward to cooperate in the survey. All finding are being complied evaluated by our team lead by Dr. Saha and Pratap Mukherjee and others.
Few important finding are listed below:
- Lack of education
- Lack of Awareness of their right
- Lack of Health and hygiene facilities.
(Women hygiene is undermined/ ignored)
- No opportunity for employment.
(Fire wood collection is only convenient source of earning without fore sight of future environmental impact)
- School college primary health centre etc is far way and no proper road, ambulance facility.
- Augment family earning by collecting and selling fire wood children are force to drop out school by their family .
- To Fetching portable water from far way by women flock.
- All important documents such as Aadhaar/PAN/insurance/ Medical etc are not organized and not known by most of people.
- Lack of awareness leads Social evil such as drinking/ dependency on ojha, quack rather than doctor .
10 Existing Self Help group found to be inactive .
Conclusion:
LIFE will study analyze in depth the findings and prepare a proposal for upgrading few component i.e. education, health, livelihood and intend to implement necessary avenues subject to availability of fund and resources.