WUNRN
Women's Feature Service
India - In West Bengal, Women’s Seaweed Project for Income, Nutrition, & Cylone Damage Survival
By Ajitha
Menon
Women at work at
theexperimental seaweed bank in the village of Harekrishnapur in Sunderbans,
West Bengal. Credit:Jayanta Pal\WFS
Sunderbans (Women’s
Feature Service) – Ishika Mondal, 34, works for two hours every day in waist
deep water, trying to keep the fragile ‘Gracilaria’ or ‘Seola’ (seaweed) seeds
alive at the small experimental seed bank in her village of Harekrishnapur in
Sunderbans, West Bengal. “This is our hope for the future. Selling the seaweed
every 40 days will bring money for our families,” says Ishika.
In contrast Raushi
Singh, 45, wakes up at 4 am and treks for about one-and-half hour along the
muddy banks of the river Bidya in the delta region, searching for crab marks.
She plunges her hand deep into the crab holes and pulls out these crustaceans.
“It’s risky and crab bites are common, but most women in our village forage for
crabs like this. We then walk to the market, about two-hours away, to sell them
so that we can buy essentials for our family,” says Raushi.
For Raushi, an
alternative means of livelihood, like the seaweed cultivation project, would
definitely mean some relief from this dangerous and exhausting struggle for
sustenance – a way of life for hundreds living in the Sunderbans.
The continued impact
of Cyclone Aila – that hit parts of Eastern India and
Panchanan Das,
Chairman,
The women soon
realised that there was no surety that money would arrive at the end of the
month from their husbands, sons or brothers, and even if it did, the amount
would always remained uncertain. “With no men around, finding work became a
priority for us. The panchayats have been unable to find us employment through
the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). Whatever
little work was offered involved hard manual labour like building embankments –
impossible for women to do. We suggested poultry, goat-rearing, handicraft, but
nothing materialised. Self Help Groups (SHGs) and NGOs have provided some
alternative means of livelihood,” says Uma Deb Sharma, 45, of Thakurgheri
village under Basanti Block.
Then, with the aim to
provide a better means of livelihood to the local women, the Nature Environment
Wildlife Society (NEWS) initiated the seaweed project on an experimental basis
in three villages on four plots. “We had seen a similar project at Mandapam in
Tamil Nadu, where there is a seaweed processing factory as well. Seaweed needs
both saline and sweet water to flourish and the Sunderbans is ideal for this,
as saline water regularly flows in during high tides,” reveals Barnita
Dasgupta, Project Coordinator, Community Development, NEWS.
Adds Aparna Mondal,
35, Secretary of the Saradamoyee SHG under Jyotispur gram panchayat, which runs
the Seaweed Project at Harekrishnapur, “‘Seola’ offers a nutritious dietary
alternative and is extremely beneficial for pregnant women. It’s excellent food
for the people in Sunderbans. We can also sell it to baby food and diet
supplement manufacturers. There will be a yield every 40 days if the experiment
works.”
If things go
according to plan, there are hopes for the production of 15-30 kilograms of
seaweed per woman, every 40 days from individual plots. “One kilo will fetch Rs
20. We aim to involve about 800 women in this project,” says Rajnarayan Mondal,
42, Local Project Coordinator, NEWS.
Besides the seaweed
initiative, the mangrove nursery project has emerged as another successful
means of livelihood for the women in the Basanti block. Anjali Sardar, 45, a
widow, whose two sons have left Sunderbans in search of work, says excitedly,
“We are cultivating ‘kalobain’ (Black Avicenea) saplings that we’ll sell for
one rupee each to the NGO when they are ready. We also plan to plant them along
the river banks to earn extra money. In fact, we got paid 35 paise per jute bag
we stitched, which are used to collect clay from the river banks and the
‘Kalobain’ seeds from the forest. The seeds have now been planted in the clay.
That was hard work. These days we spend two hours every morning and evening
watering and caring for these saplings.”
Environmental
concerns like the need to plant and protect the mangroves in the Sunderbans are
also being addressed by the NEWS project. “After Aila, the realisation dawned
that areas with greater density of mangroves had remained relatively unscathed.
Now these women are not only involved in planting new trees, they also take a
keen interest in protecting them,” says Ankita, Project Trainee, NEWS.
Thirty-two year old
Kanondolai’s house was submerged when Aila hit the delta. Earlier, her fields
yielded about 10 ‘basta’ (One ‘basta’ equals 60 kg) paddy per ‘bigha’. Now the
yield is not even three ‘basta’. There is loss in cultivation due to the poor
soil situation. Her son is a pipeline worker somewhere near Mumbai and he sends
about Rs 300 home, hardly sufficient for Kanondolai, her husband and a young
daughter, a student of Class VII. So she diligently works at the nursery.
“Many girls have gone
to work in cities as domestic help. I fear many are being trafficked. I don’t
want the same for my daughter. The nursery project is my safety net. I made
money from the jute bags I stitched and once the saplings are sold, I will have
money in hand. My husband is ill but he does odd jobs. We will manage somehow,”
she says.
Most families in
Sunderbans claim that they have received no compensation yet for
building/repairing their houses, post cyclone Aila, let alone any other
monetary help from the government. Basanti block authorities say that of the Rs
52 crores due as compensation for repairing dwellings, they have received only
Rs 24 crore till 2010-11. Even the sanctioned fortification of embankments has
not taken place. At the most, only some superficial work has been done.
It is obvious that
hardly any post-cyclone intervention by government agencies has taken place in
Sunderbans but its heartening that the residents, particularly women, are
trying to mitigate the financial, social and environmental impact of Aila to
some extent, and doing this themselves.