In February 2007, I visited the villages of Dharwad and neighboring districts of Karnataka, the areas served by the Samaj Parivartana Samudaya (SPS). In Byatnal, a role-model village located in Haveri district, villagers work collectively through Self Help Groups (SHGs). Access to credit from SHGs has relieved people from the clutches of money lenders. Pooling their savings, villagers take small loans to buy cattle, etc. Women now handle finances and even make street lights work! Ajji, a remarkable 100-year old woman, explained to me with pride how, after several visits to pressure District and State officials, they dismantled the arrack shop and even arranged for a stop for the bus plying past Byatnal. She also told us how 30-40 villages organized to protest the construction of a dam on the river Varada, saving 18 villages from submergence. In Kusnoor, the Village Forest Committee maintains the common land that provides grazing areas for cattle, firewood and trees whose leaf manure can be used as precious fertilizer in the fields. In Kumaranahalli, people used NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) funds to collectively plan and build a nalabund. At the recent SHG meeting, Ramanna, a villager, asked SPS for the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Utilization Planning report (which has a detailed map about each farm in the village) to be made available to them in Kannada so that they can make sense out of it and put it to practical use. From my visit, it was clear that SPS had empowered people to stand up for their rights!

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Sathish Kumar Sundaram, AID Bangalore
Read the full report here.
[Cincinnati, Houston, Dallas and Boston chapters have supported SPS work.]