Life For Tizade
Suicide is a part of village life in Tizade, Maharastra India.
In the past five years 35 farmers, young and old have swallowed the pesticide designed for their fields.
Why?
Life in rural India can be incredibly hard. In rainy season it pours, floods come - roofs leak, all turns to mud and the water rushes away carrying precious topsoil with it.
In only a few short months the heat returns and rapidly dries the land to dust.
The women toil often for hours carrying heavy 'dabbas' (water containers) on their heads.
Kitchen gardens shrivel, well levels drop an streams cease to flow.
The village cattle give little milk as they have to walk far for water.
The meagre 1 - 2 acre farms only produce one crop a year and the only continual growth is the debt at the banks and money lenders. Desperation sets in and alcohol provides a temporary escape. Death is more permanent!
The other issues which arising from the hardship are:
* With no money for labour children are needed to help on the farms and
education
falls by the wayside.
* Water borne diseases increase as the levels of water in the wells drop
* Families disintegrate as people leave for work in the cities and these migrants take
their place with countless homeless on the streets, their children forced to beg
for food.
* Mothers will not allow their daughters to marry the young men of Tizade because the
risk of widowhood is too great.
* Alcoholism increases with the pain of no hope of a better life.
Where in all this darkness is the Solution?
We have the potential to make a difference to these issues.
The difference lies in the simple ability to access water throughout the year.
This will bring life and more importantly, joy, back to Tizade.
For those of you who see the potential for change as a result of bringing reliable water supply to the people please support us here -
choose your reward and click the link. (You will only be charged when we reach out tipping point.)
With your help we are building small check dams, traditional methods that in the rush of modern life and the over population of the area - have been left by the wayside.
Check dams encourage the fast monsoonal flow of the streams to slow and dam so that the water has time to soak into the storage below -
recharging the aquifers - creating an underground storage of the water supply - the perfect place for this precious nectar of life.
Wells for up to 2 kms from the check dam are seen to maintain a water supply all year round when previously they would dry up. Very often the springs will regenerate and the streams become perennial.
With village and farmer collaboration this work succeeds.
It is clear that with an abundance of water the whole face of the village life changes.
Will you help us?
Do you believe that everyone deserves something as simple and crucial for life as clean, safe water? We most certainly do. Will you help us give people this basic human right?
We know it works and here is just one story of many that with your help we will recreate:
In a village near Tizade, where a water harvesting program has been in place for some years, we met the head man.
His story was both painful and inspiring.
Some years ago he borrowed 70,000 rupiah. (approx USD1,200) from a money lender.
For this meagre amount his only recourse for repayment were to place his three children
between the ages of 10 and 13 with that lender for a period of 7 years.
They were no more than slaves.
Since water harvesting began in his village his family is now reunited - he is out of debt, has become the head man of the village council and is living a relatively prosperous lifestyle.
We will replicate this work.
Our friends at The Dilasa Foundation have done some 600 water harvesting structures and through that work have helped more than 60,000 households. They are ready and willing to advise us in our work.
Mentors who have done the work before us that we are able to model are of great value.
We know it works.
A better future is available for poor farmers - in just one year.
It only took one good rain to fill this dam below.
Meet Chanda Mukind Moon
Hers is one of the many faces of the village. Together we will help to bring joy back into the hearts and minds of those who live here.
Chanda and her family are excited for the renewed possibilities that water will bring.
She knows that clean abundant water will change absolutely everything.
Kitchen gardens flourish, the farmers can irrigate and grow more than one crop a year. With abundant underground water the effects of a time of drought are not so great.
Bank loans can be repaid - communities built - wives can be found and the exodus from the village brought to a halt.
What do we need and how can you help?
We need funding. You can help with a little or a lot!!
See our list of rewards that we have that will help us to bring Life to Tizade.
You can even join us in the village for a journey experience like no other.
And please - share - share - share - our campaign as widely as possible with all your connections. Hit the share buttons at the top of the page on the right - its simple to do.
At the village level together we can make change.
Our job:
Along with fund raising, is the organisation, planning, purchase of the cement and other supplies, as well as creating a celebration for the villagers while the dam building is happening.
The villagers job:
Will help build it. Bring the stone and other materials so they have a strong sense of ownership. They will create also a maintenance fund so the dam can have a long life and bring water for years.
Your job:
Help us with the funding. Whatever you can give will be of great help to us.
Together we can bring life and community back into the village. When we do that at the personal level, it will filter and percolate up to the higher levels - and ultimately bring harmony to all.
Think Global and act Local .. that's what we are doing.
Will you help us?
