“Bare foots stabilizing the grass roots”
Mr. Vanniaraj a trained ‘bare foot vet”
from Surangkudi village of Thoothukudi district
of Tamil Nadu in India said ’ munnadi nuthuku iruvithanju adukal
iranthathu annal ippo athu anjilarunthu
pathu sathavitham kuranjurukku.” (The
mortality rate of cattle was 25% in the village but now it has reduced 5 to 10%
in our village. For instance, similar scenario is prevailing in other
villages too.).
The
Gulf of Mannar is spread over 10500 sq kms starting from Rameswaram to
Thoothukudi. It is declared as marine bio reserve which possesses rare and
endangered species such as sea horse, sea cucumber, and duehong-duehong as well
as more than 200 commercially exploited fishes.
People’s
Action for Development (PAD) is social organization engaged in empowering the
marginalized section of the society such as fisher folk and Palmyra
tapers of Gulf of Mannar region starting from Rameshwaram to Thoothukudi which
fall under state of Tamil Nadu, India
One
third of the population constitutes fisher folk and the remaining are small and
marginal farmers, Palmyra tappers and others landless labours.
The
region is dry and semi arid dependent on rain fed agriculture, which leave the
farming community very little opportunity to earn their living. Since
agriculture become gamble of monsoon, people of the region are forced to look
for alternative livelihood for their survival. The problem for the region is
receiving inadequate income from agriculture and fishing, which are main source
of income of the region. Both occupations are seasonal fetches less income for
the people. The reasons are inadequate rain for the agriculture, advent of
mechanized boats and trawlers in fishing major problems.
When
PAD conducted Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and focus group discussion in
the target villages of Kadaladi,Thiruplani blocks of Ramanathapuram district
and vilathikulam block of Thoothukudi district it could identify cattle rearing
is viable option, which it thought will add strength to economic stability of
the community.
The
region did not have high yielding cattle varieties. The cattle which are found
in this region are called as ‘non descriptive animals” and are confined to same
area. A non-descriptive animal means local variety of catels and goats, which
are not high yield in other words the home of the species is same region. Goat,
sheep, cows, bullocks, buffalos, pigs, hens and cocks are few cattle are
available in the region.
Secondly,
the treatment for sicknesses among the cattle was a big problem. Some of the
common disease which was prevalent among the cattle in the region is enteritis,
bronchitis, fevers, laminitis, sprained, open wound, conduced wound, and acid
dosismastitis.
The
accessibility of the people to the veterinary doctors or to veterinary facilities
was almost nil. The people had to walk about 12 to 30 km to bring a doctor to
treat their sick cattle, due to which they loose their valuable time and money.
This unfortunately happened to be major factor for the people not pursuing cattle
rearing.
Therefore,
PAD facilitated to discuss among the community members through village focus
group discussion and village level meetings various options were discussed to
strengthen the additional income for the people. Catel rearing prioritized by
the people. The pros and corns of the catel rearing were discussed. The non
medicle services for the catels seem to be major hinderence. There after, in
order to solve availing medical service for the catel the different ways were
discussed. The options are lobbying for government medical service in the
region, appointing separate doctors. The lobbying will take long time and
appointing doctors will take lots of money. Then the community members along
with team came with an idea to trained educated youths in the community.
Thus,
the plan of developing Para medical group also called as ‘Bare foot Vets’ (BFV)
from the community itself, considering that it will help in eradicating the
problem of non-availability of veterinary assistance on time and within their reach.
The idea convinced the community to go ahead with the cattle rearing activities.
Now,
in order to develop ‘bare foot vets’ there were 44 youths identified covering 3
blocks of 2 districts with the help of community. Among them 9 were young women.
The reason for promoting youths is because they can move consistently and
response to emergency. More over this would be an additional income for those
trained youths other wise they might have migrated to other places for
employment. The identification of youths was done through the Village
Development Committee, which is formed by PAD to facilitate the overall growth
of the village. The selection was done on
the basis of their fluency in reading and writing, basic know how of English,
having own residence in the local area, having interest in cattle rearing and protecting
and available at anytime to serve the needy with pleasure.
All
these 44 members were given a 15 day training on first aid and the maintenance
capacity to give a better treatment. The content of training included the
aspects like identifying the disease, the prevention methods, vaccination &
the reproduction methods. Not only have the members had been introduced by the
VDC to have the recognition in their village but also they have the capacity to
handle the veterinary medical methods directly.
Apart
from the training session on the various subjects, many exposure visits
organized to various institutions, universities and farms such as Veterinary
and animal sciences university of Namakkal, Hassarguttah animal farm of
Bangalore and farmers training centre of Rajapalayam to animal husbandry
problems.
At
the end of the training, the youths were provided with medical kits which
enabled them to start their work soon after completion of the training.
To
ensure the growth and development of the BFVs, PAD also ensures monthly
orientation to refresh their knowledge. Apart from this the capacity
enhancement process is also facilitated through on job facilitation during
their joint action with the veterinary doctor (who is registered practicenare)
of PAD in all the target villages.
Promoting bare foot vet was not easy task naturally and PAD
faced some hurdles to cross-
·
It
took few months to convince the community to recognize bare foot vets.
·
The
government veterinary doctors of the near by towns often played degrading
tricks to de-motivate the bare foot vets and propagating false campaigns.
·
Transportation
and storage of medicines was another challenge faced as the medicine had either
to be brought from Thoothukudi(60 kms) or Madurai
The
above-mentioned challenges over came by a result of our constant effort such as
motivational meeting at the village level, bring and storage the medicines in
advance, which will be assessed at the monthly meeting of bare foot vets. As a result of the availability of the BFVs,
now the community have got easy access to the veterinary services and therefore
more people have invested in goat rearing According to one of our federations
report there are 800 women have invested in goat rearing in all 72 villages of
PAD target area, which happened during last 2 years (End of 2006 to 2008). All these women are availing our services
from barefoot vets. The following table
will be self explanatory of the impacts of bare foot vets. The data has drawn
from 35 working villages of PAD- Details of cattels in 35 villages of Gulf
of Mannar region
Sl.no
|
Particulars of cattle’s
|
2005
|
2009
|
1
|
Indigenous cattels
|
1097
|
1252
|
2
|
Crossbreed cattels
|
106
|
226
|
3
|
Indigenous calf
|
253
|
695
|
4
|
Sheeps
|
3742
|
4943
|
5
|
Goats
|
5731
|
9667
|
6
|
Poultry
|
10735
|
13139
|
Secondly,
especially after inducing barefoot vets, the death rate of animals has reduced
in our 72 target villages. to Mr. Sundramanicam (member of VDC Thangamalpuram
village) stated that ‘kalnadai paniyalarkal moolam engalathu gramathil 30 sathavitham
kalnadaikal koodiyulathu. Athumattumalamalkalnadai irappu vikitham 20% irunthu
10% aka kurainthulladhu.” ‘After introducing barefoot vets in our village 30%
increase in cattel rearing. Not only has that there isin reduction of mortality
rated among cattel, which is from 20% to 10%.” Thirdly, using their capacities One
BFV is earning around Rs. 2500 as an additional income in a month.
In
observation, it has come out that a cattle rearing has added strength of the
people’s life. For example, a woman who has 2 goats gets Rs. 7500 in a year,
which is additional income for the family. (Any case sample will be useful to
support the data)
The
striking fact is that this small initiative is bringing and can bring big time
changes in the lives of people. Bare foot vets are not only earning for their
own livelihood but are also contributing towards enhancement of community
livelihood.
Acknowledgement
I
thank Dr. Santhanam and Ms. S Divya
of PAD for collecting data.
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