Newsletter from Jagriti Vihara January 2014

Dear friends,

Guests from Norway and Sweden
We celebrated the New Year by embracing ten visitors, nine women and one man, from Norway. The visitors arrived at Jagriti Vihara on 1st. January 2014. The group leaders, Tove and Erling, our old and affectionate friends, were fully prepared to fill the atmosphere with song and dance. Our girls, the pupils of the school at Jagriti Vihara, felt so happy to sing and dance with the guests.

Our pupils, who come from underprivileged families, are really lucky to benefit from occasions of interactions with guests from far away countries. No wonder why our girls keep waiting for the joyous reunion with our beloved friends from Sweden, Inger and Anders,who visit us every year and take keen interest especially in mingling with the girls appreciative of concerns about the plight of women vulnerable to negative gender discrimination.

Jayaji
Jayaji, who functions as a bridge between the visitors from abroad and his co-workers at Jagriti Vihara, keeps preparing the ground for international get-together. Ignoring his old age and financial hardships he keeps finding ways and means to travel long distances to contact people who could support JV to go ahead with implementing its plans for sustainable development in some of the most underdeveloped areas of our country.

The school for girls at Jagriti Vihara is the most significant  part of the project, Empowerment of Women, undertaken by us.

Health camp
We have recently, on 16th. January 2014, had success in organizing  a health camp in Dumaro. About 160 villagers were benefited by the free medical checkup and free distribution of medicines. Dr R.P. Chaudhary and Dr Dipesh Bhakta together with a supporting staff of the Health Centre at Jagriti Vihara participated in the camp.

The compound wall very necessary to prevent animals from forcing their entry into the vegetable garden is still incomplete and we, therefore, urgently need money to build it.

As usual we keep visiting the villages connected with us as the beneficiaries of our projects.

With warm greetings,
Lucy, Sushil and Rajesh
( The Information Group )

Newsletter from Jagriti Vihara May 2014

Dear friends,

Extremely hot
It is now extremely hot in this part of the country. In order to avoid
the scorching sun and heat wave people stay home or take shelter under shady trees for a few hours in the day. Now and then the media spread news about deaths caused by sunstroke and dehydration.

The wall – less than half remains
In spite of hard working conditions the construction of the wall
(fence) between the two gates has been completed. Only less than half
of the proposed wall remains to be built. We hope to get the required
support to complete the construction before the arrival of the planting season which begins in the middle of July. If the construction is delayed, we are afraid, the plants cannot be protected from being eaten up by animals, mostly goats, pushing through the old fence made of wood already eaten up and destroyed by termites.

Students from Ranchi studying adivasi nomads
Recently we had a number of students from the Central University in
Ranchi staying in the Guest Hostel of JV. Their purpose in staying
with us was to get our guidance in studying living conditions, beliefs and traditions of the nomadic people called Birhores. Our organization is known to have the experience of working among and with different communities of the adivasi people.

Grassroot Development among Adivasi Woman
Now a bit of information about our project Grassroot Development among
Adivasi Women... Jagriti Vihara has already had a Meeting to select a
group of persons to take the responsibility of monitoring the entire
implementation of the project. The group, usually called the Core Group, has been formed. This Group will now visit several villages to prepare a list of beneficiaries and finalize various activities and programmes.

Warm greetings,
Rajesh
for the Information Group of Jagriti Vihara

Newsletter from Jagriti Vihara August 2014

The autumn session of the girls' school started with a sad and silent meeting of the pupils and the staff assembled to pay homage in the memory of Mina Kumari of Class 8 and Babulal Bhagat, the father of Anjita Kumari of Class 8. Mina had died during her medical treatment in a hospital in Ranchi and Babulal had died of being bitten by a venomous snake. During this period of sorrow the presence  of Jayaji was a great source of consolation. Now the fatherless poor Anjita needs a lot of sympathy and care  to overcome the shock.

Now about our work. The present priorities of Jagriti Vihara are as follows:

(a) to continue working in 9 villages to strengthen grassroot democracy among adivasi women

(b) to continue running a secondary school for girls in the campus of Jagriti Vihara

(c) to continue running a health centre/hospital mainly for the rural poor

(d) to continue planting trees in the south-eastern part of Jharkhand

The work to repair the girls' hostel has been started. The girls have moved to the Guest Hostel for the time being.

Frequent hike in the prices of essential commodities has been disastrous for the vast majority of the people who survive below the poverty line. Poor farmers and older people, both women and men, keep coming to us  for help in the hour of need. Very often we find it extremely difficult to cope with the problems they share with us. Under the circumstances, dear friends, we expect you to stand by our side with a sense of solidarity. We assure you that we shall keep surviving and working to face the challenges of our time.

Warm greetings,
Rajesh
for the Information Group of Jagriti Vihara

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