The People Associated with the Natpurwa Project and Their Work

The People associated with the Natpurwa Project and their work

Srinivas, Rohitas, Durgesh, Shailesh, Rambabu, Hans Raj, Ram Sagar, Neelkamal

Srinivas and Rohitas run a school in Sukkukeda village. Their school has classes for grade 1 through grade 5. Everyday 75 students come to study at their school. This school has been operational for about two years. The girls and the boys come regularly to school. This year, with the help of the local adminisration, the children are being provided with meals/food(shesh?). All these children who come to study hail from poor and needy families.

Hans Raj runs a night school in Natpurva. About 35-40 big girls come to school in this school. The night school is runs from 5PM to 9PM.

Shailesh and Durgesh were able to get a government primary school constructed in Natpurwa. They collaborated/discussed with the other Asha volunteers in the village and were also helped by Chandralekhaji. The villagers did not want a school on the site because that site was being (forcefully) occupied (kabza) by a oppressive (dabang) person. The school built. Currently in Natpurwa, there is only one Shiksha Mitr appointed by the government department. For this reason, Shailesh and Durgesh go to teach in the government school. Shailesh has been teaching for free since January 7. Currently, he is currently not any aid/help (financial?) a for this services. Previously, the school timings were from 7AM to 12AM. Now the school timings are from 10AM to 4PM. There are 200 children in this school.

Asha Library: A library is being run to benefit the children and adults for Natpurwa. The children checkout books according to their interests and return them after reading them.

(The location of the library is not mentioned in the report)

Chandralekha ji:

Chandralekha ji works on the main issues related to the women in the village. She also plays an important role in resolving problems of women in the region, for example resolving domestic disputes or if a woman is being harasassed, she reports the matter to the police. On 31st August, in Natpurwa she ( and the other workers) organized/led a rally of all the women to the Zilla main office(Mukhyalaya) to protest against the brokers who induce and trick the women into prostitution. As a result, the police were under a lot of pressure to act, they raided the brokers who were organizing the prostitution in Sandila and also in the village(Natpurwa). Currently, in Sandila, the (red) light district that was being operated by the brokers is now closed. The police is also continuously searching for the brokers who send the girls to Mumbai and Dubai on forged passports. Currently, the brokers of Sandila who buy and sell girls are very upset with the workers of Natpurwa and are constantly threatening to kill Chandralekha, Neelkamal and Guddu.

Rambabu: is currently working on issues related PDS and NREGA . Presently, the operations in this area are quite ok. He plays an important role related to NREGA. He is also a member of people’s well being group ( Kushal Janata Janch). He also plays an important role for the Chitrakoot people. [Not very clear here]

NeelKamal and Guddu make the whole Hardoyi janpadh team aware of (Ramababu’s?) his work, work on other problems in the area especially focussing on the issues facing Natpurwa, and also work on PDS and NREGA issues, problems involving harassment of Dalits, preparing for all the women rallies and demonstrations, forming groups, ensuring that the education systems is working well.

Something important events and their results:

May 18, 2007: Gram panchayat Sikarohiha : The villagers organized a Dharna (sit-in protest) with empty oil containers in front of the PDS shop in Gram panchayat Sikarohiha. When this amazing incident came to notice of the SDM, he/she came directly to the village and fixed the problem with PDS. Now people are getting their monthly rations and oil.

28.6.07 : Sandila Tehsil: Organized a protest against the PDS. It was noted that the gram panchayat Lalamavu’s Kotedar had not distributed any rations or oil for the last 4 months. Upon hearing this the SDM, got the rations for last four months released for the people of Lalamavu and suspended the Kotedar.

13.7.07 : On the occasion of Tehsil Day(Diwas), gram panchayat Bahadur Vikas Khand, stopped the vehicle of the DM to report the problems of the people of Kothawa. As result, the Kotedar was suspended and the people started getting the rations and oil regularly.

23.7.07: We held a big demonstration rally at the Zilla Main office(Mukyalaya) against the pitiful state of the PDS in the janpadh. We demanded that the PDS system be fixed, they take immediate action based on findings on the NREGA report by ASHA pariwar and ensure that the laborers get paid the government prescribed wages of Rs 100. Even though the government has announced that the mininum wage should be Rs 100 for the laborers, this is not happening.

27.7.07: After the demonstration, our demand was accepted that hundreds of laborers who were working on government projects were not being paid their full wages. Now instead of Rs 58 they are being paid Rs 100.

13.8.07 Hardoi janpadh: We took out a march wearing black mouth/face bands to protest against the barely functioning/passive police department. Recently, there had been several thefts and robberies in the area. The affected people asked us for help. We reported the matter to the police but they did not take any action. This prompted us to organize the silent protest march with black bands against police inaction. As a result the police got active and searched and found the robber and sent him to jail. They also took action in several other issues.

20.8.07: On the occasion of Tehsil Diwas(day), in Lalapur village where the Asha Ashram is located, we organized a dharana to protest because the primary school does not have a principal and the quality of building construction is not good.

24.8.07: We gheraoed ( surrounded) the BDO and presented him a public investigative report about the ineligible people who were issued ration cards. On the basis on this report all the ration cards given to the ineligible people were cancelled and several new cards for eligible people were issued. The report that was submitted was written in great detail.

There are several other things we are working on but we not able to describe more at this time. In addition, Guddu also works in Sithapur village and Neelkamal and Unnav also work in villages near Lucknow.

All of us would like to apologize for the mistake in the budget due to which Rambabu and ChandraLekha ji received Rs 4000 instead of Rs 4500. It would be gracious of you, if you can, please increase their monthly allowance from Rs 4000 to Rs 5000 and also decrease the monthly allowance of Neelkamal and Guddu from Rs 8000 to Rs 7500, We sincerely regret this mistake and will ensure that this does not happen again in

future.

Yours

Chandalekha, Srinvas, Rambabu, Durgesh, Shailesh, Hansraj, Rohitas, Gujju and Neelkamal.