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Marginalized farmers in Andhra Pradesh find support in the Timbaktu Collective
By Amy Lieberman, MediaGlobal Correspondent in India
This is Part II of two linked feature articles, focusing on the Timbaktu Collective, a grassroots organization working to empower and mobilize more than 30,000 marginalized people of southern Andhra Pradesh, India.
23 December 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The second most drought-affected region in India, Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh witnesses dozens of farmer suicides each year. Forests cover just 5 percent of the sweeping region, but the Timbaktu Collective is working to boost those rates, while granting more than 3,000 landless and marginal farmers support and connections to the marketplace.
While enabling these vulnerable farmers to move forward, Timbaktu looks to the past, uprooting, and reinforcing, ancient lifestyles.
“There is a lot of wisdom that has been generated here in the last 2,000 to 3,000 years and that can’t be discarded,” explained Bablu Ganguly, one of Timbaktu’s co-founders. “What works for the U.S. doesn’t necessarily have to work here, and maybe won’t. The essence of what we are trying to do is bring back the people’s confidence, which has been hidden.”
The impact of Timbaktu’s multifaceted work—which Ganguly would dub “enabling,” not “helping,” per se—is as apparent as myriad flora populating the organization’s targeted 10,000 acres in the nearby Kalpavalli Forest.
The rolling hills are now dotted with hearty trees, vibrant, waist-high crops and 327 species of plant life—but in 2006, only rocks and coarse dirt dwelt here.
It hasn’t rained in the Kalpavalli Forest in more than three months, according to Gopal Neerganti, coordinator of the forest rejuvenation efforts. Hundreds of revitalized water bodies and the deep trenches that approximately 140 villagers were digging on a recent December morning have helped mitigate the risks posed by long drought periods.
Without need to illustrate his point, Neerganti gestures to the forest areas in which Timbaktu works—green and fertile—and then to the sparse, brown land apparently divided by an invisible boundary.
“In 2006, there was nothing there,” he said of the Timbaktu project regions. “Look at it now.”
Aside from employing farmers and trench-diggers to aid in the land’s development, Timbaktu has also granted thousands of people a new form of livelihood, found in the date trees and the thick Bodha grass, which is used for basket weaving and roof thatching on houses.
It’s all part of Timbaktu’s holistic approach to community building and sustainable development, which ironically derived from Ganguly’s desire to create an isolated oasis in the region some 20 years ago.
In the late 1980s, Ganguly, his wife, Mary Vattamattam, and a friend purchased 32-acres two hours north of Bengaluru; they moved in with their three young children, and sought only to revitalize the broken land. They dubbed their home “Timbaktu,” inspired by the legend of European explorers unsuccessfully trying from the 12th to 17th centuries to locate the supposedly rich, bountiful capital of Mali.
Their isolation from the surrounding villages, however, didn’t last long, as the couple acknowledged that “sitting on an island didn’t make any sense,” said Ganguly, a towering, 50-something man with a salt-and-pepper beard.
“We had to respond to what was happening around us,” he explained. “These are our people so we started responding. All the work that you see here is an organic response to the areas—it is not a blueprint.”
Vattaman, for example, launched school in the early 1990s, after she became disenchanted by the corporal punishment common in her children’s classrooms. She scoured the streets and found 15 local children, who later became her children’s classmates.
Timbaktu now runs three schools, including one residential one for children coming from difficult backgrounds. Children appear to thrive in the creative atmospheres, devoted to creating a “joyful space,” Vattamattam said.
Ganguly, a native of Mumbia, and Vattamattam, of Kerala, treaded cautiously, though, careful not to impose foreign values on the communities, or assume the role of an outside organization, sweeping in, and then out, of an area.
“We don’t look at this as a job; we look at this as a living, the way we live,” Ganguly said. “We don’t come and leave. We engage. We will continue doing it until the people require it, and if they don’t, they will tell us to get out.”
That day doesn’t appear to be on the horizon anytime soon, though. Timbaktu serves as a focal point for 130-some-odd communities, which can turn to its center for legal guidance, employment opportunities, and education.
As the rural communities face challenges posed by the Indian government’s construction of windmills—whose power would not aid the Anantapur region—Timbaktu is standing behind them, helping them wage the battle for the land they have occupied for years, but don’t technically own.
It also is reinforcing their classic methods of boosting agriculture production, opting for organic farming practices and rejuvenation of traditional water-harvesting structures.
Timbaktu then helps sell some of the goods—like peanuts—produced by farmers in local marketplaces.
As Timbaktu runs its women-empowerment programs, through a self-generated federation, it also has established forest and farming organizations that are run by, and for, the people. As time progresses, Vattamattam notes, Timbaktu hopes to phase its influence out of the community, focusing more on its initiatives for children.
“We are trying to place the power back into the people’s hands,” Vattamattam said. “There is no reason why they cannot govern, and totally help, themselves.”
MediaGlobal: Marginalized farmers in Andhra Pradesh find support in the Timbaktu Collective
By Amy Lieberman, MediaGlobal Correspondent in India
This is Part II of two linked feature articles, focusing on the Timbaktu Collective, a grassroots organization working to empower and mobilize more than 30,000 marginalized people of southern Andhra Pradesh, India.
23 December 2009 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The second most drought-affected region in India, Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh witnesses dozens of farmer suicides each year. Forests cover just 5 percent of the sweeping region, but the Timbaktu Collective is working to boost those rates, while granting more than 3,000 landless and marginal farmers support and connections to the marketplace.
While enabling these vulnerable farmers to move forward, Timbaktu looks to the past, uprooting, and reinforcing, ancient lifestyles.
“There is a lot of wisdom that has been generated here in the last 2,000 to 3,000 years and that can’t be discarded,” explained Bablu Ganguly, one of Timbaktu’s co-founders. “What works for the U.S. doesn’t necessarily have to work here, and maybe won’t. The essence of what we are trying to do is bring back the people’s confidence, which has been hidden.”
The impact of Timbaktu’s multifaceted work—which Ganguly would dub “enabling,” not “helping,” per se—is as apparent as myriad flora populating the organization’s targeted 10,000 acres in the nearby Kalpavalli Forest.
The rolling hills are now dotted with hearty trees, vibrant, waist-high crops and 327 species of plant life—but in 2006, only rocks and coarse dirt dwelt here.
It hasn’t rained in the Kalpavalli Forest in more than three months, according to Gopal Neerganti, coordinator of the forest rejuvenation efforts. Hundreds of revitalized water bodies and the deep trenches that approximately 140 villagers were digging on a recent December morning have helped mitigate the risks posed by long drought periods.
Without need to illustrate his point, Neerganti gestures to the forest areas in which Timbaktu works—green and fertile—and then to the sparse, brown land apparently divided by an invisible boundary.
“In 2006, there was nothing there,” he said of the Timbaktu project regions. “Look at it now.”
Aside from employing farmers and trench-diggers to aid in the land’s development, Timbaktu has also granted thousands of people a new form of livelihood, found in the date trees and the thick Bodha grass, which is used for basket weaving and roof thatching on houses.
It’s all part of Timbaktu’s holistic approach to community building and sustainable development, which ironically derived from Ganguly’s desire to create an isolated oasis in the region some 20 years ago.
In the late 1980s, Ganguly, his wife, Mary Vattamattam, and a friend purchased 32-acres two hours north of Bengaluru; they moved in with their three young children, and sought only to revitalize the broken land. They dubbed their home “Timbaktu,” inspired by the legend of European explorers unsuccessfully trying from the 12th to 17th centuries to locate the supposedly rich, bountiful capital of Mali.
Their isolation from the surrounding villages, however, didn’t last long, as the couple acknowledged that “sitting on an island didn’t make any sense,” said Ganguly, a towering, 50-something man with a salt-and-pepper beard.
“We had to respond to what was happening around us,” he explained. “These are our people so we started responding. All the work that you see here is an organic response to the areas—it is not a blueprint.”
Vattaman, for example, launched school in the early 1990s, after she became disenchanted by the corporal punishment common in her children’s classrooms. She scoured the streets and found 15 local children, who later became her children’s classmates.
Timbaktu now runs three schools, including one residential one for children coming from difficult backgrounds. Children appear to thrive in the creative atmospheres, devoted to creating a “joyful space,” Vattamattam said.
Ganguly, a native of Mumbia, and Vattamattam, of Kerala, treaded cautiously, though, careful not to impose foreign values on the communities, or assume the role of an outside organization, sweeping in, and then out, of an area.
“We don’t look at this as a job; we look at this as a living, the way we live,” Ganguly said. “We don’t come and leave. We engage. We will continue doing it until the people require it, and if they don’t, they will tell us to get out.”
That day doesn’t appear to be on the horizon anytime soon, though. Timbaktu serves as a focal point for 130-some-odd communities, which can turn to its center for legal guidance, employment opportunities, and education.
As the rural communities face challenges posed by the Indian government’s construction of windmills—whose power would not aid the Anantapur region—Timbaktu is standing behind them, helping them wage the battle for the land they have occupied for years, but don’t technically own.
It also is reinforcing their classic methods of boosting agriculture production, opting for organic farming practices and rejuvenation of traditional water-harvesting structures.
Timbaktu then helps sell some of the goods—like peanuts—produced by farmers in local marketplaces.
As Timbaktu runs its women-empowerment programs, through a self-generated federation, it also has established forest and farming organizations that are run by, and for, the people. As time progresses, Vattamattam notes, Timbaktu hopes to phase its influence out of the community, focusing more on its initiatives for children.
“We are trying to place the power back into the people’s hands,” Vattamattam said. “There is no reason why they cannot govern, and totally help, themselves.”
MediaGlobal: Marginalized farmers in Andhra Pradesh find support in the Timbaktu Collective