BCoB Project support changed their lives forever...

 

 

 

Gurumada is small village situated in Meegahakiula. This area is warm and dry with limited access to clean water, but Shamali (46), Wijeratne (51) and Wathsala (16) call it home. Since the village is in one of the poorest regions in Sri Lanka, this family was facing many difficulties with their livelihood. As the father is the bread winner in the family, he used to go to the farmers market a few days a week and earn a living for his family.

"We found out Wathsala was a slow learner when she was in preschool" says Shamali. As a caring mother, she worried constantly about Wathsala as she was bullied in school. "She went to school only until grade 7, since she did not realize that she is a teenager, she smiled with anyone and that led to complications with certain boys getting the wrong message". Shamali stayed at home to take care of Wathsala.

It was a very difficult situation for their family as only one person in the family was having an income, and even that was not a steady income. Shamali said that they were in desperate need for a better livelihood.

Shamali then said with a smile, “The BCoB project (Bridging the Community on Board)  provided us with the financial aid, which we used to build the shop". BCoB is a jointly implemented project by Janathakshan and World Vision Lanka. With the aim of building resilience in civil society organizations the project also helps some families to strengthen their livelihoods. Shamali and family were able to reach the project staff  through the Samaja sewa ayathanaya, which is a civil society organisation. It has been around one year since they have built their shop. Now the husband does not need to travel far on a daily basis to earn a living.

Shamali and Wijeratne manage the shop together. "Our customers mainly come to our shop for a cup of tea; it is the only shop in the village that serves tea", says Shamali. They have expanded their shop to make space for a table and a few chairs for customers that come for tea and short eats.
They have been quite successful with maintaining the shop. They use their day to day income to bring commodities needed for the shop. They also involve Wathsala for the day to day chores at the shop.

"I help my mother to cook", says Wathsala with a joyful smile. Shamali hopes that one day Wathsala will be able to care of herself. "Wathsala likes to cook, when I'm cooking she comes and helps me by cutting tomatoes and onions", says Shamali. Specialists have informed Shamali that Wathsala's condition will improve with her age. Shamali mentioned that "Wathsala's condition has improved a lot in comparison to previous years".

 

They are optimistic about the future and believe that they can maintain the shop for years to come. "Our future plans for the shop is to get electricity and a fridge so that we can provide some cool drinks to our customers", said Shamali. She also mentioned that improving the shop provides a great deal of hope for the future of Wathsala and that they are hoping to save some money and open a bank account for her to use in the future.

By - Avishka Sendanayake

A great leap forward, one step at a time......

An awareness programme on basic weather & climate information, collection of relevant data and weather forecasting was conducted today, 21^st September at Kurunegala agro-meteorological station for a group of farmers of “Shakthi” farmer organization in Kumbukwewa GN division of Kotawehera divisional secretary division in Badulla district. This is the first of the series of awareness programmes for selected farmer groups representing 06 districts of Sri Lanka namely Hambantota, Badulla, Rathnapura, Anuradhapura, Kurunegala and Batticaloa.

Farmers listening to the introductory presentations

Onsite demonstration on reading weather data

Equipments available at  Kurunegala Agro-meteorological station

Issuing of a rain gauge to the farmer organization to establish a community managed rain fall station and inducting the farmers on collecting rainfall data also took place as a part of the awareness programme. The plan is to establish another 05 community managed rain fall stations in the other 05 project locations as well.   

President of the Shakthi farmer organisation receives the rain gauge issued by the DOM

Demonstration - measuring of rainfall

The programme has been organized under the research project “Bridging the Climate Information and Communication Gaps for Effective Adaptation Decisions: An Integrated Climate Information Management System (ICIMS) jointly implemented by the Department of Meteorology (DOM), Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Janathakshan Gte Ltd and South Asian Network of Development and Environmental Economics. The key objective of the project is to reduce the vulnerability of farmers to climate risks and increase their adaptive capacity to face them. This is to be achieved through enhancing the rational use of climate information products in order to improve the effectiveness of adaptation decisions taken by farmers and policymakers/experts in their respective decision-making spheres. (Please click the here for more information about the project)

The training programme was quite successful with the active participation of the farmers and their response and feedback was impressive. Stating the importance of the research project they certified their contribution and active participation throughout the project. The participation of the farmers was awarded with a certificate at the end of the programme.

Farmer group with the officers of DOM, IPS and Janathakshan

This awareness programme is a one important step towards achieving the project objective and various other activities are being implemented and tested in the ground to serve the purpose. The efforts will be continued through a participatory, inclusive and innovative approach.