Republic Day

26th of January, Republic Day in India. Something to look forward to especially since Children’s Day in November was so great. We gathered by the school in the morning and made everything ready for prayer and the speeches.

With some guidance from the teachers, Madhan from 10^th class lead the prayer with the help of the voices of the older girls who sang the songs with the children.

During the prayer, teachers and staff members joined us and it ended up being a busy occasion. Which is logical I suppose since Republic Day is – as I learned through the children’s speeches – the Day on which 61 years ago, the new Indian Government officially declared the independent Indian Constitution. The children’s speeches were a part of the speech contest and were nicely delivered with trembling voices. Madhan talked about how he wanted corruption in India to come to an end, which won him the prize of best speech for the higher classes. Jyothi’s speech was short but powerful and she deservedly won for the lower classes. The flag was raised by one of the staff members under the marching of Madhan who apparently practiced it for days. I was happy to see how important this function is for them and how they have an eye for every detail, from the songs, to the marching and the decorations. It felt like they honor the struggle that was fought for an independent India by making sure that everything is as perfect as possible. And it was obvious to see that as a school, as staff members, as Indians, it brought them together. I could not help but think that as a sometimes cynical European, I take these things for granted. It was a cultural eye opener.

After the ringing of the bell and dividing of the groups, we all ran towards the playing court and the games room to start a morning of running, skipping, hopping, ball throwing, water plashing and much more. Judging from the huge smiles on the children’s’ faces and the enthusiastic cries that came from all around, I am pretty sure everybody had a great time. I certainly know I did.

The teachers did their part in leading the games and making sure their group changed activities on time. And with all that excitement a fair amount of chaos is definitely there. But for those of us who love India and the chaos and energy that surrounds you where a lot of people come together, this experience are again one to savor. At the end everybody played water games together and I learned that teachers also argue about who gets the most candy.

Lunchtime came and after that we all went back to the school for an afternoon of drama, hosted by our all-round entertainer and volunteer Martin. All the school children played their part in creating a world full of jokes, magic tricks, falling donkeys, sweet nursery rhymes and songs. Even though some of the dramas were in Telugu, I laughed because of their dedication, their vivid expression, laughter and enjoyment. At the end, prizes were distributed to the winners of the drawing and speech contests, the sports games and the most fair play player of the day, which was little Sai Prasad from 1^st class.

As a conclusion, it was a day on which we all worked together to enjoy ourselves and each other and celebrate the victories of the past. The fact that I could experience this in an NGO that still is committed to the upliftment of the rural poor, and which reminds me daily, of the battles that still need to be fought and how much some individuals are willing to do for this cause. This made it all the more meaningful for me, and I felt very proud to be a part of it.

Anneleen vandenbossche

Belgium

SEDS in the news: A Unique ID Project

A miniature UID project in AP

By N Vasudevan Feb 01 2010 , Bangalore

While Nandan Nilekani is busy with the Unique ID project, a miniature replica has

been implemented successfully by Social Education and Development Society (SEDS), an NGO, in the drought-prone Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh.

Bangalore-based Wolf Frameworks has developed a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution — Census Information Management Solution (CIMS) for SEDS. Using this application, SEDS has profiled and generated unique identification numbers for more than 40,000 members in the district.

Manil Jayasena Joshua, CEO, SEDs said, “We rely on data, its relationships and analytics/reports heavily to serve the rural and under developed community effectively. CIMS gave us quick, anytime, anywhere, and secured access.”

SEDS conducts surveys regularly to track real-time population, resource, programme statistics, and a road map of how their programme is working and its resultant success/failure.

The NGO uses Wolf’s solution to collect, relate and consolidate data into a central repository and automates the process of data analysis, presenting reports and charts on different metrics. The application also imports the previous data records maintained in Microsoft Access Databases and spreadsheets.

Sunny Ghosh, director & CEO of Wolf Frameworks said, “CIMS solution demonstrates the ability of our framework to manage thousands of records online and the ease of use with which non-sophisticated users are now able to leverage Wolf cloud computing technologies – OnDemand.”

Ghosh said, “Looking at the scale in which the National UID project is planned, many technologies will be involved that will work together. If there is going to be a strong collaboration perspective, we are open to share our system and technology.”

Source: http://www.mydigitalfc.com/opportunities/miniature-uid-project-ap-002

Food Security Program

In order to enhance food security for its rural communities SEDS is helping small remote villages in setting up their own provision shops. All villages in these rural parts of India have their little shops where you can buy bidis, biscuits, sweets and sometimes bananas but small settlements often lack a decent provision shop. Village organisations have now started setting up their own shops in an effort to alleviate this problem.

Take the village of K. Maruvapalli. The closest town where people can go to purchase food and household articles is Hindupur. It will easily take the women half a day to do their shopping. Now the Village Organisation has taken up the project of starting its own provision shop. There you can get all the things you need like soap, spices, dhal, detergents, salt, sugar, vegetables, etc... .

This way the women save time and money. Money saved for transport and also for purchasing the goods because the shop buys in wholesale so the prices are actually lower than in Hindupur. Next to this the store also has a credit service of fifthteen days for its customers.

What is SEDS role in all this? Well the management of the shop is done by the Village Organisation. SEDS’ function is mainly to facilitate these women, we give ideas, teach them about bookkeeping and tell them how to plan ahead for purchases. Basically we put structures in place and hope that by doing this the women will be able to run the shop by themselves in the future. Three shops have already been opened.

Low Carbon Farming

In this world where multiple conferences and meetings on reducing carbon dioxide emissions are producing nothing more than hot air (no pun intended), SEDS is looking at new and innovative ways to actually cut down on the output of GHG (Green House gases).
On the 21st and 22nd Zach Willley and Richie Ahuja from EDF (Environmental Defense Fund) from the USA, visited SEDS. They were here to see if SEDS could create a program for Low Carbon Farming (LCF). LCF encompasses different techniques that farmers can implement for reducing their carbon footprint. A possibility that a reduced carbon footprint can be sold off, it is now a matter of putting these carbons on today’s markets. So with the vast expertise of Zach we hope to develop a verifiable method of measuring the GHG offset of farmers in our communities.
What is important to know is that there are universal structures that can easily reduce the carbon footprint of farmers but the methodologies will differ from place to place. Zach who has traveled all around the world (USA, China, Vietnam, India) for initiating these projects and who has an extensive scientific background to handle these things visited SEDS to look at our future possibilities.
During their two day stay, accompanied by Sandeep Loya of the Fair Climate Network, they went through various meetings and on field visits with management, staff and farmers in order to come up with a picture on how agriculture is managed in this part of India.

In the fields

They wanted to learn about the crops which are planted, the different practices farmers use, the soils that are there and how SEDS implements its sustainable agriculture program. Based on this information they hope to come up with a way to make a baseline study of our carbon offset. From there on they can come up with suggestions and techniques on how to reduce this offset. Off course they do not wish that these proposed procedures will harm the farmers in their livelihoods so they need a good idea of what is going on the field.

After their two day visit it was clear that some things can be changed. For example how farmyard manure is stored away and put on the fields. The pits that contain the farmyard manure are open and so release a lot of methane (an even more active GHG than CO2). And when put on the fields the manure usually stays piled up on the surface for a few days, again releasing its methane. So covering up these manure pits and immediately ploughing the fields when the manure is applied could reduce their GHG offset.
They were also impressed on how the sustainable agriculture program already takes up many aspects of LCF, such as low water usage in the Pilot and Demonstrating Activities (PDA) or using biomass as fertilizers instead of chemical fertilizers. In the end a lot of research and calculations still need to be done to grasp the whole picture of the GHG offset but it looks like we are going the right way.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

To herald in the New Year, SEDS invited the young and elderly for a total make over. On Sunday the third of January they anxiously gathered at the gates of the SEDS farm.

The old men first received a shave and a haircut, the women a mani- and pedicure. After that they got a nice warm bath.

At the same time the sponsored children came streaming in at the front. Each one got their height and weight checked before they were allowed to move on. The games room of the school was transformed into a cinema which played Telugu cartoons.
Outside on the field and in the school there were different activities planned for them. We had art classes, dodge ball and off course cricket.

While they were enjoying the activities the distribution of clothes took place, this year the guests were of Lynn, Ian and Amanda, visitors from Partners in Aid (PIA) Australia.

The elderly also received new outfits, a sari and blouse for the women and a shirt and lungi for the men.
In the meanwhile there was a lot of activity going on in the mess to prepare lunch for the 500+ people. There was chicken, egg curry, curd and a spicy dahl and rassam with rice on the menu.

Everyone enjoyed the food and after the lunch they all got a bag of sweets.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=penukonda&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Penukonda,+Anantapur,+Andhra+Pradesh,+India&ll=14.024446,77.478976&spn=0.004851,0.006791&t=h&z=17

CDM field visit with ADATS.

On 01/12/09 P.S. Prasad, Vishal Ananda and Filip Tetaert went for a field visit to get a thorough understanding on how the biogas units need to be installed and what possible problems SEDS might face. In total, we visited three villages under the guidance of C.Babu form ADATS.

The first village which was Konduuvlahali We saw some units that already have been operating for three and a half years. In an interview with the beneficiaries we found out that they were very happy with the installations as it has saved them lots of time from going out and sourcing for firewood.
The first family acknowledged that they still were using firewood. The biogas unit was able to provide in the cooking of the meals but it was not sufficient enough to boil water for washing. The reason for this is that they only have one cow and were not able to get a higher output out of their unit. Each unit requires at least 10kg’s of dung for per day. During the demonstration we saw that the dung needs to be mixed up with water until you get a good liquid mixture. Also other types of (bio) fuel such as rotten vegetables and fruit were used.

The second house we visited had five cows, as a result of this they were able to feed their digester in the morning and the evening and meet all their requirements with biogas. After this we met with two families whose digesters were located at a distance of 100 to 200 meters away from the house which is because of the limited space in and round their compound. This showed us that this does not effect the pressure of the gas that needs to travel trough a heavy duty rubber hose straight into their kitchen.

During the mandatory tea, we had a chat with the owners. Interesting to note was the heightened sense of status that the owners of the biogas units had. In the past only rich members of the community were able to purchase and use LPG gas tanks. Now these poorer people are able to use gas and their status has risen in the village. Also the biogas was seen as a much better alternative to firewood then the LPG Tanks. One does not have to go to the city for refilling and the danger of explosion is not there.

In the second village, Korepalli and the third, Choutakuntahalli, we saw the excavated pits where the biogas units would be installed.
The duration for digging a pit varied from three to five days according to the people who were able to work on it and the type of soil. It was noted that families who signed up for the program were helping each other in the digging work. These pits measure are about 6 feet wide and about 5 feet deep in a round shape.

In the end we sat down with C.Babu and reminisced about the day. He pointed out to us that the biggest problem in the beginning will be the placement of the unit. People will discuss about which ground is theirs so a proper marking should be done and all parties considered should get a voice in this so that future discussions can be held to a minimum.

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