Jaher Fishery -- Ananth Letter from Jahermuni June 2003 Dear All, I just received a letter from Ms. Jahermuni dated 20/6/03. The letter reached me here in Bangalore on the 21/7/03, i.e. a month after it was sent out. She has made a few important points in this letter to us. It seems that both financially and otherwise, the Jaher Samiti has come under some serious problems and that she is counting on us both morally and financially. Of course, we are already committed to them in both ways, as she also acknowledges. To fulfill, she agrees that they need to work on the one-time FCRA. Regarding the FCRA, they have gotten all of their accounts audited now and they have applied for the FCRA. It has cost them Rs. 15,000 so far for the auditing and the application. They expect a little bit more expenses in this line. **She specifically mentions that none of the Asha’s money has been spent on this effort.** Regarding the check that we had sent to the Brothers in March from Asha-MIT, they still have not been able to get that money. The reason being that the check was only sent out to encashment by the Brother in late April and it was cashed by end of May. In June, the treasurer of the Brothers went on vacation and is ‘expected to be back any day now.’ Thus, they only hoped to get the money in July. I hope they have gotten it by now. The summer has been very bad in Jharkand. The lack of water, which I myself experienced in the winter, has affected them very badly in the summer. As mentioned in Vallabh’s site visit report and in my emails, the borewells that have been dug have not produced any water due to the fact that the diggers did not listen to the Samiti. So, to alleviate some of the problems, Ms. Jahermuni borrowed money, based on the money that we had sent for it, and undertook another bore on the 15th of June. They hit some water. Although it is little, it is still better than nothing. She thanks all of Asha for this gift of water to their village. As I noted earlier, there was an effort to get Mr. Phillip Tudu to become the headmaster and take over the fisheries project. Ms. Jahermuni also had hoped that he can help them with the FCRA process. However, it turns out that Mr. Tudu had very little experience in the developmental field; he just had experience as a teacher and is good in English. It turned out that Ms. Jahermuni had to teach him everything, and so she ended up doing more than if she just did it herself. So, after 3 months, they had let him ago and they are all back to square one (!) regarding additional human resources for the fisheries project. The Samiti has also resigned from the HCDI project as “it was getting more and more complicated working on this project.” As I had noted in my emails on this matter before, it seems that differences existed on the treatment of tribals in the project. Thus, now Ms. Jahermuni and the Samiti have more time to spend on the fisheries and on the school. She is happy about this decision despite the financial difficulties they will face now. The rains, it seems, have arrived in Jharkand now, albeit a little late. The rains seem to be promising and the Santhals are all excited to work in their lands. The Samiti has planted a quite bit of mango trees in the area and hope the fruits they will eventually bear will also provide them with some income. For the school, they have planted 10 trees and hopefully in 3 years, with good rainfall, they can get about Rs. 10,000 per year from the fruit sales. She said she will keep in touch with me over the progress of the FCRA. Thus, a few things we need to note here include: 1) We need to continue to keep the money in the general funds for this fishery project. I understand that there is an urgency to disburse the amounts, but we need to keep in mind the barriers for doing so quickly in these remote areas. Let us be patient with them. 2) We must realize that even when we think that the money can be disbursed immediately, it takes a quite a bit of time before the money gets in their hands, due to some unexpected reasons. Case in point, our recent Asha-MIT check. 3) The Samiti is continuously innovating trying to come up with ways to become self-sufficient. The fisheries and the planting of mango trees are good examples of their effort. We must continue to support them in their endeavors. 4) Considering the water situation, we need to start pushing on the side of the government as well. Perhaps writing letters to local gov’t officials and to the state gov’t might help bring some pressure from the top. I have realized that it is not just enough to work with the localities, but our influence on the top echelons can be significant to bring about some changes. I will ask Ms. Jahermuni to get us the names and addresses of local gov’t there and see how we can help. Regards, Ananth Asha-MIT