UUA President Visits Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program Partners in India
February 15, 2002
Earthquake: A Year of Hope
by Rev. Olivia Holmes
(Boston, MA) One year after an earthquake destroyed thousands of lives, livelihoods and homes in the Indian state of Gujarat, President Bill Sinkford visited the village of Kuda today. It is one of many villages in the earthquake helped by Unitarian Universalist Holdeen India Program (UUHIP) partners and by Unitarian Universalists across North America. Over $200,000 in donations from Unitarian Universalists (UUs) helped our partners make the work of rebuilding real for these devastated villagers.
In Kuda, for example, the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) has been working for over 15 years to help both the women of the village and the whole village to reach a level of self-sustainability they can trust. They are extremely poor people who are often taken advantage of in times of family or village crisis.
Most of the adults in the village work as salt farmers in desert farms many kilometers walk from the village. They harvest salt from the briney water with bare feet and bare hands. No protective equipment is supplied by their employers. As a result, severe blistering is a common health hazard. Tuberculosis is another problem directly related to salt farming. Women with babies too young for school have historically had no choice but to take their children to the salt farms with them, extending the health risks they endure to their children.
SEWA has been helping these women create less hazardous alternative livelihoods for years. SEWA workers teach women skills they need to do other work, such as motorized rickshaw driving, tailoring or crafts. SEWA also teaches the women how to save, and how to use credit to start their own small businesses.
SEWA has also set up child care facilities in the villages so that babies and toddlers can remain in a safe, supervised and stimulating environment while the women must work.
Health and homeowner insurance programs were the next problems SEWA addressed. There is a direct correlation here between poverty and poor health. In addition, Gujarat is a known high risk state for both earthquakes and cyclones.
So when the earthquake devastated the region last year, it was to SEWA that the villagers first turned. SEWA field workers were in the villages on the day of the earthquake to survey the damage, to coordinate emergency relief efforts, and to stand witness to the grief and anguish of the stricken villagers.
SEWA workers worked around the clock for weeks to ensure each family had the supplies they needed to survive. They also began to convene village meetings to decide, with the villagers, how best to help rebuild.
Within months villagers and SEWA workers in Kuda and the surrounding villages had a plan to build 2000 new one-room houses within the first year. Each house would be reinforced for earthquake and cyclone protection. Each would have its own rain water storage tank built underground to help reduce the high cost of water in this drought-prone area.
A year ago Kathy Sreedhar, Director of the UU Holdeen India Program, and SEWA workers led a Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) delegation through the village of Malvan. UU World magazine published an article about the earthquake and the extraordinary work of our partners in the villages. In that article there was a picture of Hiruben and her husband, Kinjibai, standing disconsolate in the ruins of what had been their home.
Yesterday a village funeral kept Sinkford and the delegation from visiting Hiruben and her husband at their brand new home in Malvan. So they walked the 15 kilometers between Malvan and Kuda to tell President Sinkford how SEWA's steadfast support had turned their lives from despair to rejoicing. Because of SEWA's commitment they were not forced to move away from their village to build a new life. Rather, SEWA helped them build a new house where their old house had been, so they could stay on the little plot of land they knew as home.
Hiruben and Kinjibai proudly stood for pictures with Sinkford on the front porch of a new house SEWA had helped to build in Kuda identical to their own new one in Malvan.
Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
