Its so serene to view the dark clouds outside pouring rain drops. Perhaps some of us must be enjoying this with old melodies "Rimjhim gire sawan..." with a cup of tea.
But then comes a thought about a fellow member of Marshal Cooperative in Mayurbhanj, for whom entry of Monsoon must be filled with two opposing thoughts. One hand he must be happy that sowing on fields will start and at other end, there must be worry of keeping his produce preserved in the hut with rain water seeping from the thatched roof. Yes this dichotomy in thoughts is true for any rural poor.
But there is a difference in the current context, there are 500 families who happen to be member of the cooperative experiment in Mayurbhanj. These families don't seek your help for repairing their thatched roof. They neither want space in your house for the rainy season. They have a bigger dream. They want to reach to a level where they can repair their house from their own earnings. They want to ensure that their children have a better life. They no longer want to be sympathetically addressed as 'poor' and that is the reason they have come together as a collective which we see as "Marshal Cooperative".
While this is true, like a child envisaging its first walk, it needs to be supported in the endeavor of doing business together for gaining the real share from the value chain. They need to be facilitated in adding more families as members of the cooperative for reaching "threshold volumes" so that they can cost-effectively sell their produce and earn what their efforts mean to them. They need to be facilitated in setting up the production unit so that they can earn more by value addition to their produce. One hand they have agreed to put in their limited resources for 'working capital' of the collective business, but on other hand they find their resources limited for supporting salary of two field staff's who are doing social mobilization in other villages. One of them has agreed to give 2 acre of land for the production unit but they don;t have sufficient resources to actually set the machines.
Will you help them? http://www.coit.in/cexperiment.html
But then comes a thought about a fellow member of Marshal Cooperative in Mayurbhanj, for whom entry of Monsoon must be filled with two opposing thoughts. One hand he must be happy that sowing on fields will start and at other end, there must be worry of keeping his produce preserved in the hut with rain water seeping from the thatched roof. Yes this dichotomy in thoughts is true for any rural poor.
But there is a difference in the current context, there are 500 families who happen to be member of the cooperative experiment in Mayurbhanj. These families don't seek your help for repairing their thatched roof. They neither want space in your house for the rainy season. They have a bigger dream. They want to reach to a level where they can repair their house from their own earnings. They want to ensure that their children have a better life. They no longer want to be sympathetically addressed as 'poor' and that is the reason they have come together as a collective which we see as "Marshal Cooperative".
While this is true, like a child envisaging its first walk, it needs to be supported in the endeavor of doing business together for gaining the real share from the value chain. They need to be facilitated in adding more families as members of the cooperative for reaching "threshold volumes" so that they can cost-effectively sell their produce and earn what their efforts mean to them. They need to be facilitated in setting up the production unit so that they can earn more by value addition to their produce. One hand they have agreed to put in their limited resources for 'working capital' of the collective business, but on other hand they find their resources limited for supporting salary of two field staff's who are doing social mobilization in other villages. One of them has agreed to give 2 acre of land for the production unit but they don;t have sufficient resources to actually set the machines.
Will you help them? http://www.coit.in/cexperiment.html
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