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Local News
Here we provide news bites from the villages we are working in and updates on individual stories that have captured our attention.
Erratic rainfall during the monsoonal season of 2009 has left the state of
Jharkhand facing a severe drought. At Rural Innovations Company, we have a vision of social development and
growth of the rural regions of the world through business initiatives. Keeping
in line with our vision, we have come up with a business initiative that will
provide both a quick short-term solution and a long term solution to prevent
such natural occurrences from turning into tragedies. To read more about the
solution, click here.
It was initially a shocker to hear that almost 40% of a village had single
mothers who could not find a job because no one would hire them. In this little
village in India, divorce is looked down upon and so these women are literally
shunned from public life. Once we heard about this, we quickly came up with an
innovative solution that would provide employment for these women and help them
overcome the shame and stigma that has been their constant companion for so
long. You can see pictures of their work space and their crafts
here.
We are proud to announce that we finally have the bamboo division up and
running. The Mohalis are a tribal group of people who are traditionally bamboo
weavers by profession. We have been working with them for quite some time now
but we did not have them work directly for us yet. Today, our Bamboo division
now has three Mohali craftsmen working full time.
We were introduced to a group of women who were trained in knitting and embroidery by an NGO called Prerana Bharati but were unable to find jobs that suited their new skills. These women are now employed by Rural Handicrafts Company to work in our Jute bags division. They work from their homes because this gives them the flexibility to take care of their families as well. They bring their finished products to our workshop once a week.
Did you know that the FarmAid store is being built with mere mud, just like the other houses in the village?
Yes, that's right. In spite of much convincing by the villagers and the builders,
we decided to build our store with the
same materials that the rest of the village has been built with. Our reasoning, if
the rest of the houses in the village have weathered the elements for more
than 30 years, then their kind of house is good enough for us too.
And by the way, these houses are 100% eco-friendly!
Just heard from a farmer who lives in the tribal village called Ruthvadi.
According to him, we should stock up our FarmAid store with corn seeds this
sowing season (May-June 2009) as none of the farmers in his village have any seeds saved up from
last year.
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