Weaving better alternatives for women displaced by climate change

By Teresa Rehman

KOKRAJHAR, India (AlertNet) - Swdwmsri Narzary, 19, a nimble weaver, rests her fingers on her loom and gets a faraway look when asked to recall her last few years of struggle dealing with the pressures of climate change.

Orphaned at an early age, Swdwmsri lived with her elder brother and his family in Bijni, a rural village in Assam province's Chirang district. But increasingly unpredictable weather conditions - drought one year, incessant and untimely rains the next - made life gradually harder as the family's crops repeatedly failed. With the family on the verge of starvation, Swdwmsri had to drop out of school. Her brother decided not to waste money sowing new crops and instead used his remaining cash to migrate to a nearby city, Guwahati, in search of a job.

Swdwmsri realized she had to find her own means of livelihood. But she had few options. It was then she met a lady from her village who promised her a good job in Guwahati.

THE PERILS OF URBAN WORK

Both nervous and excited, she took up work as a poorly paid maid in several households. She also worked as a baby-sitter in one home - until she was molested by the landlord and forced to flee to a friend's home. Even the busy city traffic made her anxious, and once she was nearly run down by a speeding bus. Dismayed by what she saw as a harsh life in the city, Swdwmsri longed to go back to her native village and her favourite activity - weaving the traditional patterns and motifs of her tribe, the Bodos. But like many women displaced by climate change, she found she had few resources or options to improve her situation.

Then one day, as she was waiting to catch a bus, she met an old acquaintance. Bimala, another migrant from Bijni, said she had been able to return home and find work with the Roje Eshansholi (Beloved Weaving) Cooperative Society, a weavers' collective based in Kokrajhar. The cooperative, set up by schoolteacher Malati Rani Narzary, seeks to create alternative work and dignity at home for impoverished Bodo tribal women vulnerable to climate change-related displacement, ethnic conflict, and human trafficking. "I realized that Bodo women ... were some of the finest weavers in the region," Narzary said. "I decided to hone their weaving skills to suit the demands of the national as well as the international market." After initial training, weavers and spinners in the program are separated into self-help groups that work in their native villages.

SPINNING A NEW LIFE IN MUGA SILK

From a modest beginning of only five members and four looms in 1996, the society now has over 1,000 women beneficiaries in Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Chirang district, some in very remote areas. More than 500 spinners and 50 weavers work in muga silk, the traditional golden silk of Assam. Young girls like Swdwmsri and Bimala are allowed to stay at a women's residence at the project's headquarters, where they feel at home and secure. "We send part of our earnings to our families. But we would rather stay here and do what we enjoy most - weaving," Bimala said.

Fashion designers now visit the weavers to help them create new products that will sell well. Swdwmsri remembers how a lady from the National Institute of Design in the Indian city of Ahmedabad came to relate that their traditional handloom material has been turned into scarves, cushion covers, curtains, table mats and other goods. "I have never used a table mat in my life. But I am happy that my handmade products adorn the homes of the rich and the famous and even plush hotels in big cities," Bimala said.

Narzary's aim of giving Bodo weavers a larger platform for their efforts has taken shape in the form of the Bodoland Regional Apex Weavers and Cooperative Federation, an umbrella organization for all the weavers in the area. The organization has helped weavers showcase their products in trade and textile fairs and fashion shows.

"I feel proud that apart from preserving our age-old weaving tradition, we are also able to hold back our young and vulnerable girls from working as domestic help in big cities. Moreover, they cannot be lured by the unscrupulous middleman and end up in brothels," said Narzary, who is chairperson of the federation.

Teresa Rehman is a journalist based in Northeast India. She can be reached at www.teresarehman.net

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http://lite.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60167/2010/05/7-154006-1.htm

By Teresa Rehman
GUWAHATI, India - Climate activists in India have discovered a crucial tool in their battle to hold the government accountable on its climate policies: the country's landmark Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Passed in 2005, the act requires all government bodies to respond to citizen requests for information within 30 days. Many bodies, threatened with legal action after initially failing to respond, are now delivering information that shows big gaps in the country's knowledge and planning on climate issues, activists say.

"RTI is an excellent tool for a citizen and India has one of the most powerful freedom of information acts in the world," said Manu Sharma, a climate activist who filed 124 of the requests last year and is now getting answers.

Sharma in 2008 launched Climate Revolution, a non-profit organization that aims "to see India adopt reduction in greenhouse gas concentration as the overriding central goal from which all internal development and growth policies...originate."

ACCESSING INFORMATION
But getting basic information on government initiatives on climate change proved a struggle. That led Sharma to the Right to Information Act, which he used last October and November to file requests with a variety of government agencies, particularly the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the prime minister's office, the Ministry of Power, and the Planning Commission.
Under the act, all government ministries, departments and institutions are required to store information in a manner that makes it easily accessible. Any citizen of India can seek any information available from a public authority with few exemptions. Even in the case of an exemption, the authority must provide the information if its disclosure is in the greater public interest.

On receipt of an application, the public authority must reply within 30 days or transfer the application to another concerned authority within five days if the request does not concern its own department. If it fails to reply within the stipulated period or its answer is unsatisfactory, an appeal can be filed through an internal appeals body at that agency.

If that fails, a second appeal can be filed with a provincial Chief Information Commissioner (CIC). The office of the CIC has powers equivalent to a civil court, and can summon witnesses, order an enquiry, punish the offending officers and award compensation.

Since being passed, the act has been used by citizens as well as activists throughout the country to get information on a wide range of issues, from scarcity of medicines in a government hospital to misuse of government vehicles.

Sharma's requests covered a wide range of subjects, including climate policy, emissions levels, energy efficiency, spending on nuclear power and renewable energy, dissemination of scientific knowledge about climate change within the government and public awareness about climate issues.

EXCELLENT REPLY RATE A SURPRISE
He was happily surprised at the reply rate. While many agencies responded to his requests only after he filed a first appeal, he eventually received responses to about 95 percent of his filings, he said.

The bulk of the replies were received within about two to three months of filing applications and following them up with appeals, he said.

The contents of the replies was another matter. The first instinct of most government departments is to try and evade a detailed reply, especially if the application poses an embarrassing question, Sharma said. The prime minister's office forwarded most of the applications it received to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, even though the prime minister himself chairs the national council on climate change and has a major role in shaping climate policy, the activist said.

Other times, his questions were answered, even though the answers could be seen as embarrassing for the government.

The responses "reveal a government ignorant of the state of climate science, ill-prepared to face resource depletion, unwilling to act as science demands, unconcerned about public safety, unable to determine the right developmental priorities, and ill-prepared to defend its own claims," he charged.
His organization has used the material to issue press releases highlighting areas in which they judge the government's response to the challenges of climate change seriously deficient.

MATERIAL SHOWS POLICY GAPS
One Right to Information application, for instance, revealed that no process exists within the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the prime minister's office to identify, prioritise and pass on new scientific knowledge about climate change to the heads of the two institutions, which play the most significant role in determining India's climate policy.

"A list of notable scientific literature, analyses and climate anomalies ...provided to the ministry of Environment and Forests have not only not been acted upon but ... even find no mention in the records of the ministry," Sharma said.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests also admitted in one of its replies that no evaluation has been carried out of how well members of parliament and bureaucrats perceive the science and urgency of climate change. Nor has there been any capacity building programme for members of parliament and bureaucrats on the subject, he said.

Sharma feels that if the government of a nation as large as India is ignorant of climate science to the extent revealed by his information requests, it cannot hope to effectively address the problem. This ignorance and denial poses a danger to Indian citizens and to people elsewhere, Sharma said.

He pointed to the fact that information applications he made seeking copies of briefs given to Indian negotiators at international climate negotiations, and reports submitted by them to the prime minister's office, have been rejected by the government.

Filed with the prime minister's office and forwarded to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the requests have been rejected on the ground that the disclosures "may affect the scientific and economic interests of the country."

"Lack of transparency in the international and national climate policy formation process signifies that government is hiding information which could be embarrassing if released," Sharma said.
Right to Information Act authorities call the act an "important tool" for Indian citizens trying to hold government accountable.

"We expect more and more people to use RTI to get information from government departments on pertinent issues like climate change," said D.N. Dutt, Assam province's Chief Information Commissioner. "RTI is an important tool even to bring certain issues to the notice of the government. Citizens should make the best use of it and we are there to help them."

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Young girls face trafficking as lack of rain drives worsening rural poverty

By Teresa Rehman
NALBARI DISTRICT, India (AlertNet) - The rescue of 17-year-old Nitumoni (name changed) from a brothel in Shillong city recently points to a new danger as climate change takes hold in Northeast India - trafficking of vulnerable women.

Nitumoni's widowed mother, from Madhupur village, used to work as a daily wage labourer at rice fields in her village, near the Bhutan border. But as groundwater dries up in the region and rains fall short, farmers are giving up rice production, leaving families like Nitumoni's without work and struggling to make ends meet.

So when a distant relative offered to take Nitumoni to Shillong, the capital of neighboring Meghalaya state, to work as a domestic helper, her impoverished family agreed. But the girl instead ended up in a brothel, before being rescued recently by police. This has raised new worries about the dangers facing young girls as their already poor families struggle to cope with added burdens brought on by climate change.

"It dawned on me that climate change had much broader implications than it appears. Issues like human trafficking come to the limelight only when such an incident takes place. Otherwise, nobody wants to talk about it," said Prithibhusan Deka, president of Gramya Vikas Mancha, a non-profit local development organization. Many young girls sent from poor homes to find work end up trafficked to India as prostitutes or poorly paid factory workers, she said.

The organization is now working to fight the problem, which has been growing in remote villages badly hit by erratic rainfall and near-drought situations, she said.

GIRLS SENT TO CITY AS FARM INCOMES FALL

"This raises questions about human trafficking in the name of searching for alternate means of livelihood. We are conducting a baseline survey of young women, mostly climate refugees who are trafficked and forced into sex work in big cities in India. It is very difficult to get accurate statistics as nobody wants to talk about it. But we know that there are middlemen who are operating in these areas," Deka said.

In a growing number of villages in Assam, groundwater levels are very low and farmers are dependent on natural rainfall or dongs, traditional water channels that are the main source of irrigation and drinking water. The age-old water management system is particularly important to the most thirsty villages in the area.

Dongs are akin to small dams built on a river, with water diverted through canals to fields and backyard ponds. But gradually even the dongs are now drying up. Due to rampant deforestation in the foothills of Bhutan, heavy rains during the monsoons now carry rocks, soil and silt that block the dongs, said Ramani Thakuria, a senior agronomist at Assam Agricultural University. And in winter, the systems increasingly run completely dry, particularly as rainfall becomes more erratic.

As a result, farmers engaged in water-intensive rice cultivation have been severely affected, with many now moving to cities in search of new work or sending family members there to supplement falling incomes on the farm.

Nitumoni, her family's oldest child, was sent to the city to help support her mother and younger siblings, according to police who raided a brothel, rescuing a number of young girls.
Alarmed by the growing poverty-driven trafficking problem, Deka's organization is now working to introduce technology to help farmers earn more income at home.

Under a "rice intensification" effort, families in 100 villages in Nalbari and Baksa districts in Assam are getting training in how to grow rice with much less water and commercial fertilizer. The system, developed in the 1980s in Madagascar, has been successfully used in other parts of India.

"Water shortage and erratic rainfall is a global phenomenon due to climate change and we expect this to continue. We will have to improvise our agricultural methods accordingly to cope with the vagaries of nature," said Ramani Kanta Sarma of Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Nidhi, an Indian development NGO that gives training on rice intensification techniques.

The organization, which began introducing the system in Assam two years ago, plans to have trained farmers throughout the state within three years, Sarma said. This new technology has produced an enthusiastic response from farmers in some of the state's poorest and most remote districts.

"As community water resources were drying up, many of my fellow farmers were contemplating giving up rice cultivation. But we are looking forward to this new technology now," said Basistha Talukdar, one Nalbari district farmer.

"We have to arrange for our own water," added Ananta Kalita, a young farmer from Teteliguri village, near the Bhutan border. "There is no system to procure water from far-off places. We will have to make the best of what we have."

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Bringing back millet to cope with climate change, empower women

By Teresa Rehman

CHIZAMI, India (AlertNet) - Seno Tsuhah, a primary school teacher in this picturesque village near the Myanmar border, wants to help local women cope with changing climate conditions in Nagaland by promoting an old practice: the cultivation of traditional varieties of millet.

Sowing seeds is mostly the domain of women in the area, explains Tsuhah, the moving spirit of a local resource centre of the North East Network, an NGO that works on women's empowerment and human rights. In each home, a woman "usually keeps the seeds and the different crop selection is mainly done by her. We are trying to sensitise women farmers to promote crop diversity and revive the traditional indigenous seeds which are suitable for the local soil," she says.

Millet, an upland crop, has long been cultivated in the hills of northeast India, and millet-based 'apong,' a country liquor, is a common brew. But the traditional grain is seen primarily as food for the poor and for animals, and millet cultivation is diminishing, along with the traditional 'jhum' system of integrating multiple crops in a field.

"The earlier jhum systems were very complex, but nowadays it has been extremely simplified and the focus has shifted to mono-cropping," said Subbiah Arunachalam, of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in Meghalaya state.

Increasingly unusual weather, including more erratic rainfall and prolonged dry spells, however, are driving Tsuhah and others to try to revive the crop, which can grow in harsh conditions and needs little in the way of fertilizer or other inputs.

Her centre is in the process of setting up a seed bank of traditional millet varieties and has so far collected about 15. It is also collecting traditional millet recipes and organizing food festivals and exhibitions to pass on the information. "We are trying to ensure that the seeds are preserved and accorded due importance. If some seeds are lost, there is always a scope of sharing the seeds," she said.

Climate change is leading to increasingly temperatures in places like northeast India, and wheat harvests are expected to suffer as a result. Cultivation of rice, another staple, releases too much methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from paddies, environmentalists say.

MILLET SEEN AS A RESILIENT CHOICE

Millet is seen as a more resilient choice, not least because it requires much less water than rice or wheat. Millet, cultivated in traditional mixed 'jhum' fields, is usually sown on rocky sloping ground with minimal soil. Planted in April, it is harvested in July, and a millet feast usually follows in August. "Jhum is the indigenous way of maintaining the ecology and rejuvenating life. It is difficult to understand why millet is called a poor man's food," Tsuhah said.

Millet, while a traditional food and widely used for brewing, is today largely used as animal fodder. But it has also won a spot on the shelves of health food shops frequented by India's elite.
The Millet Network of India, in a nationwide campaign, is now promoting the grain as a climate change-compliant crop and a traditional Indian choice.

Srinivas Vatturi, of the millet network, emphasizes that multi-cropping of grains like millet are part of women-led traditional farming, while mono-cropping is largely controlled by men. Men may control money produced by selling mono-crops, he said, but women control food produced at home for the house. Millet also improves not only food security but health, ecological, livelihood and fodder security, he said.

OUTSIDE INDIA'S DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM
One problem in expanding the cultivation of millet is that it is not included in India's national distribution system for subsidized grain, said P.V. Satheesh of the Deccan Development Society, an Indian NGO that promotes development among India's poorest.

That exclusion - which has resulted in more Indians eating distributed grains like rice and wheat - has hurt millet production in the country and curbed the diversity of Indian diets, he said. Many young people are no longer aware of traditional crop varieties.

With hunger still widespread in India and a state focus on distributing rice and wheat doing little to curb that, growing nutritionally rich millet at a household level could improve diets, he said. It could be a particularly good choice in remote hilly areas where people are now dependent on food transported all the way from the neighbouring plain areas.

"The farming landscape of the country needs to be redesigned and new food policies shaped, as crops of larger powerful states like Punjab and Haryana are designing the food policies of our country now. Most millet growers are from poorer areas and communities," Satheesh said.

Ketaki Bardalai, executive director of the Foundation for Social Transformation, a northeast Indian NGO, said promoting traditional cultivation systems, mapping millet cultivation pockets and discovering the reasons for its decline are all key, particularly in Northeast India, one of the country's most economically backward and conflict-troubled zones. "Sadly, the growing and consuming of millet is slowly fading. The treasure trove of traditional systems disappearing is also very high," she said.

Teresa Rehman is a journalist based in Northeast India. She can be reached at www.teresarehman.net
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Popular radio music show spreads climate change message

By Teresa Rehman

SHILLONG, India (AlertNet) - Climate change issues are reaching a remote new audience in Meghalaya, a hilly state in northeast India, via 'Mawsawa,' a popular FM radio music show.
'Mawsawa' in the local Khasi language, means a "tone that echoes back," a metaphor for imitation and spoof.

The pioneering show is "basically a spoof on Western music. For instance, a Bryan Adams song is sung in the local language but in the same tune, using traditional musical instruments. And the lyrics would be something to do with the environment and climate change," said Ian Khongmen, the head of 93.5 Red FM radio, the station that hosts the show.

The station, working in cooperation with the state government, is committed to raising awareness about the problems associated with climate change in the area, but is managing it with a new vigour, spiced with humour and drama, listeners say.

Better yet, the show is reaching even small remote villages that have yet to be electrified and do not yet have the luxury of television - places where a battery-powered radio may be the only way of receiving messages on climate change.

REACHING REMOTE AREAS WITH RADIO
"On my tours to remote hamlets, I have seen people listening to FM radio even on their mobile phones. I have seen farmers working and listening to radio. It was then that we decided to tie up with the FM station to spread the message of climate change and other environmental disasters at the grassroots level," said P.S. Nongbri, Meghalaya's deputy conservator of forests.

How effectively is the program reaching rural areas? Last year, when the forest department did a segment for World Wildlife Week in which they broadcast bird calls and asked listeners to identify the birds, "it was only people from interior villages who could answer correctly and win prizes. We were amazed by the reach of the radio," Nongbri said.

Talking about environment issues is an ongoing mission for the FM station. It has developed exclusive characters like Kong Lor (Kong is an endearing term for elder sister), who have become a vehicle for its messages.

"Kong Lor is like the conscience-keeper of the community who talks about the values and tradition which give us a sense of pride. She talks about environmental problems but with a lot of zest and spectacle and manages to strike the right emotional chord among the listeners," said Khongmen, the station head.

The radio station, on the air from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., last year ran a series of segments aimed at generating awareness about the region's 'sacred groves' - protected forests that are tied up with local religious beliefs and are considered conservation models.

Another set of programs, for Earth Day, focused on the need for tree planting. Disc jockeys regularly make their way to local festivals, and have helped put on street plays on environmental issues in association with local traditional institutions, or 'dorbars'. "Our station is entertainment-based but we try to push in these pertinent issues," said R.J. Ashlyn, a presenter who runs a listener call-in evening show.

Meghalaya has witnessed large-scale deforestation due to illegal and poorly planned coal mining as well as pollution of its water resources by cement and limestone plants. Trees on Nongkhum island, the one of the biggest river islands in the West Khasi hills, are being indiscriminately felled to produce charcoal. "Destruction of catchment areas of main rivers and streams caused by mining is the most pertinent problem in Meghalaya now," Nongbri said.

MUSICIANS JOIN INITIATIVE
The radio initiative has caught on with local musicians with similar environmental interests. Kit Shangpliang, a musician from Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, has been penning songs on themes including social evils, poverty and terrorism, and now has taken up climate change as well.

His rock band 'Summersalt' regularly focuses on conservation themes, be it conservation of forests or of indigenous culture and values. Songs use indigenous musical instruments of the Khasi people or even traditional kitchen tools turned into instruments.

"We want to look at conservation in a holistic manner. It's encouraging to see radio stations like Red FM talking about climate change," Shangpliang said. The lyrics of one popular Khasi-language song go like this: "Have you given some thought to the destruction? Mother Earth is in shambles, the forests have been felled again and again. Have you thought how the creator would feel? Feel the pain, the sky has to endure." Radio hosts plan to feature the song in some of their programs.

"We are committed to create awareness about climate change," Khongmen said. "We are together in the fight to ensure a cleaner and more secure future for our planet."
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