I took the once-a-day Jet airways flight from Mumbai (Bombay) to Bhuj. The airport in Bhuj is within the Indian Airforce territory. You can hear the roar of the Airforce jets on their practice run every now and then. The airport is only a few miles from the Pakistan border.
On my arrival at the Bhuj airport, CARE-INDIA project manager Satish Sinha and 2 staff from the local Bhuj office greeted me. They had arranged for a CARE van to take us to the village of Vijaypar, which was about 2.5 hours driving time from the airport in Bhuj.
On the way, we saw many villages being reconstructed, some villages fully constructed. NGO's like CARE have elected to work with full villages. CARE has about 10 villages under its rebuilding program. You may know that many villages had opted to get the relief grant from the Government of Gujrat and rebuild the homes and villages themselves. At one time CARE was allotted around 35 villages by the GOG.
CARE-INDIA made the right decisions
In a village on the way to Vijaypar, we drove past a village named Dudhai, which has been completely rebuilt by NGO's from New Delhi. They had renamed the village as Inderprastha. All the new homes were lined up in perfect rows, in a new tract of land. Unfortunately, the villagers have decided not to move in. I was given 3 reasons for their decision - 1. all homes were of the same size with no scope for expansion. 2. Built on a new tract of land, ignoring the home owners present home site and his standing in the village. 3. Change the village name. I am pointing this to show that in our village of Vijaypar, we have not committed these 3 mistakes. In fact, all the villagers in Vijaypar are happy with CARE and anxious to move in to their new homes as soon as possible.
They will all move-in at the same time
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Of the 140 homes being built by CARE, about 80+ homes were ready when I visited the village in Dec 27th, 2001. Of the total 211 homes in Vijaypar, 70 home owners have decided to build their own homes with grant from the GOG. It is expected that CARE will complete all 140 homes by end of Feb 2002. The 140 home owners have decided to move in to their new homes all at the same time. This will avoid some residents living in new homes while others are still in tents.
Welcoming ceremony
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On my arrival in the village, I was pleasantly surprised to see that
they had arranged a small ceremony to welcome a visitor from Minnesota and
the whole village turned out for the ceremony. They had constructed a small
shamiana built close to the first completed house in the village. Their local
panchayat had just last month elected a new leader for a 5-year term. The panchayat
leader is called the 'sar-panch' and the new leader is Vasanth Bai. Vasanth acted as
the coordinator for the ceremony and he greeted the visitors.
Very happy with the work done by CARE
Satish Sinha, CARE project manager, spoke of the progress and appreciated the cooperation that he has received from the village. All the home owners are happy with CARE and the quality of work shown in the construction. Each new home is being built in the old premises.
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Each house is 30 sq.meters (about 300 sq feet) in size. See picture on the left. The house is divided into
2 rooms and a kitchen. Toilet is outside. If 2 brothers in a family are both home owners,
they can have their houses built adjacent to each other. The house
design uses concrete RCC structures with load bearing columns in the corners.
The walls are not load bearing. The house structure will allow a second floor
addition if the owner decides to build later. These houses have electricity. I was told that 3 or 4
houses in this village have cable TV also. Cable TV access could provide
internet access in the future.
Walk around the village
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Satish Sinha and Vasanth Bai took me around the village. The water harvesting unit is ready. Work on the Angan-wadi will start soon. I noticed that while most of the rubble has been removed to make way for the new houses, some large size stones have been retained. The residents would like to use these large stones to build a 'compound wall' around their new houses, if possible.
The school
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The school in this village has up to 7 grades. A new hexagonal shaped
school is being built. Until the new school is ready, the children are
educated in the village temple.
Two elderly ladies thank CARE
Two elderly ladies in their 90's approached Satish Sinha and I,
and thanked us for all the work CARE and the Twin City donors have done. In their 90 years, this
was the first time, anyone had come forward to rebuild their village
and their lives.
I am happy to report that our contributions to CARE are helping to truly rebuild a village - our village Vijaypar and its residents thank everyone for their support.
CARE-INDIA has made efforts to purchase the building materials at the lowest market prices possible. Since CARE is building about 10 villages in the same area, they are able to procure items in bulk. As of Dec 27th, when I visited the Vijaypar village, Mr.Sinha of CARE informed me that they are yet to receive any matching grants from the GOG for the construction of houses.
I was truly proud to represent the Twin Cities community at Vijaypar. It is not
often in our lifetime that we have the opportunity to affect this many people's lives
in such a positive way.
Ram Krishnan
St.Paul MN
February 3, 2002
rkrishnan46@hotmail.com