Today was absolutely overwhelming. The most difficult day yet.
After lunch, Durga, Margi, Lee, and I ventured back out to Bhimrana to continue our interviews of REDP graduates and SHG members. Lee and Durga were off on their own, visiting SHGs; while Margi and I took off to find REDP graduates.
The last time we went to Bhimrana, we were led around by a woman who lives in the village and who happens to be an REDP teacher. Mostly, we met REDP graduates who have been fairly successful, starting or upgrading businesses, reporting only positive views on the REDP programme. I don’t know if this was due to the teacher consciously choosing to introduce me to successful people, or if she didn’t understand that I also want to talk to less successful people. Regardless, she wasn’t there today, and right off the bat, Margi and I ended up in a household of women that are quite angry about the results of the REDP programme. We only intended to interview two women, but as it usually happens, our presence attracted the attention of the entire family and everyone else in the vicinity. Before I knew it, we were surrounded by four or five women and about eight children. All of them wanted to be heard and didn’t hesitate to shout over one another … and as Margi told me later, to downright demand Margi’s attention. “No! You listen to me! I’ll tell you what it’s about!” Meanwhile, I kept asking, “What are they saying? What are they saying?” Poor Margi.
The women’s complaints were many, but primarily, they were angry because they couldn’t use the training they received. They had tried to start a sari-making business, but unfortunately, they belong to a caste that forbids them to travel out of the village to market and sell their product. As such, they had hired another woman to sell the saris, but the woman was unable to find people that would buy the saris for a price that would cover the cost of raw materials. Further, they were part of a large group of women that had taken a course in bandhini, i.e., tye-dye. Bandhini is a popular handicraft around here, and the woman planned to use the skill to make tye-dyed salwars (i.e., tunics) and dupattas (i.e., scarves). As they tell the story, Tata gave the training and they did the dye work, but once the articles of clothing were washed, all the dye ran out. They now feel as though they cannot start a bandhini business until Tata gives them a new round of training. In addition to re-training, these women say they are waiting for Tata to place an order with them, which is exactly what this CSR programme is trying to stem: the ultimate reliance of all community members on the company to provide them work.
The women also ranted about their dire situation: their husbands, four brothers, each bring in about Rs 2000 per month, but they’re all alcoholics, so they drink away one fourth of that. Even the brother that is terribly ill with tuberculosis still drinks. They said this alcoholism caused them to go hungry at least three days each month.
Next, we marched off into the flooded, muddy village to meet with another group of ladies who had at one time worked together as caterers. The first one, a woman whom I know because she does a lot of catering at Tata, was very successful. The second was old and unable to understand our questions. The third expressed how the first woman employed her sister in the catering business but only paid her a very meager salary in relation to the business’ income. Further, she talked about how the President and Vice President of her SHG had recently run off with all their savings, about Rs 4800. Things clearly aren’t peachy for everyone …
Finally, we ended up traveling via car into the most depraved village I’ve been to yet. We entered a woman’s house – mud walls, stick thatch roof – and within two minutes, we were in an 6’x6’ space surrounded by 15 people. Although they only lived ten minutes from Bhimrana, these women spoke in a different dialect of Gujarati, and so now, I was speaking to Margi in English, Margi was speaking to someone named Laxmi in Gujarati, and Laxmi was speaking to our interviewee in the dialect. I can only imagine how distorted the message probably got in this little game of telephone. Again, the woman was quite disappointed. She had taken the bandhini training and also expected to be re-trained, and she described how in the meantime, she had tried to start a wood collection business. Over the course of a month, she went in search of wood. She didn’t have shoes to wear, so she often got infections from stepping on thorns and other sharp objects. She didn’t have anything in which to carry her wood, so she carried it in heavy bundles on her head. And for all of this, she only earned about Rs 25 – around 50 cents.
What I take from all of this is that this training doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. Sure, there’s always some small social benefit in that people become more educated about how the world works around them. But, sometimes, the training doesn’t take into consideration caste limitations or perhaps students don’t understand the lessons about product selection. (Why did she try to sell wood if the village clearly had no need for wood?)
On the other hand, the problem could be one of student selection. What was interesting about today was the difficulty we had in getting answers. Many of these people do not understand themselves well enough to say, “I got this out of it …” or “I wish the training included more lessons on that.” They can’t always articulate what they think or how they feel about the training or about their lives. They don’t think about time in terms of weeks, months, or years – only days. Hell, some don’t even know how old they are. We asked one woman her age and she estimated it to be around 40 … which isn’t possible as she has a 33-year-old son. Another woman had no idea what her monthly expenditures amounted to or even how much income her family brought in. These people are just surviving. They’re not planning and achieving and changing. They’re living hand-to-mouth, day-to-day.
So, perhaps these aren’t the people to put into entrepreneurship training. They have too many other underlying issues that make it difficult for them to do anything other than just survive. But, then, what do we do for them?
All of this is mind-blowing to me. The myriad of issues I encountered today – alcoholism, ignorance, poor infrastructure, entitlement, dependency, etc – are so complex that it’s hard for me to make any real judgment on the impact of the REDP training. How do I weed those other issues out of my data to get down to just REDP effects? Is it right to even weed out all of these other issues or should these efforts be considered in terms of the bigger picture? I am inclined to say the latter is right – that we should consider the problems in a holistic sense – but then what am I to do for my project? If I were to approach these problems holistically, I would have to work in this village for months or maybe years. And who would pay me for such an effort? Not a corporate CSR programme, I suspect.
This is certainly the hardest work I’ve ever done. It’s not physically taxing … just overwhelming and beyond my training and skills. I’m not a social worker after all.
***
On a lighter note, I saw a cow eat an Incredible Hulk movie poster off a plywood board today. I walked back by the sign a half hour later and he had licked it clean. Mmmmm … paper, glue, mean green man.