LIVELIHOOD PROJECT:

ACID stands in solidarity with Cyclone YAAS affected families and communities in Hingalganj, West Bengal

Cyclone YAAS has devastated the lives of vulnerable and extremely poor communities in Hingalganj and destroyed infrastructure, thousands of houses, agricultural field, assets, life and livelihoods. People - men, women, elderly and children are homeless with empty stomach, looking for safer places. Saline water has come inside the villages and agricultural fields due to breach of embankments in several locations. It’s a very upsetting and painful scenario; we stand in solidarity with these families and communities.

Cyclone YAAS made many vulnerable families Homeless in Hingalganj

Chanda Mondal, her husband and their six years old daughter, live in Dakshin Gobindakati village of Hingalganj block in North 24 Pargana. Her husband lost his low-salary job and returned lately, since lockdown started. On the night of the cyclone Amphan they were in their mud-house and at around 1:30 AM, they shifted to a nearby concrete building to take shelter for the night as the thrashing wind shook their house and the over flown pond water reached their door-step. Next day morning, they found, their mud house in a crumbled situation. They have lost most of their belongings along with their daughter's books and essential documents. Now they are living in a tent made out of tarpauline and can not avail any aid from local government authorities since they have lost those documents.

There are hundreds of extremely poor and vulnerable families like Chanda Mondal in the island, who lost their houses and currently staying in makeshift shelters. Some families consisted of both small children and elderly members. Monsoon is going to come soon, to reduce the suffering of these families, Andrewspalli Centre for Integrated Development is trying to make transitional shelters for them and thus looks out for help.

Publication and sharing of the study report on "Problem in accessibility of Elementary Education by Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Caste communities in Hingalganj Block" on 17th August, 2016.

A national workshop "Problem of Accessibility in Primary Education by Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes: A Study in Hingalganj Block" & "Impact Study on Sponsorship Programme of FADV: A Study of their Partner Organizations in West-Bengal and Assam" organized by the Department of Social Work, Visva-Bharati in association with Fondazione l'Albero della Vita (FADV) and Andrewspalli Centre for Integrated Development (ACID) on 17th August' 2016 at Conference Hall , Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. Participation from FADV partner organization, save the children, Students and Professors from Visva-Bharati University, UNPECT international and other national level NGOs are presented in that workshop. The study report was also published in this workshop written by Dr. Sukumar Pal and Mr. Neelmani Jaysawal.

The Goodfellas travel team from Italy visited our organization from 10th to 11th August, 2016.

A team from Italy namely The Goodfellas Travel Team had visited in our project area from 10th to 11th August to see our livelihood and sponsorship projects, interacted with project beneficiaries and communities to acquire first hand knowledge on how people are getting benefited from the interventions. They interacted with the 'Padmabati' Self Help Group in Jogeshganj village and also their activities like fishing, vegetable cultivation, livestock farming etc. They also visited in our Samsernagar tuition centre, interact with students and suggest them to learn English for better communication with them.

FADV Programme Manager Mrs. Samprita Sengupta done monitoring visit of the Sponsored children from 13th to 16th February, 2017.

Mrs. Samprita Sengupta, Programme Managar of the Sponsorship project made monitoring visit in Hingalganj project area. She visited 50 new children house and filled up the bio data form and also taken photographs in Gobindakathi village. She interacted with parents of the Gobindakathi tuition centre and talk about importance of parental care at home. In Madhavkathi tuition centre she observed teaching learning method using puzzle, games, and local resources. She taught children spoken English and how they should interact with newcomer. She had meeting with Sponsorship project team of ACID and set plan of action for the year 2017.

Dr. Swapan Kumar Maity and Dr. Bholanath Mandal, faculty member of Visva-Bharati University conduct a training programme on rice and vegetable production from 4th to 5th June, 2016

Dr. Maity and Dr. Mondal made monitoring visit of their research project on demonstration of resilient livelihood activities in saline soil collaboration with ACID. They conducted training on rice and vegetable production in Jogeshganj project site office of ACID. They organized a demonstration programme on rice seed purification by using water and salt to increase the production of rice. They also made field visit and interacted with farmers to solve problems regarding vegetable cultivation. They had also conduct meeting with DRR project coordinator and discuss about vermicompost kit and agricultural survey in the 12 villages of Hingalganj Block.