GRAMA is in the development field since 1989 and has made critical interventions in the areas of Institution Building, Women Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, Natural Resources Management, Informal Education and Human Resources Development. Although GRAMA relied on external resources to support the implementation of these programmes, it has become necessary to rely on its own internal resources and individual contributions to support GRAMA's own need based development intervention in the areas affecting farmers and rural children. Therefore, GRAMA has developed Project LeWA ( Land as eco-Friendly Wealth creating Asset) address the issue relating to farmers which will effectively give life to the lives of the farmers and check social abberations. Another important intervention is in the area affecting rural children particularly girl child. Its a miserable situation to see the rural children missing out on all kinds of big opportunities available to the urban counterparts due to lack of knowledge in English, Mathematics, computers and support for home work which takes away the confidence of rural children and leads to lack of interest in studies and resulting in drop outs. Two separate funds have been created where the individuals and Corporates can contribute and join hands with GRAMA in this noble cause. The Donors are requested to understand the purpose for which their contributions will be utilised.
Large tracts of land in some of the project area is not cultivated as the soil is literally dead leading to negative profit to the farmers. Farmers are in a catch 22 situation where their only occupation has been farming which has now become non remunerative due to high cost of production, less productivity, cheating at the marketplace and economically unviable due to low returns for the produce sold in the Agricultural Producers Market as manipulated by the elite market players. It is an historical blunder, although Green Revolution which brought western technological practices and education in the field of farming to meet the requirement of the time and situation, that we continued to practice the borrowed systems and use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides indiscriminately leaving the soil dead and unproductive. The situation so created can be traced to the root cause of farmers present day pathetic condition. It is now necessary to reverse the process by rejuvenating the soil which requires longer gestation period with relatively lesser input cost. GRAMA has developed a model, which is replicable and sustainable that can be practiced by farmers particularly in drought prone areas. The model puts in place land based Income Generation Activity for the farmers to sustain during the gestation period and also specifies the input cost, processes involved including water and soil conservation, pest and weed management and also the estimated output and the management systems so that the land, which has been hitherto non-productive will be converted into a productive and wealth creating asset.
The processes involved in implementing the project
Identification of the Farmers in Distress Ensuring their participation Livelihood support during the gestation period Watch and Ward Land based IGP [Income Generation Activities] Water and soil conservation Structures Implementation of Drum Kit Technology Developing Horticulture plants using less water Creating micro environment to increase moisture and microorganisms in the soil Land rejuvenation by multiple practices such as growing fertilizer plants and mulching Continuation of the project with a revenue sharing mechanismThe learning environment in rural areas is not conducive for children to take to studies voluntarily resulting in school dropouts on a large scale particularly among girl children. This situation is common in all rural areas. The external as well as the classroom environment acts as disincentive for children to take to studies. An unfriendly teacher contributes for children's lack of interest in studies. Further, parent's inability to support children in their attending to homework and consequent humiliating atmosphere in the classroom worsens the situation. Few lucky ones who can overcome and reach upto college level generally lack efficiency in English, Mathematics and Computer Science thereby unable to compete with the urban counterparts. In this context, it is necessary to develop situations for children to take interest voluntarily and the environment that needs to be created can be done with research input from educationists and child psychologists. This also calls for identifying teachers and training them with required skills. Almost every village in the country is suffering from this kind of situation. Hence the magnitude of the problem. Therefore, there is a need to develop the informal education system (IES) which should be a "Replicable and Sustainable" model. In this regard GRAMA is making sincere effort in coordination with Christ University, Bangalore to develop a suitable model to put in place an informal education system. A separate Fund is created to implement these projects. Contributors can give specific instructions and suggestions. A Separate balance sheet is prepared for each project and will be made available in GRAMA web site.