Project Description

Jharkhand is one of the states in India with maximum population of tribal people. Most of the tribal population is living in the rural part of the state. The main source of income is agriculture and livestock management. Agriculture depends only on monsoon and there is no secondary crop practice. Generally all the tribes are engaged in pig keeping, goat keeping, dairy, poultry etc.

We request your involvement to support our initial implementation of Income Generating Activity; it is a comprehensive, research/training- based program that will help the rural community uplift their lives economically as well as financially and lead the way in community development. This is a unique project which teaches concepts and skills that empower young people to manage farm animals with high returns for a sustainable growth and development. The community will learn how to set and achieve realistic goals, recognize different steps and procedures in planning, organizing, implementing, and devise new guidelines according to experiences learned while training. We plan to provide a sustainable income generating opportunity to 40 poorest families (40 members of SHG – Self Help Group) from around 25 groups and 5 villages of Khunti Block of Ranchi District (Jharkhand).

Concept People:

This project will involve a group of ten (10) poorest community SHG (Self Help Group) members and their families in first year and another group of twenty (20) in the second year. In short food security for more than 200 people. Duration: This is a total four years project, which includes two years intensive training and practical experience and two years of external support on care, management and running of milk co-operative system.
The Project:

Ten (10) identified poorest SHG members would be given a Local Hybrid cow on finance. ¾ In the third year the community members would manage the Milk Co-operative from their homes. The organization will continue providing assistance in Medicinal care and Marketing support with the loan amount collected from second group.

¾ After Three years of the project, for fourth year, organization will st ill be providing all the required assistance, but this time the community will have to pay for the services like, veterinary and medicinal support.

¾ This project will motivate number of families to join the co-operative and in future with the help of government programs we would try setting up a dairy unit for manufacturing milk products.

¾ This unique project can help the surrounding villages start similar activity and help in eradicating poverty.

GOAL:

With this project, we can help solve many issues like- 9 The majority of rural communities are involved in cutting and selling of fuel wood, which is accelerating environmental degradation. 9 Heavy reliance on land based activities and the limited access to irrigation facilities and reliance on rain fed single crop results in low productivity.

¾ All the cows would be kept in the cattle shelter constructed by the organization to reduce the cost of Food, medicine and management. The cows would be insured from theft, killing, accidental or natural death. Organization will be responsible to take care of Food, Medicine, and marketing of the milk.

¾ Twice a day, morning and evening, one member of each family will come to the shelter; responsibility of these members would be cleaning, feeding and milking of their cows. Each one will have two registers, one for them and one for the organization, to maintain the daily milk yield. Supervisor and the community member both would maintain sign on each other’s register. The supervisor will then transport the total milk to our selling point at Khunti main town.

¾ Marketing:
The Ranchi dairy imports milk from other districts from more than up to 150 KM. The Ranchi dairy has large demand of the milk and selling milk to the dairy will not be a problem. ¾ Recovery:

50% of the milk yield will be taken as the refund of loan from each member. Minimum 10,000 Rupees would be collected in the first year and first calf will also be kept as a part of loan refund. ¾ Revolving:

The next group of 20 members would be given cows by purchasing through the amount collected with little more funding and/or replacing the calf with additional money. In this way we will require 50% funds for the second group. ¾ Investment:

The Third and fourth years project expenditure would be maintained by the loan amount to be recovered from the individual members of the second group against the cows.

Towards Sustainability

¾ Formation and functioning of Co- operative system will be st arted after six months of the project starting date. ¾ During the project period the community members would be trained on handling, care, management of their cows and running the milk co-operative system efficiently and effectively like functioning of the co-operatives, benefits and linkages with the Government programmes etc. This may enable children in the family to go to school, because they no longer have to work to help support the family. We appreciate your consideration in this important project. We know this project will help

us have a greater impact on the community at large. Please do not hesitate to contact us at Cell. no. 94311 71929 or email us at hopeandanimal@gmail.com with any questions or comments. We look forward to working with your organization. About the Author: Mr. Praveen Ohal is social worker, started his own NGO in the name of HOPE at Ranchi. He is also associated with NABUUR ( www.nabuur.com ) for the development of the village called khunti near Ranchi in India and to BiharBrains as City representative. He is al so author of the Book entitled “Asia on Foot” that describes his own journey experience to travel into many Asian countries by foot. This book is also fund generating agency for his organization. Email ID: praveenohal@yahoo.com