Shramadana: Sharing Labour and Knowledge

Francisco X Aguilar is an agronomic engineer, staying with Sarvodaya until May, helping with training programmes and installation and management of polyethylene biogas plants for biogas and organic fertilizer production. Here is his article on the Sri Lankan Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement:

From November to December 1999, I had the great opportunity to travel around the United States, India and Sri Lanka as a member of an interdisciplinary group, exploring the integration of sustainability, spirituality and community development.

I was representing EARTH University, an international school based in Costa Rica. The mission of the University is to teach sustainable agriculture to young people from Latin America. I graduated in 1998 and have been working in my home country, establishing an organic farm very close to the city of Guayaquil.

In Sri Lanka, the group (people from communities in the US, Germany, England, India, Mexico, and Ecuador) visited the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. It was very interesting for us to see how the Movement works with more than 11,000 villages and how it interprets development activities as "awakening process."

Shramadana means "sharing of labour". Sarvodaya organizes "Shramadana Camps", where villagers come together to engage in physical work. We had a unique opportunity to join a Shramadana Camp in the village of Nawalapitiya. It was the first Shramadana Camp this community held, but all the activities were amazingly well-organized.

We worked with all kinds of different tools, cleaning up the main road of the village and making it wider. It was definitely an experience to see the whole community working together. Regardless of age or sex, everyone had a role to play in Shramadana.

I also visited some farms to talk to people to learn about their problems.

Productivity of farms has started to go down due to problems such as soil degradation and lack of water. Water supply can be resolved with the introduction of pumps but soil degradation is a problem that does not have a quick solution. The first step is to regenerate the soils-making them more productive-by increasing the amount of organic matter (O.M.) in the soil.

Most farmers started applying chemical fertilizers with urea, phosphates, sulphates, etc., and forgot about the importance of O.M. Chemical fertilizers are easier to apply, but are expensive and cannot keep a healthy soil for a long time. There are different ways to increase O.M. in the soil, such as planting trees, but producing compost is considerably quicker.

With buffalo's manure, grass, crop, and kitchen waste, compost can be made very easily. Compost has various positive effects for the soil, increasing the amount of benefit microorganisms, improving structure, keeping moisture (very important in a place that suffers from lack of water), and so forth.

With compost, yields start to go up. This process takes time; visible impact in the soil will be seen in two to three years. Other problems we witnessed were management of human excrement and use of firewood that causes breathing difficulties. A solution to these problems is the use of biodigestion.

Biodigestion produces biogas and organic liquid fertilizer. Biogas originates from bacteria in the process of bio-degradation of organic material under anaerobic conditions. These bacteria, called methanogen, decompose the material and produce methane, which can be burned to produce energy.

Liquid material can be used as fertilizer. This is a very old technique that has not spread because of the high cost of conventional ferro-cement biodigestors. However, installation of polyethylene biogas plant is very cheap (about US$100) and easy to use. I learned this technique at EARTH University, where the technique has been adopted by more than 20 farmers in less than 3 years.

Francisco X. Aguilar
P.O. Box 09 04 936
Guayaquil, Ecuador
Email: aguilar@gye.satnet.net

 

School for the Deaf

When the GEN Board met in Sarvodaya’s headquarters last year, we got a tour of the Sarvodaya HQ projects. One of these was a School for the Deaf, which is an incredibly inspiring and worthwhile project. It was amazing to see what one woman, Mrs Tineke de Silva-Nijkamp, has built with the support of Sarvodaya and donations from Europe.

Sri Lanka is a poor country; affected by a 13 year old war with Tamil separtists in the North and East. There is little money for special education. Deaf children of the poorest families from remote villages suffer most from this situation. Their parents are often seasonal part-time labourers, with no certainty of ongoing work. Often such families have 5 or 6 children.

These parents have no money to go to a specialist or to send the child to a deaf school. At the basic school where there are 50 pupils in one class it is difficult to give extra attention to a deaf child. Sometimes it is thought that the child is mentally retarded. The child is not accepted, is ridiculed and withdraws into itself. It can end up as a beggar or a "slave".

In the deaf school these children are given training so that they can take care of themselves. Self confidence, so that they can look after themselves in an uncompromising society, is also nurtured.

Sarvodaya field workers act as ‘spotters’, finding neglected children who are deaf or hard of hearing in rural areas of Sri Lanka and bringing them to the Sarvodaya Deaf Unit in Moratuwa.

Mrs Tineke de Silva-Nijkamp was a teacher in a deaf school in The Netherlands for 12 years prior to starting the school in Sri Lanka.

In 1984 she resigned from her post in The Netherlands and took up permanent residence in Sri Lanka with her Sri Lankan husband and son in order to give attention to deaf children. The school was started with 16 deaf children, and now caters for over 100 children between 5 and 18 years of age. The children come from villages throughout Sri Lanka and all are boarders at the school.

TEACHING METHODS

A "Total Communication" method is used which combines oral and manual techniques, including spoken language, sign language, writing, drawing, finger-alphabet and lip reading. The children receive special lessons in groups of 2 or 3 to stimulate their language and speech development. In these small groups they get more individual attention to learn to communicate.

The school has an audiometer to do a hearing-test and to make an audio-gramme of the children. All children wear hearing-aids. Hearing-aids are very expensive and hard to get in Sri Lanka and these are donated by overseas individuals and organisations.

Classes are not based on age but on the cognitive level of the child. All the subjects of a basic school are taught. Much attention is given to subjects requiring the children to express themselves as this is an area where they typically have problems. Suppressed emotions are brought out through drama, via an experienced drama teacher.

Dance lessons are given to the accompaniment of a drum, from which they can receive the vibrations. During the weekends an artist gives painting lessons. The pupils have won various prizes at art competitions.

VOCATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAMMES

When the pupils have reached the age of 18, they can choose one of the following training programmes:

• Woodwork training. A centre in the school garden trains pupils to make simple toys. After a period of 2 years the school helps them to find a job.
• Printery. The Sarvodaya Vishva Lekha Printing Press trains and employs students from the school.
• Sewing. There is a 3 months training programme in sewing.
• Typing. The Sarvodaya HQ office offers training in typing.

All pupils have jobs found for them by the school. However, they are not just ‘abandoned’ in their new jobs – Mrs de Silva-Nijkamp checks up on their working conditions from time to time, to make sure they are not exploited. She has in the past removed ex-pupils from their employers when she has found them to be badly treated. Her current dream is to start a hostel for deaf young women, as she has found that often such young women are treated as drudges by hearing co-boarders.

HOW TO HELP

The school is dependent on donations. The support from the Sri Lankan government is just Rs. 300/-, ($5-) per child per month – ask for information on how to donate!

Mrs de Silva-Nijkamp,
School for the Deaf,
14/2 Andiris de Silva Mawatha,
Rawathawatta, Moratuwa,
Sri Lanka.
Tel: +94 1 647786,
Fax +94 1 722 932