GMPians in the Village

While a group of GMPians were managing rock climbing and assorted hurdles in the adventure trip, one other group was packed off for three days and two nights into the villages of Jharkhand. Not that they objected. After all most of them had come from different parts of the country and saw this as a good opportunity to get a first hand feel of Jharkhand.

The GMPians visited few villages outside the limits of Jamshedpur. The coordination and planning was done by NGO’s like Tagore Society of Rural Development, SEEDS, SPAR, MASS. The issues studied by the GMPians were water and sanitation, health facilities , livelihood pattern, literacy related issues, self-help groups, gender issues, farming and animal husbandry, environmental concerns, credit mechanism, consumption pattern and housing patterns.

The study illustrated the welcome progress which started to take place in the last few years in terms of empowering people and making them participate in the development process. Nevertheless, the lack of access to proper healthcare services, secondary and college education was striking. In the villages inhabited by the Sabar tribe, even primary education was a luxury which hardly few could afford.

GMPians returned from trip content with the study done but perhaps with a bigger discontent about the state of affairs of rural India and a resolve to do something more about this than being aware about it. Quite a few GMPians were already associated with NGOs and social organizations before joining XLRI and have fair experience in these activities. So they have more activities lined up on this front. As they say "Miles to Go.....".