Indo-American Arts Council, Inc. - The Streaming Tsunami disaster benefit

Update of Tsunami Funds

AIF Grant-Making
Grant Proposal Abstract

1. NGO Information

Contact info	:	Tamilnadu Women's Collective C/o-TAMIL NADU RESOURCE TEAM (TNRT) 10, East Street, Kollattur Chennai - 600 099 Ph.- 044-25505853 Fax no.- 044-25501257

a. Registration (local, FCRA, tax)	:	Reg no. - 185/1995 FCRA no. - 075900626

b. Number of Employees	:	200 (190 women and 10 men)

c. Board Members		Ms. V. Chandra - Managing Trustee Ms. Ponnuthai - Finance Trustee Ms. Prema - Trustee Ms. Saroja - Trustee

d. Funders	:	Christian Aid SCAIF Consortium funding

e. Annual spend for last three years	:	2001 - 2002: - 92,80,398.30 2002 - 2003: -1,09,99,194.35 2003 - 2004:- 1,08,97,553.65

f. Date of last audited report	:	July 30, 2004

2. Background of NGO and key activities

Tamil Nadu Women's Collective (TWC) is a collective of 35 women's organization and 10 other associate organizations working in 20 districts in Tamil Nadu of which six are coastal districts. Women's Collective facilitates the alternative structure of participatory process to women's movement which is shared equally, without any domination. The organization is engaged in development activities through education and awareness raising; training and skills building; organizing and mobilizing women to influence the course of public policies that will affect their daily lives; forming and federating women's groups etc.
The vision of Women's collective is an eco- friendly, equitable, just society. They believe that empowering women who transcend all barriers -caste, race, religion and nationality is crucial for actualizing their vision. Women's Collective currently covers 1444 villages spread across 20 districts of Tamilnadu. They have formed 4022 Self Help Group (SHG) with 75,000 members.

3. Project/Proposal summary

a. Context and goal
The Tsunami hit the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Pondicherry and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands swallowing thousands of lives and livelihoods. The Government of Tamilnadu has declared all the 13 coastal districts as Tsunami affected districts and has waived all the outstanding loans for the fishing community which was the worst affected community.

TNWC, with its support organization Tamilnadu Resource Team, has already started relief and rehabilitation in the affected villages of Chennai, Tiruvallore, Kancheepuram and Kanyakumari districts.They have been working four villages each in Chennai and Thrivallore and twenty five villages each in Kanchipuram and Kanyakumari with support from Christian Aid.

TWC proposes to work in seven villages in Tutikorin district as these villages were left out by the Government for its relief and other long term support. Moreover government relief measures have also left out other families like shell collector, salt pan workers and agricultural communities affected by intrusion of sea water in all these villages.

Objectives of the project:

Organise the left out and vulnerable tsunami affected families for relief
Helping tsunami affected families to rebuild their livelihoods
Provide pre-school support to young children

Goal:
The goal of the project is to support Tsunami affected people to restore their life and livelihoods and engage with them for their long term political, social and economic empowerment.

b. Community groups addressed

Around 1200 families of the tsunami affected 8 villages of Tutikorin District, will be covered under this project. Out of this total population some of them are from fishing community and fish vending and rest are salt pan workers. Many of these families are left out by the Government while distributing relief and providing other compensations as these villages do not fall under Government defined criteria for the affected villages since there were no lives lost.

Sl. No	Name of the village	Target families	Occupation	Additional Relief required
1	Vivekandapuram	56	Fishing	Yes
2	Lurdhammal puram	158	Salt pan workers	Yes
3	Alagapuri	165	Salt pan workers	Yes
4	Alngara thittu	200	Salt pan workers	Yes
5	Karikulam	112	Labour and fish selling	Yes
6	Kalianger colony	71	Salt pan and fish selling	Yes
7	Tsunami Colony (I)*	146	Fishing	No
8	Tsunami colony(II) *	250	Fishing	No
	Total	1158

* Last two are the names of temporary shelters who have been evacuated from their their original habitats.

c. Activities:

Providing relief support to left out groups:
In five of the project villages, there are people from the dalit community who depend upon the saltpans in which both men and women work as labourers. The salt pan workers are equally affected by the disaster as they also have lost livelihood as the sea water flooded into the saltpans. With the logging of sea water in the saltpans the owner who also had great loss have not recommenced their work. These saltpan workers are starving as they could not access relief or compensation and have been unnoticed by the government. They also had very limited access to NGO relief measures. October December was the lean season for saltpan workers and subsequently they faced the disaster. They have already taken some credit from the owners and now are in difficult situation and their survival has become a challenge for the organisation. Some women who were working the dry fishing units in and around also do not find work as the units have not been functioning after the disaster.

Need assessment survey:
A participative needs assessment survey would help to find out the extent of damage, its typology and the most vulnerable people in terms of typology and most vulnerable people in terms of livelihoods. The survey will be done using PRA methods. This will also help the affected villages to carry out a social mapping for pre Tsunami days.

Identification and training of the volunteers:
Local volunteers would be appointed from the district and they would be staying along with the community members and identify their needs. The volunteers would be trained in counseling and other related subjects.

Livelihood restoration of the fishing community
As entry strategy in the project villages, TWC proposes to repair boats and out-board motors (OBMs), using the participatory survey to identify the most needy people. For boat repairing TWC will be providing a maximum amount of Rs.2,500 /- per while for OBM repairing, a maximum amount of Rs.8,000/- will be provided to each individual. It is estimated that nearly 200 boats and 250 OBMs will be need to be repaired. TNWC has identified technical persons from various boat and machine supplier companies for the repairing activity.

Many of the affected people from these villages used to go out fishing carrying their own nets, which enabled them to get a higher share of the catch. Many of the nets were destroyed but no relief is being provided to these people by the government as they had no proof of ownership of these nets. The project proposes to provide nets to some of the needy families who will be identified by the communities during the PRA exercises.

Alternative livelihoods
The women and youth would be formed into SHGs and they would be trained to take up economic activities. These opportunities would be identified from environment surveys as well as detailed discussions with the communities. For instance, women SHGs may be provided fishing gear and they would in turn rent it out to fishermen as they have direct links with them as fish vendor.

Pending building linkages with the banks, the project would provide credit to the SHGs for economic activities. The project would also build capacities of the SHG members for the new activities proposed.

Children counseling
Creches or balwadis will be run for children to improve their nutritional status and well as to provide them psycho-social counseling. This will help the children come out of the shock and to bring them in the streamline so that they will be able to lead a normal life by going school, playing etc.

d. Timeline
The activities has been planned for the period of two years; April 2005 to March 2007.

e. Outputs/Outcome

Output:

1000 dalit families will get ration support for one month
Upto 100 damaged boats will be repaired
Upto 50 out boat machines will be repaired
Upto 60 people will get nets for fishing
Nearly 400 women will be organized in to 25 Self Help groups for savings and credit activity
1 crèche will be open for children

Outcome:

Starting the process of restoration of lives and livelihood of the 1170 affected families.
The women would be formed into SHGs and would be taking up economic activities.
People will be engaged in their daily livelihood activities as their boats, nets and other required equipment would be repaired and restored.
Educational awareness would be better among the villagers and all children would be going to school.

f. Budget:
A budget of Rs.49.74 lakh has been proposed over a period of two years.

Sl No.	Activity	YEAR 1	YEAR 2	Total
1	Preliminary Survey	5,000	0	5,000
2	Volunteers Incentive (Rs.3000 X 6)	216,000	252,000	468,000
3	Dry Rations (Rs. 1000 X 1000 family)	1,000,000	0	1,000,000
4	Volunteer training (4 trng/year @ Rs. 30000)	120,000	120,000	240,000
5	Boat, OBM repairs and nets	1,000,000	0	1,000,000
6	Exchange visits	60,000	60,000	120,000
7	Revolving fund for SHGs and training in alternative livelihoods	1,250,000	0	1,250,000
8	SHG members training (4 training/year @ Rs. 10,000)	40,000	40,000	80,000
9	Women's conference	0	156,000	156,000
10	Children's Balwadi - setting up and Monthly expenses @2000	32,000	24,000	56,000
11	Children's camp	45,000	45,000	90,000
12	Administrative Expenses (Office advance, rent, travel, communication etc.)	292,000	217,000	509,000
	TOTAL	4,060,000	914,000	4,974,000

g. AIF Staff Commentary

Why fund this project?

AIF's Tsunami rehabilitation Framework

AIF's support areas	TWC's proposal	Remarks
Participatory planning & social mapping	Participatory needs assessment survey	Falls within AIF's rehab framework
Supporting the non fishing community Organising them in to groups Land reclamation Providing access to credit & skill training Skill training for alternative livelihoods	Project will organize dalit women in to Self Help Group, providing access to credit and exploring alternative livelihoods.	Falls within AIF's rehab framework
Supporting the fishing community specific to Using technology to enhance the livelihood of fishing community Women, children and youth-centered interventions	Organising women engaged in fish vending	Boat/OBM repairing and providing nets as an entry strategy
Additional relief to left out groups Trauma counseling services Short-term crèche facilities will also be supported.	Additional relief to dalit families engaged in salt pan work who were left out. Creche facilities for children	Falls within the AIF's rehab framework
Housing ( permanent) Only exceptional cases like widows & aged Influence state housing policy	Not proposed

Any concerns or challenges
Clearly, the left-out groups identified by the project need additional relief support but pending their rebuilding their lives, it is also necessary to advocate with the state to ensure their entitlements are obtained. The strategy to do this is yet unclear.

While repair of boats and OBMs is essentially an entry strategy, the financial commitment is significant and it is yet not clear what the exact amounts would work out to. The details will emerge only after the initial surveys are conducted.

The project intends to focus on women and youth as far as alternative livelihoods are concerned. However, what these alternative livelihoods will be and how the necessary capacity building and marketing inputs will be provided is yet uncertain. This will be clearer once the surveys are carried out.

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