Canada IndiaVillage AidFostering self-help and economic innovation in rural India

Winter 2006

Letter from the Chair

We read recently of the new “competitivephilanthropy” and wondered if Canada IndiaVillage Aid qualified for any of the largesse. We

approve of all this sudden goodness in the world—atleast we think we do. Film and rock stars doing their bit tohelp the poor in impover ished countries; software moguls andfamous fund managers (even a lotion shop tycoon) challengingone another to act on philanthropist Henry Ford’s maxim thatto die rich is to die in disgrace. Who could have imagined thisModel T notion of the good life rolling back into fashion?

Here at CIVA, of course, we’ve felt philanthropy has beenhot for at least a quarter of a century, so we commend themedia for drawing attention to the growing trend of people“giving back” to the less fortunate by way of cash donations orin volunteering their time to serve on boards of non-profits.We understand there’s actually a new mating game calculatedto match donors with the right charities (subscribed to, literallyperhaps, by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt).

As a Globe and Mail article put it, in a way we would neverhave thought to mention to our donors a couple of decadesback, “Good is getting really sexy.”

Why the evolution to sexy? For a non-profit like CIVA,which counts among our assets a proven account ability, wethink the answer lies partly in the notion of philanthropyacquiring marketable cachet. “The market starts to account avalue for good”—an advocate of the new business model isquoted as saying—“especially at a time when maybe there’s alack of confidence in the pen of government setting things in acertain direction.”

Indeed, a non-governmental organization like CIVA—with no salaries and almost no administrative costs—has a service tosell, and this service is an acquired expertise in funding smallstrategic projects determined to make a difference in pitifullypoor areas of rural India. That is where your financial donations go. To help educate, care for, and empower the dispossessed in a country where the perception abroad and even at home isthat India’s vaunted recent economy has made a differ ence tohundreds of millions of poor people.

It has not.

And there is nothing sexy about poverty.

Still, we are happy to jump on the band wagon ofevolutionary corporate thinking, if it invites attention to whatwe do, even when it suggests the cause of poverty has theproduct-potential of real estate.

“Philanthropy is now a commodity, of sorts,” ventured theGlobe article. “Just as you would shop for the right house, youshop for the right outlet for all that good you have ready tobust out.” It sounds sort of euphoric.

But who is CIVA to gainsay the commodification ofphilanthropy? We are ready, willing and able to be yourcharitable outlet of choice… and here provide a convenientform to choose your tax-deductible donation. (See inside backcover)

Our newsletter also provides three directors’accounts of recent visits to projects inRajasthan, Gujurat and Uttarkhand. Their

stories remind us how travel to India invariablyre invigorates our commitment there. Some years ago, duringanother visit by board members to a village in Rajasthan,village women had gathered at a monthly meeting to discussmatters of interest to their newly formed collective.

We sat down with them on a hilltop, from which we couldsee very clearly and for many miles a semi-arid landscape that had once been the bottom of an ancient sea. Reforestation

was occurring on a distant hill. A tall, striking woman then rose to her feet and proudly told us that because of our support thewomen here today had “found their place on the carpet.”

What she meant by this was they no longer had to sit on the ground, i.e. off the carpet, where traditionally they had listenedto their men folk who enjoyed the exclusive right to sit on thecarpet and thus to speak. The collective had given thesewomen the courage to speak up and to take their own place on the carpet. They had found their voices. This image of thecarpet stayed with us. By their acknowledgment of CIVA’ssupport of literacy and health and environmentalprograms—programs overseen by Seva Mandir, our Indianpartner among villages in Rajasthan— these women haddramatically taught us of the social changes we were helping toachieve.

Meanwhile, as we welcome new board member EleanorStacey (see bio opposite) we say goodbye to an old one.Russell Wodell served CIVA for many years as secretary

and as co- chair, and he edited and designed many newsletters.(Indeed, so indispensable were his desk-topping skills that weasked him to help out with this newsletter.) We are deeplygrateful to Russell for all his voluntary work and wish him well in his other editorial and authorial roles.

Russell was recruited to our board by the founders ofCIVA, the late George and Inge Woodcock, and shared withthem their anarchist ideal of mutual aid, which stresses thatsimplicity and practicality in funding self-help ventures shouldnever be confused with inefficiency and lack of vision. Theopposite, in fact, seems true. Our social capital as an efficientco-operative group has always helped us to attract the otherkind of capital entrusted by you, our donors. We are veryappreciative of your ongoing support in keeping alive theWoodcocks’ ideal of mutual aid at Canada India Village Aid.

Incidentally, we have some paintings and artifacts left overfrom our sale of art bequeathed to CIVA by the Woodcocks. If you are looking for Christmas gifts, or something to buyyourself, inquire at 604-734-1433. There are two John Koerner canvases, for example, a Toni Onley water colour, and variousworks by Pat O’Hara, Alistair Bell, Don Jarvis, Jack Wise, andothers. And we have Christmas cards, if you hurry: packets of10 each for $5; five packets for $20. Each card bears a reindeerwood engraving by Alistair Bell encircled by the words“Christmas Greetings” (blank inside).

Best wishes from CIVA for 2007.

—Keath Fraser

3

Fertile Ground: East/West Sustainability Network

by Peggy Carswell

Fertile Ground was established in 2003 to respond to a growing interest in sustainable agricultural practices in Assam. Its outreachactivities in Assam have been funded in part by revenues from afair-trade tea project established on Vancouver Island in 2001. In 2004-2005, a contribution from CIVA supported FertileGround’s work with farmers, tea growers, self-help groups,educators and agricultural extension staff in several towns andvillages in Upper Assam. New resource materials in the Assamese language were developed, and a larger and better-informednetwork of participants in India and in Canada was established.

Over the past 10 years, many farming families in ruralAssam have shifted away from producing food fortheir own use and are turning to market gardening

and tea cultivation as a means of increasing their annualincome. Focussing their efforts on growing a single crop

such as tea, cabbage, or tomato offered growers hope forhigher returns and the possibility of generating more income, but for many families the results have not been what theyexpected.

Intensive agricultural practices rely on expensive chemical pesticides and fertilizers that damage natural soil fertility andreduce numbers of beneficial insects. Hybrid variety fruit and vegetable varieties may transport well and be suitable forstorage, but are generally lower in nutrients and flavour.Unlike open-pollinated, local varieties, the seed of hybridplants does not reproduce true to the parent plant and newseed must be purchased each year.

In many villages, lured by the high prices paid for tealeaves in the early 1990s, productive kitchen gardens, orangegroves and grazing lands have been replaced by tidy rows oftea bushes. This has significantly reduced the amount of food produced for the family, and because women don’t marketthe commercial crops, it has also decreased women’s controlover their family’s income and food supply.

Those at greatest risk are the households with limited land and labour, no other options for their livelihood, andinsufficient savings to carry them through a fallow perioduntil cash crops start generating a profit.

Growing Healthy Families is a new program whichwill provide support to poor and marginalized women livingin the Tinsukia district of Assam. Participating women willbuild new skills, develop greater self-confidence and exploreways to diversify and increase their family income.

The program will be closely linked to Adarsh SeujPrakalpa, a community demonstration garden located inDigboi, a small town located approximately 400 miles east of the state capital. This beautiful, two-acre garden wasestablished last year through the combined efforts of FertileGround, members of the local Rotary Club, and a group ofenthusiastic volunteers of all ages from the nearbyneighbourhood.

New Board Member: Eleanor StaceyEleanor Stacey is an arts administration professional who hasworked in management, creative, and fundraising capacitiesfor a number of arts organizations in Canada, Germany, NewYork City, and the Caribbean.

Originally from Nelson, BC, she has a background inyouth theatre education, having taught drama privately inNelson and later founded the Apple Theatre Company, asummer youth theatre program, on the island of Anguilla inthe British West Indies. In New York City she worked with anumber of companies, including New York City Opera, theRound about Theatre, Theatre Communications Group, andClassic Stage Company.

Since returning from the States in 2005, she has been theDirector of Development at the Vancouver East CulturalCentre. Eleanor is a graduate of Mount Allison University and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

With CIVA’s support, a new resource centre andlibrary is expected to be completed and furnished later this year. Funds will go towards purchase of resource materials, books, audio-visual equipment and a (quiet!) generatorwhich will enable trainers to provide informa tion towomen living in villages some distance from the sitewhere power is not available. Training and a number ofvolunteer and employment opportunities will also beavailable at the project site.

With CIVA and Fertile Ground’s support, GrowingHealthy Families will provide women with:

¤ training, encouragement, tools and ideas which willenable them to re-establish their kitchen (home)gardens

¤ inspiration and ideas from community garden projectsin place in other regions in India as well as othercountries, including Canada

¤ assistance in locating and establishing communitygarden plots

¤ access to open-pollinated seed varieties well-suited tolocal growing conditions, and techniques for properlysaving and storing seeds for next year’s garden

¤ hands-on training in use and production of plant-basedformulas, compost and other natural soil amendments

¤ opportunities to meet with individual women andwomen’s self-help groups from a number ofcommunities in and around the Digboi area

¤ tools, skills and a display area that will help them marketbedding plants, seeds, soil amendments, and otheragricultural products

¤ encouragement to design, produce and markethandcrafted items that could be sold locally as well as inconjunction with fairly-traded, organic teas currentlybeing sold in western Canada

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5

MARAG: Residential Hostel for Maldhari Children

Maldharis are a migratory com munity in Gujarat whoearn their livelihood by selling milk from theiranimals. Tradi tion ally they were shepherds tending

goats and sheep, but given the present realities of the milkmarket, they have now switched to cows and buffaloes.Inter est ingly, they are strict vegeta rians who find it culturally abhorrent to sell their animals for meat.

They are a poor but gentle people, whose distinct way oflife is seri ously threatened by the march of econ omic andenviron mental changes around them. Common pastures areshrink ing quickly, and competition from the organizeddairy industry has created problems for the viability ofMaldhari means of survival. So far Mal d haris have survivedby making co operative arrangements with farm ers whoallow Maldhari ani mals to graze on their harvested fields inexchange for their manure. Even this avenue is be comingincreasingly scarce, as farm ers in Gujarat begin to rely moreand more on inor ganic ferti lizers—a phe no menon ac cent u -ated by cor pora ti za tion of farm ing in Gujarat. Like so manymigra tory com munities across the world, Maldharis are now fast ap proach ing the extinction of their way of living.

Nothing about Lalji Desai would reveal his Maldharipast except the affection with which he is greeted in everyvillage. Instead of a colourful chunidar and dhoti, he wears awhite khadi shirt and jeans, like a journalist in Ahmed abad.A once prominent and bushy Maldhari mous tache has givenway to the trim one of an Indian army captain. It is hard tobelieve that not too long ago he was tending cattle in aSuren dranagar village with the rest of them. Maldhari maleshave a literacy rate of 11%; Lalji is one of the very few toreceive a university edu cation. Instead of venturing into thegreener pastures that his education had opened up for him,he has given all his energy to the local NGO called MARAG (‘path’ in Gujarati) started by his future wife Neeta for thebetter ment of the Maldhari commun ity.

They have not had an easy life together. Neeta is hisprofessor’s daughter—and a Brahmin. Such a match couldnot have been accepted by either com mun ity. Now, at leastthe Maldhari com munity seems to have come to terms withthis radical break with tradition. Lalji has won their heartsthrough his incessant efforts to fight on their behalf. Notonly has he been forgiven, but he is their favourite son—arole model that they want their children to emulate. Whenasked why he cared to educate his children, a villager withhuge brass earrings told me that “then they can grow up tobe like Lalji.”

As we sat cross-legged on the mud floor in the Head -man’s hut that we shared with a calf, I asked each of themwhy they cared about educating their children. After all,herding cattle across the land required no skills a schoo l -teacher was capable of impart ing. In fact, having a boy or agirl in school means less help with herd ing.

And on top of that, the parents have to pay school expenseswhich take quite a bite out of meagre budgets. Yet they werealmost unanimous in stressing the importance of education.

“When you are educated, you can stand up for your rights,and govern ment officials don’t bully you,” said some. I couldnot resist play ing the Devil’s advocate: “But if your child renreceive education, they will go to the city and become cityfolk,” I responded. “They will forget your culture. Does thatnot bother you?”

The eldest among the villagers chose to answer myquestion. “Things are changing whether we like it or not.Educa tion will help our children to survive, and survive theymust. We don’t mind if our children get other, dignified jobs.Look at Lalji. He does not disgrace our culture. He makes usproud.”

What surprised me was that they were not only keen tospend on the education of their own children but also on thoseof others in the com munity who could not afford it them -selves. Some Maldharis own land and are only part-timefarmers; they seem quite willing to share their slightly higherincomes for the sake of educat ing the next generation.

The migratory lifestyle is of course a huge obstacle toschool ing. In India, merely ensuring that a teacher will showup regu larly to a village school is itself an up hill task. It is quiteun feasible to ask a teacher to migrate with the group, teachingchildren along the way. The only real istic solution is a resi dent -ial hostel, run by the Mal dharis them selves, so the children donot feel alienated from the whole traditional experience.Without the provision of a safe hostel, there is little chance thatparents will allow their daughters to attend a distant school.MARAG has asked CIVA to help establish a residential hostel,to be run by tea chers picked from the thin layer of edu catedMaldharis. MARAG will then be able to approach the Gujaratgovernment for an annual grant, but tressed by a con tributionfrom the community, which should make the project self- sustaining within two years. Chil d ren will attend a regulargovern ment school but will live in the hostel, where they willtend animals donated by the Maldhari com munity, thus prac -ticing tradi tion al skills while con tri buting resources to thehostel. Their culture, in the form of music and dance, will bean integral part of their life in the hostel. There will be someeffort to dispel the hold of some of the more pernicioussuperstitions.

Lalji was quite eloquent about his dream: “I would hate tosee our cul ture die. It is a noble culture, which values helpingthose in need. During the communal riots of 2002, it was Mal -dharis who dared to protect local Muslims.

“But, of course, our culture is also riddled with super -stitions we need to root out. My goal is to pre serve the goodaspects of this cu lture while educating our children.”

CIVA’s mission is to help people like Lalji realize theirdreams.

—Ashok Kotwal

Project Monitoring: Seva Mandirand MARAGby Catherine Strickland

“You’re going to Indiain May? Are you

crazy?”

This was the reaction to myproposed trip from anyone whoknows India. It was not until I

had purchased my ticket, with noway of backing out, that I fullyunderstood the concern: in May theaverage temperature in most places inIndia is well over 40°C. As my luckwould have it, my 2006 visitcoincided with a heat wave,temperatures soar ing above 45°C onmost days. I was still not worried.Neeta Pandya, the founder ofMARAG, had promised that shewould take care of me. So off I went,carrying the flimsiest clothes I couldfind, and entertaining a faint hope thatair conditioning might have spreadthroughout India since I was last therein 1998. (Ha.)

My trip’s purpose was to conductthe final evaluation of CIVA’s firstproject with MARAG, and to visitanother long-time CIVA partner,Seva Mandir, to discuss theopportunity for a rural insuranceproject in its area. My first stop wasUdaipur. Swati, who is in charge ofthe health program at Seva Mandir,welcomed me warmly (so to speak).

Like every other CIVArepresentative who has visited, I wasvery impressed with Seva Mandir’sculture and the extent of itsprogrammes in the outlying villages.There is a remarkable culture ofopenness, respect, and creativity thatencour ages staff to challengeassumptions, take chances with newprojects, and listen openly to criticismand different perspectives. This allowsthem to be one of the more effectiveand respected development agencies in India.

I visited the villages of Madri andSagwara. In Madri, Seva Mandirrecently established a Youth ResourceCentre (YRC) where children haveaccess to resources on sexual health,education, human rights, and equality.In addition, the centre has a computerso that children can learn relevantskills. The main goal of the YRC is toempower youth so that they can avoidbeing exploited or forced into childlabour situations. Perhaps mostimportantly, it provides a forum foryouth to meet and discuss issues thataffect their lives.

I had a brief meeting with severalvillage representatives to talk about the impact of the sanitation project funded by CIVA. We provide 50% of the cost of constructing bathrooms for villagers. The project is led by village women’sgroups, and participants contributetheir portion of the cost in the form of labour and materials or cash.

The three key benefits of thewashrooms are:

¤ Women get fewer infectionsbecause they can bathe moreoften.

¤ Women and the elderly no longerhave to walk an hour or more to find a place to go to the bathroom or tobathe.

¤ The village environment is improved because excrement is contained,reducing transmission of disease.

Next I flew to Ahmedabad, whereMARAG has its head office. Weimmediately set off for the area

known as Kutch, where CIVA funded its first project with MARAG. Kutch is theregion hit by the earthquake in 2001 andis an extremely harsh desert environment. We passed a few villages that have beenabandoned because the houses hadcollapsed and the new housing providedby relief agencies did not appear safe tothe villagers.

Altogether I visited four of the 10villages in which MARAG is working onbehalf of CIVA. The first we reached byfollowing vehicle track marks in thedesert—there was nothing resembling aroad!

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7

Here villagers earn a living manufacturing charcoal andraising livestock. Women in brightly coloured saris contrastsharply with the brown earth, buildings and vegetation.

My first meeting was with one of the Bal Panchayats orchildren’s councils. The children were shy but were eventuallyencouraged to tell me about their experience with the BalPanchayat. Before the intervention by MARAG, only 5 of the59 children registered at the local school actually attended.Now, 25 to 30 students attend on a regular basis.

In addition the children— particularly the girls—feel more confident, partly as a result of their opportunities to leave thevillage on field trips to expand their awareness of issues in theirregion. Parents are proud of their children’s participation in the Bal Panchayats and report improvements in school attendance,cleanliness, and empathy for each other, as well as a markedreduction in childhood illness.

Through its partnership with CIVA, MARAG has initiatedBal Panchayats in each of the 10 villages, conducted enrollment drives in 218 villages, hosted children’s fairs, parent workshops, health camps, street theatre, teachers’ workshops, and festivalcelebrations. Workshops for parents help them to understandthe value of education and provide a forum to discuss anyconcerns about their children’s schooling. This informationcompelled one family to call back a son who had been sent toMumbai as a labourer and enroll him in school.

In another family, MARAG’s intervention prevented achild marriage by showing the mother the potential value ofher daughter’s future through education.

MARAG has encouraged other families to send fivechildren on to higher education in a village over 100kilometers away.

The teachers’ workshops have had thepractical result of improving teachers’attendance at school, now monitored moreactively by villagers. Health camps haveaddressed the issues of malaria, malnutrition, sanitation, water chlorination, and vitamins.Children’s fairs and festival celebrationsencourage children to play and inform them about their rights to play, education, healthand security. These are just a few examplesof the improvements the project is makingin the lives of young children.

Our project has had many successes, andCIVA looks forward to continuing tosupport the excellent work that MARAG isdoing. Last summer, MARAG was chosento lead, coordinate, and provide fiscalmanagement for the flood relief efforts of 21 agencies working in Surat.

CIVA is especially pleased to beworking with such respected partnersas Seva Mandir and MARAG.

Children’s fairs and festivalcelebrations encourage children to

play and inform them about theirrights to play, education, health and

security. These are just a fewexamples of the improvements the

project is making in the lives ofyoung children.

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Tamil Nadu Foundationby Sarah McAlpine and Keath Fraser

CIVA is now into its second year of a five-year projectwith the Tamil Nadu Foundation headquartered inChennai (www.tnftnc.org). This project is our response tothe devastation wrought by the tsunami in the southernstate of Tamil Nadu. Through the reputable TNF, we are sponsoring 50 children who live in the rural districts ofThiruvallur and Nagercoil and who lost parents in thetsunami. Our project is to see these children throughtrauma counselling, completion of high school, and entryinto either university or the equivalent in technicaltraining.

Over the last year a careful identification and trackingof 53 needy children was carried out by severaleducational and rehabilitation trusts charged by the TamilNadu Foundation to provide them with a monthlyassistance. Ranging in age from 8 to 17, these childrenattend elementary and secondary schools; there are alsofive mentally handicapped children who do not attendschool but who require sponsorship.

A number of the original children have since acceptedhelp from other sources, or else moved away, and so have been replaced by a dozen new participants so that TNFmeets the requirements of its sponsorship program withCIVA.

As well as receiving requests for financial assistance fromthe new children, the foundation is also enter taining requests“to provide LP gas stoves facilities to 20 Anganwadis, newlybuilt after the old ones were washed off by the tsunami inDecember 2004.” (This kind of request for householdassistance is not unusual among sponsorship plans governedby the needs of the resident children.)

Our partner is also hoping to help set up two tuitioncentres on behalf of 20 students who require special coachingto secure a pass in “the 10th Public Exam during April 2007.A pass in the 10th Std is a must for getting recognized [before ] taking up higher studies and for undergoing trade training”as masons, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters.

In such ways does an educational project with a trustedNGO evolve: not always predictably, and yet predictablydetermined to afford faithful sponsorship to some of India’sleast fortunate children.

FERRY: Foundation for EconomicRehabilitation of Rural Youth

Our second project with FERRY, an all-volunteerNGO located in Kolkata, has helped to financethe on-going vocational training and examination

of rural youth in the village of Khanyan, West Bengal,in these skills: 1) the manufacture of jute handicrafts; 2)the machine knitting of woolen garments; and 3) repair and maintenance of two-wheel vehicles (this training in the village of Baidyapur).

Results of the six-month machine-knitting course(conducted five days a week) show that among the 30trainees selected, seven candidates dropped out. WhileFERRY is concerned about the rate of drop-outs at the Khanyan project site, it is also encouraged by the veryhigh level of expertise attained by tribal women in thiscourse, as evidenced by the grades awarded. Moreover,as many as a dozen trainees went on to buy their ownknitting machines. Also worth mentioning is the factthat external examiners for the course were ex-traineesof FERRY who have become very successful machineknitting entrepreneurs in their own right.

Still on-going and to be completed in January 2007, the course in the manufacture of jute handicraftsincludes two dozen trainees (selected from 27applicants). It is conducted six days a week.

When the selection of candidates for these trainingcourses occurred in 2006, examinations of the traineescompleting courses in CIVA’s first joint project withFERRY also occurred. These were exams in 1)comprehensive tailoring; 2) repair of electronicappliances; and 3) the on-going repair and maintenance of two-wheel vehicles.

Of the 10 students who completed the course inrepair of electronic appliances over 196 classes, at least 6 are now engaged in the trade and 4 of them have set up independent businesses.

Finally, the reported outcome of the comprehensive tailoring course is particularly interesting, because ittypifies the honesty that CIVA board members who’vevisited FERRY have come to expect from this NGOin ensuring responsible results.

Thirty trainees were interviewed for the course, and 20 were selected. Fifteen appeared for theend-of-course examination. Comment: “The courseinitially planned for twelve months was extended bytwo months after the trainees performed poorly in theend-of-course exam conducted on March 12, 2006.Another exam conducted on June 16, 2006 also foundthe trainees deficient in most of the skills they wereexpected to have acquired during the duration of thecourse. It seems that certain deficiencies in the teaching method led to these shortcomings on the part of thetrainees, all of whom had regularly attended the classes.It must also be admitted that this course could not bemonitored as rigorously as it should have been, owingchiefly to a grievous road accident suffered by theFERRY member-in-charge, Sri Madhab PrasadGanguly, as a result of which he was confined to bedrest for three months. FERRY has decided to conducta remedial capsule course financed by its own funds bythe end of 2006. In the interim, no certificates will beawarded to the trainees.”

These last observations speak to the difficulties offield training in the developing world, where, althoughmuch is accomplished with a relatively modest amountof money, the problems of efficiency and accountability remain very real ones. We are pleased FERRYrecognizes the responsibility of its mandate to turn outwell-trained young people in West Bengal and isprepared to guarantee this.

—Keath Fraser

9

CHIRAG Update

I begin each of my monitoring trips toCHIRAG with keen anticipation andend up exhausted.

First there is the usual “googly”(cricket terminology, since this is India)somewhere on the overnight trainjourney to Kathgodam—so it’s importantto expect the unexpected. This time, Iwas dropped at the wrong Delhi station by my taxidriver, and, after making a mad rush through aspectacular late night traffic jam to the right station, Ifound myself sharing a train compartment with threecharming ladies going on a spiritual retreat.

Sunrise over the plains is beautiful. And I am metagain by Shafique. (My rudimentary language skills andhis thick accent make it a quiet two-hour drive to Sitla.) First comes the view of the Nanda Devi range, beforethe cloud sea ascends. This is followed by our arrival inSitla.

I took the opportunity to spend my first morningwith Rajesh Thadani, a former Executive Director whois now on the governing body of CHIRAG. He gentlyreeducated me on our ongoing project, a transitionprogram to transfer all aspects of the integratedcommunity development projects in the Sitla andKasialekh watersheds, to the communities in thosewatersheds.

CHIRAG’s expectation is that oncethis transition is completed, its teamcan put its efforts into other watersheds in the mountain regions of Uttarkhandstate where poverty is still endemic.

After that it was on to my hosts andCHIRAG’s founders, Kanai andLakshmi Lall. From them I received

more wonderful hospitality in their peaceful retreat, andfurther information about CHIRAG’s ongoing activities and dedicated people. As the chair of the governingbody, Kanai continues to be a significant influence onthe region’s communities, contributing a sensitive andstrategic vision to the organization.

Finally, a couple of long days at the new CHIRAGoffice, working closely with V. K. Madhavan, thequietly efficient Executive Director, and his field andadministrative staff. After struggling to record copiousamounts of information, I have once again appreciatedthe dedication of the people of CHIRAG, noting howeffectively they work in difficult and sometimes adverseconditions to improve people’s lives.

— Essop Mia

Kania Lall with formerCIVA chairGenise Gill

Canada India Village Aid is an independent non-profitsociety based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and

active since 1981. CIVA collaborates with agencies and organizations working in rural India in various fieldsof

development,e ducation, health care, andenvironmental concern, particularly concerning

women and tribal peoples. Our guiding principle is tofoster self-help and self-reliance.

Board of Directors:Judy Brown, Keath Fraser, Ashok Kotwal, Sophie Low-Beer, SarahMcAlpine, Essop Mia, Amir Mitha, Hashim Mitha, Tony Phillips,Eleanor Stacey, Catherine Strickland, Hari Varshney

Sponsors:Margaret Atwood, George Bowering, Nizar Damji, Arthur Erickson,James George, Ronald McQueen, George McWhirter, Gordon Smith,David Suzuki, Howard White, Anna Wyman

edited and designed by Russell Wodell

photos supplied by Peggy Carswell, Catherine Strickland, Jim LaBounty, and our partners in rural India

Here is my donation to CIVA’s important work in rural India.

I enclose a cheque made out to Canada India Village Aid in the amount of:___ $25 ___ $50 ___$75 I would prefer to donate $__________.

all donations are tax-creditable

Name ______________________________________________________________

Address ______________________________________________________________

City __________________________________________ Postal Code __________

Canada India Village Aid (CIVA)1822 West 2nd Avenue

Vancouver BC Canada V6J 1H9 wwww.civaid.ca

LOSTTOUCH

Generous donors have goneMISSING. Recognizable by

their concern for therural poor of INDIA andtheir fragile economy.If found, please notify

CANADA INDIA VILLAGE AID.

REWARD: improved karma &

the gratitude of some of the world’s least fortunate communities.