Biju monthly report for the Month of June 2010

1. I had a meeting with Raja of theni on the 3^rd June at CESCI in-order to discuss about their meeting held at CESCI on the 22^nd May with the Tamilnadu Adivasi Land Rights Forum. He has brought the minutes of the meeting and a working plan copy that they have collectively prepared in support to Janadesh 2012 in a direction to work among the adivasis on FRA. Based on the discussion we agreed to send the same to Rajaji by email for his support to implement the activities in Tamilnadu.

2. Accompanied the research visit of Christop and Paulo from Chennai to Cochin during 15^th June to 23^rd June. The team had meetinngs with Smt. Krishnammal of LAFTI, Mr. Vinod of Aadi tamil Vidudalai Iyyakkam, visited Kallakurichi to meet released binded labours stone quarry activities, visited Konalai, Trichy to see another released bonded labour community village, had meeting with Mr. Basha and Mr. Sayed of SOCCO trust, Visited Mr. Raja of ARUDECS to see some of their adivasi working areas and finally visited Kollam, Kerala to see the black sand mining area.

3. Participated the inaugural function of Chatrapati tailoring centre. This centre is new initiative of CESCI village program to support women’s economic empowerment activities. There are 15 girls are getting training in tailoring here and other three women’s from a MHG has started a tailoring job unit to work for a garment company. Ms. Uma and Ms. Lalitha are coordinating this process.

4. As part of the CESCI village program the MHGs has decided to create a federation to strengthen their activities and have organised a one day orientation meeting at CESCI on federation building. There are 30 women leaders from 15 MHS’s participated in this meeting. Finally the team has decided to create a new Federation in the name of Ekta Sangamam and have another meeting some experts to make its guidelines. Ms. Lalitha will follow up this process in consultation with CCD Madurai and will invite Mr. Olaganathan from CCD to the next meeting.

5. The honey project in the Vemparali villages is picking up. The group has started to collect the honey from their bee colonies. We are thankful to KVIC and its Director Mr. Wakode for providing this opportunity to empower the rural community.

6. CESCI organics oil production unit is started to function now under Mr. Natarajan, the new manager. The unit has purchased about 100 bags of raw ground nut during this season and will start to produce oil from it. The unit is also working as a service centre for framers and villagers to make oil for their house hold needs. To sustain the centre the team is trying to expand the work by making oils from non-edible products like neem and some other seeds by using the second grinding machine. The neem oil and cake has high demand in the market and it will create more income to the centre and it will help to become self reliant the centre.

Biju monthly report for the month of July 2010

Report for the month of July 2010- by Biju . K

1. On the 1^st of July we had a meeting at KGNS office with Jill Behan, Ms. Sreeja, Mr. Suresh Babu and Mr. Udhyan about the work plan of EP Kerala. Sreeja was briefing her experience she had with the anti alcohol campaign. Later the group had decided to set up an eleven member EP coordination committee under the coordination of KGNS office. The group was also discussed the financial support from VOLENS Belgium and have reworked the budget in to the level of 6 lakhs and asked Mr. Suresh babu to rework the same and get approval from the KGNS committee. It was also decided to call an EP Kerala district members meeting on the 11^th of July at KGNS office.

2. On the 11^th July the EP Kerala Coordination committee had a meeting at KGNS office and have decided following.

a. About the question of having a clear Ekta Parishad structure in Kerala all of the participants have agreed to create a state council through a proper process. Without having a proper structure it is very difficult to coordinate the programs and campaigns.

b. Decided to select a seven member team as a temporary committee to set up and organize district committee and meetings. Each member is responsible for two districts and will organize committee meetings before August 15^th. After completion of these district committees there will be a get together of all district leaders and the EP state council will be created. Mr. Santhosh Malampuzha will coordinate this process.

c. It was decided to cooperate with different social groups from the state who are working on various social issues with the same goal. As Janasatyagraha 2012 require support from about 2000 organizations, it is important to get their support.

d. The committee will maintain a proper minutes book system and will translate the bylaws and other important documents in to Malayalam language.

3. On the 15^th July went to IITPD Pondychery to talk with a small group of French students about Ekta Parishad and Janasatyagraha activities. There are two students from this group has already decided to join with EP as volunteers for three months to help the organization. These two students will come to CESCI and will work some time in CESCI organics at Nagapattinam to create a business plan for CESCI organics and later they will visit different organization that work on Forest Right Act implementation and will create a report on that.

4. On the 16^th had a meeting with Mr. Palanisamy at pondychery to discuss about his interest to join with JS 2012. He has agreed to send some about 100 to 200 people from pondychery to JS 12 padayatra. I will have to work with him closely to identify the leaders because as Palanisamy is engaged in media work he doesn’t have enough time to coordinate the work of EP.

5. On the 19^th had a meeting with Raja theni and discussed about progress of the TALRM (tamilnadu adivasi land rights movement) creation process. To continue the process even without bigger funding it is important to get some small financial assistance to travel different adivasi areas.

6. On the 20^th and 22^nd I had a meeting with Mr. Nagalingam after his Bhopal conference participation. He was impressed by the visit and has more enthusiasm. He has introduced one Mr. Anadan who is the Secretary of an organization called Indian People Federation for Social Change (IPFS). Mr. Anadan has organized various nonviolent action programs in Tamilnadu against corruption and political change. He is strong believer of Ahimsa and has a capacity to mobilize people for nonviolent action programs. On the other day he introduced two other persons who work on alcohol prohibition. Mr. Bhaskaran, Sarvodhaya worker from Dindigul, Mr. Anbu a Gandhian worker from Madurai and an advocate from Dhrmapuri. I think we should call this people for a meeting with Rajaji or Ransingh ji for creating some linkage with them and EP activities.

7. On the 26^th & 27^th visited CESCI organics with the two French volunteers. Had a meeting with Natarajan the manager and with the students about their internship. The students will stay at CESCI organics for three weeks, during the time they will visit few villages and some small scale production units and will write a proposal to develop the centre in a right direction. Mr. Arul will help the volunteers to visit the villages. On the 15^th August they will come back to CESCI to meet the Secretary and will explain and also get further direction.

8. On 28^th &29^th accompanied and had discussion with a small group of Swiss friends who visited CESCI. They are very much inspired by our work and have agreed to join with CESCI Switzerland as a member. They will collect a Janadesh DVD from Kude and will show it in different forums in Switzerland were they are associated.

9. On 30^th had a short meeting with Mr. Nicco and his family who came from Switzerland to know about CESCI and its village program activities. After a discussion they joined with Lalita the village work coordinator to visit some villages nearby.

10. Apart from the above report I got involved with many things in connection with CESCI programs and campus activities. The main activities are repairing the roofs of the kitchen and meeting hall buildings. We kept aside 10 days for repairing during 5 to 15^th July and have completed the works. Campus team was very active during the repairing work process in terms of cleaning and removing the old materials. Based on the request from Kadavur village people we have given the old wooden materials to them to make use for their temple renovation work. A new parking space was created in the front part of CESCI office to avoid vehicles parking in the middle of the campus.

11. As part of the village program we have decided to organize one more bee keeping training program with the help of KVIC and have selected 30 peoples from the CESCI villages. The training will be held at CESCI during 17 to 23 august 2010.

12. Organized few meetings with Mr. David Swiss volunteer who is at CESCI right now. David is helping CESCI to develop as a model centre in terms of waste management, organic, solar power etc. David visited the Kerala to see the Ponnani land and building, and also visited Auroville pondychery to learn about various alternative systems and create linkages.

13. Organized the travel plan for Mr. Krishna the film maker in Kerala with the help of EP Kerala team

Thanks

Biju

30^th July 2010