FST

"This process, facilitated by the North East Network ("NEN), a leading rights based organisation, resulted in the realisation of a definite and distinct need for a local institution and the consequent setting up of Foundation for Social Transformation – a foundation for enabling new and creative energies to socially transform the strife torn region."

Dr Monisha Behal
Chairperson
North East Network
Guwahati

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G. Lalthanzami

Ms. Lalthanzami from Aizawl, Mizoram runs a small organization called Grassroots Development Network which works primarily with women who are victims of violence and abuse. The organization runs a Shelter Home for VAW victims and women who have been abandoned by their families. The women are provided temporary shelter after which they are encouraged to look for jobs according to their capacities, in order to become economically independent and live a life free from violence.

Ms. Lalthanzami herself is a survivor of violence and drug abuse who is now working with women who are similarly suffering. She was given an FST fellowship for the first time for the project “Training and Empowerment of Marginalized Women affected by VAW in Aizawl”. The fellowship was aimed primarily at building her own capacities in speaking and writing English, and computer skills. She had also acquired a computer for her office with the fellowship.

Encouraged by the positive changes brought about by the fellowship in Ms. Lalthanzami’s overall personality development – today she is a confident woman with considerably improved verbal communication skills and competencies in using the computer and internet – she was given a second fellowship to start income generation activities for women affected by violence in Mizoram.

Information
Project Name: 
To establish a piggery farm for women survivors of violence in Aizawl, Mizoram
Project Description: 

This FST supported project aims to create income generation opportunities for women affected by violence and abuse. Some of the women in the target group were previously inmates of the shelter home run by Ms. Lalthanzami’s organization Grassroots Development Network (GDN). All the women who are the target group for this project are victims of violence.

Piggery farming as an income generating activity has good potential in Mizoram, where pigs are in great demand for their meat. Lalthanzami has purchased five female piglets with the FST fellowship and constructed a pigsty on a piece of land that belongs to an acquaintance of hers, at Sihhmui on the airport road. A sixth piglet (a male) was purchased by her using her own resources. The piglets are being taken care of by the family of a woman who herself was an inmate of GDN’s Shelter Home. They are a poor migrant family, skilled in pig rearing, who work as agricultural labourers on the landowner’s land, where they have their small house.

Meanwhile, Lalthanzami has started the process of formation of SHGs of women who are victims of violence, at Aizawl. She strongly believes that mere formation of SHGs is not sufficient unless the members are trained well in concepts of leadership, group work, how to run an income generating activity etc. Her focus is thus to train them well before they take up piggery farming as an activity.

Lathanzami’s plan is to expand her piggery farm through breeding of the sows and selling and distributing the piglets that are born(based on their gene and health, she estimates 35 piglets from the 5 sows). In the first cycle, the money obtained by selling 25 of these piglets will be used to reinvest and run the expenses of the Shelter Home. Of the remaining piglets, five will be distributed to the newly formed SHG which will then start piggery farming as an income generation activity on its own; and five will be retained for the keeper to continue with the activity. Lalthanzami estimates that as the piggery farm will expand, she will support more number of SHGs in the subsequent cycles.

In this manner Lalthanzami’s piggery farm will usher in a new dawn by creating alternative livelihood opportunities for women who are survivors of violence, abuse and neglect.

Thematic Area: 
Natural Resource Management and linked Livelihoods
Project duration: 
6 months
Amount: 
96000
Year: 
2009
Address: 
Grassroots Development Network, VA-46, Zohnuai, Vaivakawn-796009, Aizwal, Mizoram
State: 
Mizoram
Email: 
zami.lt0@gmail.com, grassrootdn@yahoo.co.in
Phone: 
9862380306