Loneliness and Livelihood Development

Former Sunbird Trust Programme Manager Ankita Phalle writes about how she facilitated a Livelihood Development Project with the women of a small village neighboring Ijeirong- Puichi. She beautifully articulates her learnings through this experience in the following story.

When I left Bombay to start work in the Naga hills of Manipur, I had taken a huge step outside my comfort zone by giving up on the comforts of having known friends for conversations, parents to take care, sister to rave and rant to as well as the luxuries of constant electricity, good network and pipeline water. It took me about four months and a half to feel fully comfortable, accepted and be a part of the families of this remote village, Ijeirong. Having said that, the spells of loneliness still hit at times.

During one of my favorite festivals last month I was alone in Ijeirong, a place which is oblivious to Diwali celebrations. Having made enough “pampering seeking” phone calls in the past four months, I decided to disconnect myself from most people outside Manipur and forced myself to completely live and be mentally in the village during that period. And it worked like a wonder! I moved on from feeling just comfortable to really accepting my host family as my family. I now have a Grandmother, a Grandfather and an amazing set of brothers and sisters in this family. Every day starts with spending an hour in the kitchen talking about how each person plans to spend the rest of the day and ends with another hour in the kitchen around the fire discussing how the day really passed by.

Few days back, once again, Konish and Amos left me to be alone in Ijeirong.  This time I decided to step further beyond the zone I have made myself comfortable in and asked a teacher and a student to take me to a neighboring village, Puichi, to visit the women of that village. Sir Borish and Theophilis were more than happy to guide and accompany me to Puichi. This was the first time I was entering an unknown territory near Ijeirong without Amos, who has always been the one to break the ice when I meet new people and has translated for us. But apart from the heart melting conversations I got to have with Sir Borish and Theo during our hour long trek to Puichi, I also got a chance to communicate directly with the women of Puichi in the broken Inpui language that I have learned so far. And the laughing, joyful, happy faces that the women had on seeing me struggle with Inpui really made my day!

However, I was on my visit to Puichi with a task in mind. I wanted to finalize a business plan with the women. After spending 5 months with the Inpui Nagas, visiting fields and eating 2 to 3 rice meals a day, every day, I now understand that the Paddy fields in which they channel more than half of their work time throughout the year produce rice barely sufficient for the family consumption and does not create any income for them. Their agricultural sources of income are limited to few vegetable and fruit plantations. Other sources of income include opportunities for day labor in neighboring regions/ towns and teaching. At the end of this academic year, I saw that at least half of the students have a part of their fees due and as much as 54 students out of the 470 could not pay their fees at all. Thus, a strong need was felt for creating opportunities for women to empower themselves and generate more income to be able to afford education and basic improvements in their lifestyle. And that’s a project Sunbird Trust has allowed me to undertake. To create micro business plans with women of 7 neighboring villages of Ijeirong and start a livelihood development project. And that’s what I did. Finalised the business plan for 2 groups of women in Puichi who are now so excited to kick off their small businesses that they gifted me Mustard leaves..because er, they cannot afford any other gifts.

This is the best part of the space I get to work in. Communicate, observe, research, ideate and create opportunities to help empower lives in one of the most ignored regions of India. And the number of crazy ideas my team has come up with in the last one week is going to make me stay back here for longer. Dear Manipur, our chapter has only just begun and is nowhere near the end.

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But just after I finished writing this post, I read these words in a book I am currently reading and all the inspiration I had created for myself in the last two days pretty much went down the drain. Haha.

I am living a funny life up here with contrasting emotions every hour of the day. And I could not have asked for a better platform to learn and work.