Arangaon Village
16 September 2005

Yesterday, the 15 September 2005 marked Prithvi’s first anniversary of work in Arangaon village, Ahmednagar District, Maharashtra, India. One year ago Prithvi opened our first office in the village with a prayer and a vision, and commenced recruiting volunteers.

Most NGOs start with funding and have a specific, fairly limited project in mind. They open an office, buy equipment, hire professionals and start handing out expertise, education or services. Theirs is a hierarchical approach of giving to their target population. What actually reaches the grass roots, in terms of money, materials, or services, is often limited.

Prithvi started from the opposite position: our vision has been empowerment of rural communities to address the issues that challenge them and to move successfully into the 21st century on their own terms. We wanted to be in the villages as partners in change, not imposers of values. We wanted to understand the village experience.

We had no regular funding source tagged, but were determined to survive on donations from people who believed in our concept while we got started and proved the validity of our model. We wanted all the money we had to go to the project – toward the empowerment of the participant villagers and their infrastructure needs. Sharmi and I agreed, therefore, that we would forgo our own salaries until we were established and regular funding was coming in. The whole project would exist on a shoestring.

A primary concern that catalyzed us to begin the village implementation as fast as possible, even if we had no funding, was the increasing spread of HIV / AIDS into the countryside. Every village had HIV positive cases and AIDS deaths. Tales of starving widows and orphaned children and massive suffering reached us on a regular basis. Arangaon had experienced several AIDS death and much suffering and confusion. Balu Salunke, a villager and co-founder of Project Positive HOPE, had been pressuring Ann to use her expertise and “do something.” Ann had responded by starting Project Positive HOPE in January, 2004. Sharmila Brahmbhatt invited the project to join Prithvi in February, 2004. Ann & Sharmi spent the next 6 months developing the Prithvi vision and preparing for the launch.

Over the course of the last 1 1/2 years, the original visions of Prithvi and PPH have been refined, expanded and integrated. We realized that to work effectively in the HIV epidemic actually meant a sea change in attitude on the part of the community members themselves, as well as health care professionals, bureaucrats, politicians, and everyone involved. To face the epidemic would demand communities empowered to take action, to address difficult questions such as sex, alcohol and gambling, to clean themselves up, expand their economic base, and move into the 21st century. People had to learn to be partners in managing a long-term, chronic condition that placed enormous stress on families, and brought out stigma and fear in communities.

We gradually saw the HIV epidemic as a catalyst of deeper change, rather than a medical event. The core of our program, then, needed to be community empowerment, not medical facilities, medical training and medicines, although those, too are a vital component of our approach.

Our first project, after recruiting 10 volunteers from Arangaon and 10 from Mulashi Taluka, was to train them in basic HIV awareness and send them out to talk to their fellow villagers. From those volunteers a core office staff was chosen. The aim all along was to support the villagers themselves in taking responsibility for the projects undertaken, rather than impose a structure from outside. Ann and Sharmi were there to help and train and advise; they were there to run things.

No one had ever put such trust in the villagers before, and there was a long and painful period of testing and trial and error. Funding continued to remain skeletal – every rupee was counted and horded. Again and again costs had to be cut. The village was suspicious and every staff member and volunteer was confronted and challenged by family, neighbors, friends and adversaries. Few understood why the team would want to work for an organization that was paying them peanuts and asking them to do things like talk about a filthy disease and clean up other people’s shit. Even the team themselves questioned why they had to do such things.

They developed a weekly meeting format early on in their evolution and gradually they began to use it to voice concerns and objections, confront each other, to disagree, to debate direction. They are willing to say anything there and to stay with issues until resolved. This meeting became the core of their evolution, growth and change.

In the course of their personal growth, all sorts of habit patterns emerged and had to be confronted. Habits, such as drinking and fighting, lying and backbiting, had to be faced. The village is a hotbed of continual quarrels and disputes, and these also impacted on Prithvi, as staff members had to find ways to keep working together, even if families were feuding or applying pressure to quit. They had to develop ways of resolving these constant pressures.

Yesterday, one year later, the answers burned from 18 pairs of eyes. There was a fire of love and compassion in that room that will not be quenched by anyone or anything. Each volunteer spoke of their own growth and change over this most difficult first year. All had learned what it meant to be COMMITTED – something no one had asked them for before. Their life has a real and deep meaning now – they are working for their village and their people – for the suffering and those with no voice. Each has responsibilities to carry out – projects they are responsible for. And they have the skills and the determination to carry them out. They can plan and budget and write reports and run an office with many activities going on. They can deal effectively with authority figures, whether from their village or the government, or Prithvi management. They can present their projects and attract participants. They can successfully fund-raise from villages where everyone was convinced no one would part with 1 rupee.

The Prithvi women spoke of how they had found their voice. All spoke of the lonely path that is a woman’s lot in India: of not being taken seriously, not being heard, having no friends or close ones, of being stuck in a narrow existence with no options. Of seeing themselves as having no worth, no voice, nothing meaningful to contribute. Today the “voiceless” ones are talking to anyone who will listen: students, community meetings, women’s gatherings, social work students, and migrant workers. They are marching in AIDS Day demonstrations. They are traveling to Chennai to participate in an international conference. They are writing and acting in street plays that get their message across at the village level. They know they have something to say and they say it. They see their worth.

Prithvi is one of the few organizations I – Ann - know where HIV negative people work side by side with HIV positive people, with neither discrimination nor special treatment. Prithvi has crossed caste lines, economic and social boundaries, professional barriers, and brought together those in the village who value an empowered heart over a quick rupee. The team welcomes those who want to contribute, no matter what their background.

It was necessary to start with no funding, we realize now. The value of empowerment and of service has to be established in the villages we enter. That value is eclipsed if people believe that there is money to be made. Prithvi has had to fight an image of a “cash cow” during our inaugural year. Once the empowerment torch has been lit, then money can be used appropriately. This lesson was brought home to us by visits to several villages that have made profound changes in their lot, financing their projects themselves, and doing their own work. Now they hold their heads high, and their changes are lasting and cannot be wiped out. This is a lesson of inestimable value.

At the end of the birthday, team members expressed their wish for the next year of Prithvi development. They want to take the Prithvi model to every village in the district, with each program growing stronger and drawing participants. They envision women training in income generation skills, and youth learning to use computers. Several of them want to train as Trainers and as Counselors, so they can work more effectively with people. They want to see the program for HIV affected families and medical care established. They want to see their village trash-free and with toilets available to everyone, with a park in front of our office which the whole village can enjoy. These are the dreams of people who, one year ago, did not dare to see themselves as having anything to offer. Today They are Rural India Empowered and there is no stopping them. Their dreams will be an on-the ground reality by this time next year, thanks to their efforts.

The HIV / AIDS epidemic continues to worsen here in Maharashtra. Our team has sat with dying patients, counseled, referred, and made house calls. They have been there for those who have been rejected by the world. And they have been profoundly touched by the suffering they have seen. The need to train village counselors and health workers and get a functioning rural medical program going is acute.

We are at the stage where we need funding to move into the next state of Prithvi development. We will be active this year in developing the Financial Sustainability Arm of our program, as well as the Development Arm – about which I shall write more later.

We deeply appreciate the support of all the many people who have been touched by the Prithvi vision and supported the concept as we struggled to establish it. Friends, relatives, strangers, students, IT professionals, politicians, bureaucrats, and charity workers – all gave us their encouragement and volunteered their time, expertise and money to carry us forward. For Sharmi and I this has been the most challenging and most rewarding year of our lives.

So today, we at Prithvi reach out from Arangaon to all our friends all over the world and say: “Thank you for believing in us!”

Ann Speirs
Sharmila Shaligram
And the Prithvi Team