Ripudaman - GramPraudyogik Vikas Sansthan (GPVS)

Ripudaman was born and raised in Bihar, India. He left a career in the military to work with his family business. In 1991, he started to volunteer with GPVS on weekends. Although he was interested in doing this work full-time, he felt an obligation to work in his family business. In 2001, Ripudaman took over as executive director of GPVS. This is a decision he has never regretted. In this interview he describes GPVS's work with tribal people in Jharkhand.

Tribal People
These tribal people live near the border between Bangladesh, Jharkhand, and Bihar. There are two different tribes and one of them is very primitive. The tribal population had been declining since 1969 and they live in extreme poverty. In the past the government has tried to help them but not much had changed. They have no drinking water because they live on hilltops. They have to spend a good part of every day carrying water up the hills (2-3 kilometers each way). But, they refuse to move elsewhere.

Residential Schools
Most tribal people are illiterate. The government built eleven residential schools for tribal children. Children are sent to these residential schools as soon as they can take care of themselves, at around the age of 8. Most of the tribal children lack any discipline. They run free, doing what they want. Many of them believe the residential schools are prisons and they either dropout or run away. Teachers in the residential schools keep promoting these children although they are not learning. A typical high school graduate is really only at level 1 or 2.

Preparing Children for Residential Schools
GPVS opened twenty pre-disciplinary day schools for children under 8 years of age to better prepare them for the boarding schools. The hope was that they would learn more and not drop out or run away. GPVS employed young men as its teachers in the day schools. The teachers collected the children from the villages every day and got them accustomed to sitting still for 3 or 4 hours, concentrating on a task. As an incentive to attend the day school, children who come are given a daily food ration. Since the average household income in the area is very low and people are very poor, many children don't get enough to eat. The food is an effective way to draw them in. The pre-disciplinary schools have been open for about a year now and graduates get preference for placement in the residential schools. So far thirty-six children have graduated from the predisciplinary school. Not one of them has dropped out of the residential school system.

Health
There is a lot of malnutrition in this area. There used to be forests where the villagers could find food and firewood but all the trees are gone. Maternal mortality and infant mortality rates are very high, due to a number of different factors. One factor that GPVS has tried to address is infection after delivery. Traditional birth attendants or family members deliver almost all babies. Traditionally, the umbilical cord is cut with a sharpened bamboo shoot. This often leads to infection, which in turn leads to death. GPVS began to distribute safe birth kits with razor blades to traditional birth attendants and asked them to wash their hands before each delivery. The strategy was to ask them to consider using the kits, but not to insist that they use them. Now the villagers ask for the kits.  In addition, GPVS introduced an innovative strategy of giving earrings to pregnant women who come forward for antenatal care (ANC). At the first ANC visit, they receive yellow beaded earrings.  At the second ANC visit, they receive green, and at the third, they receive red.  This has been a great success! 

Safe Motherhood Success story
At the same time that GPVS began distributing birth kits, it also started providing routine antenatal care. At first local quack doctors tried to start gossip about GPVS. A particular man, for example, was very opposed to the project generally and the clinic in particular. His own wife was pregnant. She developed complications and delivered a premature baby but the local quack doctor was not able to help her. GPVS's doctor was able to help her and saved the baby. Now this man is the GPVS outreach worker for the project in his area!

Enhanced Malaria Control Program (EMCP)
This was a project that GPVS began with the government. The civil surgeon in the area wanted to spray all buildings with DDT during the monsoon season in order to cut down on the number of mosquitoes. GPVS wanted to do the spraying later, just after the monsoons ended, to prevent the DDT from being washed away. At first the civil surgeon refused to consider spraying later. Finally he agreed, and now the number of cases of malaria is lower due to this new strategy.

The government has it own DDT sprayers but never go around to actually spraying. Tribal people were not used to having government workers come into their homes to do the spraying. Tribal people traditionally do not wear shoes inside their homes. When the government workers first came to spray the homes, they tried to come inside the homes without removing their shoes. The villagers refused to let them in. The government workers threatened to come back with the police instead of seeing the real issue. Ripudaman convinced the village leaders that malaria could be curbed if they allowed the spraying. GPVS promised to do the spraying and to respect their homes by removing shoes. Often the solution to a problem involves the participation of the community. The ideas for solutions even come from them!

Vaccinations
GPVS acts as an extended helping hand to the local WHO program and the state vaccination program to make sure that more children get vaccinated. WHO has assigned a surveillance and monitoring officer to coordinate this program. GPVS tries to monitor and evaluate to make sure that no one gets left out.

Working with Religions Groups
There is no other NGO working in this area, even though there is much to be done. There are, however, a lot of religious missions in the area. The missionaries work very hard. A lot can be learned from them. For example, GPVS used to go out and talk with village people during the daytime. Now they do it from 6-9 in the evening when people are more likely to be home. They learned this approach from the missionaries. GPVS tries to visit them at home, like missionaries do, to keep in touch and make sure that people know that GPVS intends to provide consistent service and to counter all the 'bad press' from local quacks and money lenders.

Ripudaman felt that the IBP meeting was a great experience for him personally. He learned participation skills that he plans to implement in GPVS. As an ex-military man, he was used to the command/respond way of dealing with things. He would give an order and expect the people who worked for him to carry it out. But he vowed to change the way he worked in the future.

Contact Information Ripudaman Executive Director GramPraudyogik Vikas Sansthan (GPVS) Chowdhury Colony Behind Nirmaya Cinema College Road Sahebganj, Jharkhand India Tel: 91-612-3112518/235756