After a year of learning about the work of S.A.V.E./TVO, I was finally able to make a personal visit to the Tamil Nadu region where the organizations’ work primarily takes place – a cluster of villages adjacent to the town of Mamallapuram in northeast coastal Tamil Nadu. For a couple of days while John Degler, S.A.V.E.'s founder was en route back to India, his partner Sonny, TVO's founder, took the time to accompany me to a few villages where projects were underway.
Kubel Foundation/Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff Project – A school in the village of Edaiyuur, which serves to hold tuition classes in the evenings and women's vocational training (sewing/tailoring) classes during the day. This school was donated by Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff through the Karl Kubel Foundation of Germany in October of 2005, following the Asian Tsunami on Boxing Day of 2004. It serves 27 students from throughout the surrounding small villages. This Tuition school also draws children from the larger fishing village of Devaneri and also from the fisherman enclave portion of Salavankuppam. The teacher there is Lakshmi and they have a small collection of children's books but would benefit from a larger collection, including some books suitable for adults. S.A.V.E. also sponsors the youth group with volleyballs and nets, as well as a weightlifting set.
Salavankuppam Village
In the village where Sonny and his family live, Slavankuppam, TVO a Hulp Zonder Omwegen of Holland, along with Willem Verbruggen and friends, constructed this Community Center and Evening School in March of 2005, shortly after the Asian Tsunami. This school serves around 30 students for evening tuition and also houses tailoring classes for women in the evenings. S.A.V.E./TVO has also installed a playground and completed a drinking water rehabilitation initiative that enables this and other surrounding villages access to clean drinking water.
Ellandtoppu Village
In the village of Ellandtoppu, a small building which serves the dual purposes of K-12 night tuition classes for approximately 50 children from surrounding villages and a women’s tailoring classes during the day. On the evening we were there, there were two tuition classes taking place both inside the school and on the front porch, on top of which a cupola has been constructed for use in inclement weather. In this village, a playground has been completed and a clean drinking water initiative is slated for implementation the first quarter of 2012, which will give access to 5 or 6 villages to clean drinking water.
MGR Village
MGR Community Center – The children attending this daycare center provided at the MGR Community Center all come from the Irula tribe, and have no access to any kind of education or means of acquiring skills for meaningful work. Their parents are primarily farmers, snake and rat catchers. One child in the school had just lost both of his parents to deadly snake bites and he and his two siblings live alone in the hut pictured below.
The Irula are classified as a tribal people - scheduled tribe – and are culturally distinct from Caste Tamil villagers. They have a genetic bloodgouping different than Tamils, worship different Gods and used to speak a different language. On the Hindu caste system them are on the bottom but shifted to one side. Their traditional occupation as rat and snake catchers, landlessness and poor education, and the suspicion of other castes that they eat rats or worse causes others to revile them and also fear their skill with herbs and magic. A few years ago the Gov't outlawed snake catching as an environmental and conservation measure and since that time many Irula have found unskilled employed in agriculture, construction, brickmaking and rice mill work, sometimes as so-called bonded laborers, in a state of virtual slavery.
In addition to the small day care center we visited for the younger children of the village, S.A.V.E./TVO wishes to conduct other improvements in this village as follows:
· Water purification project – The quality of the drinking water in this village is very poor, resulting in a high level of water-borne illnesses and premature death among children. A chemical analysis of the village’s well water needs to be undertaken to determine what is required to bring their water system up to standards. Depending on the results of that test, the costs to upgrade this village’s drinking water can range from $500USD/Rs. 25,000 at the low end to $3000USD/Rs. 150,000 on the high end, depending on whether a reverse osmosis system is required.
· Upgrades to the Community Center – additional plastering and painting is needed, both inside and out. Electrical work (including bribes to the Panchayat president and electricity board) to run some lines and a meter box in order to wire the center with two or three fans, lights and outside light fixture will run around $500USD/Rs. 25,000.
I was most impressed with the breadth and depth of the work that is being done by S.A.V.E./TVO in these communities. In these remote and very poor Irula villages, caste discrimination and extreme abuse prohibit these people from ever advancing beyond a life of mere subsistence. Government services simply do not have much of an impact, if any at all on their circumstances. S.A.V.E./TVO, in partnership with a small number of funders, are making a huge difference in the lives of these children and families. In almost every location we visited, there were programs underway, people using the facilities that have been constructed, and children engaged in classroom learning.
