SEWA Rural

The day after I got back from my Rajasthan trip I watched two movies in the movie theater Saawariya and Om Shanti Om, and then went to a birthday party. The next day my host father arranged for my host siblings, my host brother’s friend, Morie, and I to all go to Jhagardia (a nearby town) to visit a basically nonprofit hospital for the nearby villagers and tribals. This amazing program is called SEWA (pronounced seva) Rural and it works to help educate and aid the villagers and tribals in the surrounding villagers. That day we just visited the hospital which has a large optimology department, and basically a full hospital.
Besides the hospital the SEWA Rural trains villagers and tribals skills like welding, electronics, mechanics, and agriculture skills for one year to help provide skills for jobs. They live in the hostels at the training facility, and then for the women they have sewing machine training and a place where the women make snacks and an everyday chip-like food called Papad to sell around Gujarat. They also have internships, some medical training for local students and a ton more. Besides classes and trainging, they also educate the villagers and tribal women about maternal things, women empowerment, proper care of themselves while they are pregnant, training for the midwives in the villaege, and help in child planning.
After visiting the hospital we went into the field to visit a village, and see the type of stuff they were working on there. In the village we went with the nurse who looks after 14 villages to check up on a woman who had a 25 day old baby, and then a woman who was 8 months pregnant. We also were able to meet the village midwife and see her birthing kit which was provided by the hospital. The village itself was really quite a nice and modern one with water pumps, some huts even had electricity. For the main part the houses were made out of sticks and covered in dried cow dung, and with all of the animals, flowers, ground wood stoves, you really felt like you were in a village. About 99.7% of the villagers were tribals and most either worked agriculture or in the nearby coal query. At the time we were there the quary wasn’t working because it was draining too much of the river’s water, but I was happy to hear that for the 6 months the mine wasn’t working the government was compensating its workers.
After our village visit we went to a nearby town to meet blind people who were able to find jobs and make a living for themselves. One man wove the bottoms of chairs, one ground flour and could read money, and one little girl was going to school and could read brail. The whole SEWA Rural was a really impressive program, and included a bunch of really wonderful people. I met one nice couple from San Francisco (one a optimologist and one a eurologist) who would be there for 6 months volunteering their time, and another girl from Chicago who would also be there for six months. Hopefully in the next few months I am in India I will have the opportuninty to visit Jhagardia again.