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Mudiripoyina Bewarse
Username: Blazewada
Post Number: 18081
Registered: 08-2008
Posted From: 218.186.17.228
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 25, 2012 - 3:34 am: |
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Real Heroes Bablu & Mary transform Anantapur
CNN-IBN | 23-Mar 12:25 PM
Anantapur: Two persons Bablu and Mary is the reason for transformation in Anantapur. Over the past 20 years the two have turned the barren land of 140 villages into an agro-forest habitat also helping villagers set up small scale industries.
Many believed that the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh was destined to the wrath of scorching sun and barren arid land. But the will of two people, Bablu Ganguly and Mary Vattamattam, made the impossible possible. Their 20 years of hard work has literally been bringing life back to the soil. They named it Timabktu - the 'never never land'.
Bablu said, "I did see trees being indiscriminately cut for groundnut cultivation, intensive use of chemicals. When I first came to Timbaktu, it was almost barren. Only one type of grass was growing. The hills which were 'reserve forests' were bare."
Inspired by Japanese author and agri-scientist Masanbou Fukoka's "one straw revolution", in 1990 Bablu and Mary decided to put all their savings into buying 32 acres of land and planting more than 7000 saplings.
"We were inspired by Fukoka's 'one straw revolution' which encouraged do-nothing farming. We thought we just throw the seeds and do nothing. But we realised later that he meant do nothing to the land. Let it grow naturally," Bablu said.
The couple got down to work building percolation tanks, and harvesting the little amount of rain the area receives. Once their own land had turned around, Bablu and Mary adopted 140 nearby villages.
Over the years, the wilderness and fauna is now finding its way back in 7000 acres of the wastelands.
The next step for the Timbaktu Initiative was processing, packaging and marketing the organic produce of the local farmers, empowering them in the process.
The goal was also to build a self-sustainable model of self governance. Mary and Bablu have built women co-operatives.
Empowering them to handle finances and small enterprises, Mary has helped them grow from a group of 30 women to a now flourishing co-operative worth Rs 7 crore, with more than 15,000 members.
"I didn't like the fact that someone was being marginalised just because of their gender," Mary said.
Students from poverty stricken backgrounds, orphans and even those who dropped out of school are given free education by the Timbaktu Collective.
It may not always be all song and dance, but the smiles and hope of a greener future for the next generation keep Bablu and Mary motivated.
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