Relief, Livelihood & Rehabilitation Work
Anhad has responded to the best of its abilities to provide relief and help in rehabilitating victims of both natural and manmade disasters. Anhad helped raise funds for victims of Tsunami in Tamil Nadu and earth quake affected families in Kashmir. It has worked for the flood victims and Cyclone victims in Bihar and 1600 displaced families of the Riverside project in Gujarat and later flood affected families in Kashmir.
Anhad has provided livelihood to over 700 earthquake families in Uri and in Tangdhar, J& K and 100 flood hit families in Bihar. Creatively conceived the livelihood programme in Kashmir provided Provision Stores, Poly Green House, Tea Stalls, Fruit Nurseries, sheep, tools to semi-skilled workers, wheat and rice mills to villages etc. Many far flung villages didn’t have a provision store, and for their daily needs the villagers had to travel long distances, totally dependent on private transport operators and the availability of transport. Anhad decided to provide provision stores to the poor and deserving families, who had the capacity to run the stores, and had the basic infrastructure to support it.
Traditionally women grow vegetables in kitchen gardens during summer, supplementing the family’s nutritional needs. Greenhouse – although an old and traditional technique for raising quality crops in Europe, the concept is rather new in developing countries and especially so in rural areas. Environment control allows raising plants anywhere in the world at any time of the year. Anhad provided green houses in over 30 villages. Promotion of nurseries in rural areas lead to easy and timely availability of planting material and in the process lead to creation of employment opportunities and income generation in the rural areas.
Anhad helped families with repairing their atta and rice chakkis which were damaged in the earthquake, and in the process got the idea for setting up more such facilities. A large number of semi skilled workers were available in Uri and Tangdhar but they did not possess good quality tools. Anhad identified such workers and helped them either in starting their own work or in the expansion of their existing capacity by providing good quality tools to them. As part of its livelihood initiative Anhad supported a number of musicians and folk artists who were unable to support themselves to buy new instruments, their costumes and Anhad tries and regularly provides platform to them to perform.
In Bihar marginalized families were helped to set up Provision Stores, some small village barber shops, tea stalls. Some people were provided with hand rickshaws, sheep, bangles etc. In both Kashmir and bihar more than 85% families were able to generate a regular income and sustain the work.