Page 19 - NIS English, 16-30 November,2022
P. 19

Aajeevika Mission-Nation's Mission  Cover Story


        ten women from the Aajeevika Mission's
        Sanjeevani Self-Help Group devised a
        novel method of reducing puja residue                                Crore families are linked
        and began converting the dried flower                 8.62 to self-help groups.
        remains into incense sticks. Other
        major temples in Jammu sell these
        incense sticks, including the Vaishnodevi
        shrines at Katra and Kaul Kandori. The              4,15,622                      under the
        Sanjeevani Group's team leader is Rekha             Rural organisations           Community
        Rani, 31, from Udhampur.                            promoted                      Investment Fund.
                                                            33,16,398                     15,017.28
           The majority of the women in her
        group are from rural areas. To give                 SHGs given revolving          Lakhs rupees
        these women a sense of self-sufficiency,            fund so far.                  released so far
        Rekha Rani has assigned them various                4,75,215                      under Community
                                                                                          Investment Fund.
        tasks based on their understanding                  crore rupees revolving
        and expertise, such as collecting flower            fund amount released          3,84,669
        relics from the temple, making incense              so far.                       Women engaged as
        sticks, and selling in the temple and                                             community resource
        other areas. Rekha says that two or three           23,17,553                     person.
        women from their group go to the Kaul               Groups assisted
        Kandoli temple early in the morning to
        collect worship residue — about one
        quintal of flowers. The petals of the
        flowers are then separated and dried
        in the sun by another group of women.
        After the flowers have dried, the women
        all gather at one of the women's home
        to grind the dried flowers and make
        incense sticks. It is sold locally and also
        by the Vaishnodevi Shrine Board.
           People were having difficulty getting
        bank services during a period when the
        entire country was under lockdown. At
        the same difficult time, BC Sakhi (Bank                             16,89,27,854
        Correspondent-Sakhi) was going to                                  masks were made by
        villages to provide financial services                             self-help groups during
        to rural people. As BC-Sakhi, Bhojlata                             the COVID period.
        Rana, Neelam Rai, Samreen Khan, Malti                                   5,29,741
        Grias, Gayatri Maravi, and Jyoti Barkade
        provided services to the villagers by                      protective equipment manufactured by
        conducting financial transactions                                   groups during COVID
        in crores since March 20. Earlier, all
        of these BC didis were only doing                      5,13,059                   1,22,682
        transactional work in groups. They used             liters of sanitizer made    community kitchens to
        to get around 1000–1200 rupees per                   in the COVID period.           provide food.
        month and struggled to make ends meet.                    (*Source: https://nrlm.gov.in/dashboardForOuter.
        After that, BC Point was made available                 do?methodName=dashboard, as of 2 November, 2022.)

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