Village Study

Morning at 7.30 am we went to village through a rickshaw. We reached the village at 9.00 am. The driver introduced us to Mr. Gadigappa Patil. Then we went to Gadigappa Patil’s house along with Gadigappa Patil. There he introduced us to everyone. In his house total 45 members are living in a house. Total 11 divided families living together.  After the breakfast we went to a temple. There he gathered the people. We introduced ourselves to the villagers and explained them about the purpose of our visit. Then we started to collect the demographic data. According to them the village has the history of Chalukyas of Badami. The kalmeshwara temple was built by chalukyas.

After this we went to see the Kalmeshwara temlpe. The temple is in same Chalukya style which we can see in other historical places. But the temple is ruined now. The temple is now reconstructed by the help of Dharmasthala grmabhivriddi Yojne and MLA of that village also helped 8 lakh to the temple. We talked with the laborers who were working in that temple. They got the labor under the government scheme NREGS( National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme). They said each of the members is paid 84/-Rs per day by the government. Then we visited the houses of the villagers. There we met black smith. We talked to him about his work. He replied that now he is not getting much work because people will not give orders to him. Then we met the doctor who visits the village to look after the health of the villagers. He said that he will visit the village weekly once and also whenever people call him if there is any emergency.  Again we visited a house. There we met a lady who is a member of Self Help Group. We requested with her to arrange for a meeting at evening. She said that it is difficult to arrange for the meeting at evening because it will be late while coming back from the field.  Then we requested her to arrange meeting at morning. She agreed  as villagers have holiday on Monday as they are going to market that day. There we also requested them to provide place to stay in her house. She agreed for that. We came back by saying will come at night. Then we went to the house and had our lunch. At home we talked to the family members about the village. Then we came to know that majority of the people are not going for higher education. Motivation from their house is less. We also got information of a soldier who was working in an army and died in an accident. Then we requested to Gadigappa Patil to gather people for mapping. He said that now it is not possible we can make them gather after 7 o’ clock. So we decided to go to transect walk in village.

First we visited the field. We saw the field which is owned by him. He cultivated rice in the field. He said that rice will be started to grow in the month of May and they will get the crop after 5 months. Then we saw the mango and Chikku grove. He said that it is given by the BAIF. He also shown the watershed project done by the BAIF. Then we saw the jover plantation. Then we saw the lake in that village which is used for the agriculture by the villagers. Then we came back and went to transect walk in the village. We saw the school in that village. As it was Sunday no organization was open. We saw it from outside. We also saw village panchayath and Sri Kshetra Dhrmastala Rural Development Project office. Then we visited the different area which is related to people of different community like madarakeri, harijanarakeri, talwrarakeri etc. Then we returned back to home.

Then we prepared for the social mapping. We went to some villagers to call them for social mapping. All people gathered at 7.30. We started social mapping and motivated people to do the map. We finished the map at 9.30. Then we came back to home. That time a person who is neighbor to this house invited us for dinner. They forced us to go to their house. So we went to their house. That time food was not ready. So we talked with them regarding the village. Then we had dinner at 11 o’ clock and came back.

Morning at 8.30 we went to meet the Self Help Group. We interacted with them, they shared their experience and for what purpose they taken loan. Then we came back and had breakfast. Then we left the village by having the plan to visit the village panchayath, government hospital and Sri Ksetra Dharmastala Rural Development Project office. On the way we also visited dalith sanga. Then we visited village panchayath and collected the data available there related to the village. Then we visited Sri Ksetra Dharmastala Rural Development Project (SFRDP) office. There we collected the information related to SKRDP. It is providing the facility of saving, providing loan for self employment and provide training to the members. It also have the 2 types of groups one for female and another for male. Then we saw the government hospital which is closed because there is no doctor to treat the people.

Strategies used:

• Collected socio demographic data by using interaction method from a group of villagers
• Observed the village and the agricultural field by using transect walk method
• Assessed the living condition of the villagers through home visit by using effective communication skills.
• Triangulated the data with the data available in the panchayath.
• Used social mapping PRA technique to collect data related to the village
• Build a good rapport with the villagers
• Formed group to gather information

Challenges faced:

• Villagers will get to meet in evening only as they went to field for work.
• We got short time to build rapport
• We did social mapping till 9.30. A few of the members were alcoholics.

Learning:

• To stay in village
• To be flexible in everywhere
• The living conditions of the villagers
• To use the PRA tool effectively
• To use life skills effectively

Observation:

• Majority of the people are doing agriculture as occupation
• Farmers are following the single cropping method in agriculture
• Farmers following old method of cultivation
• Farmers will migrate to other village when they do not get work in the village
• In most of the houses family members live in same house but divided each other
• Most of the house has the toilet facility but they are not using this

Conclusion:

It is a memorable village study where I was able to learn a lot. I learnt about how to do village study, how to live in a strange place and also how to use the different techniques to gather information. Totally it gave me a lot of learning.