On 14th November, 2009, UJAN is organizing a large-scale eye camp in Bankura,(West Bengal) where we started our activities. While working there with different sections of villagers, we noticed that many of the families suffer from certain common eye related problems; but consultation and check-up with doctors is very sporadic due to difficulty in access to doctors, less awareness and financial. UJAN is already working towards maturing a development model in one or two villages in Bankura which encompass education, health, general awareness and small scale employment generation, and this eye camp is a significant milestone in its implementation. We would organize a couple of successive eye camps which would address common ailments of eyes. Ujan has planned for a through eye specialists check up, providing basic medicines free of cost and spectacles at a subsidized price for those who require but cannot afford. It is also significant in some other respect also, as we are covering 2 villages with a total population of approximately more than 2000 families.

Organizing such an event is a huge task and while it is related to some social cause or benefit of underprivileged, it requires one’s own conscious determination to participate in that, as its success and satisfaction can only be measured by one’s inner emotional feelings. It is a great experience that so many people outside our known friend and colleague circle, professionals, doctors have come forward to actively participate in this endeavor. We are so much thankful to all of you who have joined hands with us to make it a success.
Some other good news. We have already opened a Bank Account with Axis Bank, LAKE TOWN branch.

Any suggestions or contribution to this cause will be highly appreciated.

From now onwards our association would be known as ‘Nabadiganta UJAN Welfare Society’. It is a moment of delight and great achievement that our association has been registered under West Bengal Societies Registration Act XXVI of 1961 as a Society with aforementioned name. Our registration number is S / 1L / 61831.

I am extremely sorry for excessive delay in making any further updates about our current status, movements and future plans. We have been busily engaged in pursuing Society Registration Office for our registration certificate. And apart from that, many of our members, like Chitrangshu, Sudipto, Suman, Dhiman, Shaurya, Ayaon, Sourav and Krishnendu initiated a large scale project, which I would like to share with all of you.

Ujan is now planning for a large project which would have quite wider scope of activities, involvement and impetus on the people. We are in constant touch with some government agencies for persuading them to work as partners in this project, because of the magnitude and scale of activities required.
Ujan is in process of short-listing a village where this project would be initiated. Unlike our previous project, it would involve entire village and their residents. We would describe in details our objectives, plan, modus operandi in a separate mail later. The key objective of the project would definitely be elevating the living condition of that village, but Ujan is now busy of making initial draft of a scientific process which would be used there and this process and concept would be the USP of our society.
We have visited one village in Bankura, called Dhunara. That village is one of the quite backward villages, most of us have ever seen. We came to know the government has also labeled that village as ‘backward’. The village is quite remote and lacking severely in basic infrastructure, amenities and base necessities, like education, health and food. We are in the process of making a project report which we would share with all of you. After making the report and making draft of our modus operandi, we may join in a discussion to finalize this next BIG Project!
On some other fronts - after Puja, Ujan would organize an eye-camp in Narrah village. It would be a wonderful opportunity of the people there who can come and make an eye check by good doctors. Ujan would be main organizing partner for entire event which may span for 2 days.
Our Bel-mala activities are going with astounding success. Because of its unique scheme, attitudes towards making a wholesome development in areas like education, health etc of its group members, it has created much stir in that region. Even local panchayet and government agencies are making full appreciation of this project. We are planning to offer an incentive scheme to the members for boosting good performance and we are now in the process of evaluation and short-listing members qualified for that.
We have some moment of failure also! We have tried to encourage the girls who just passed Madhyamik Examination for Higher Secondary. She has been offered free tuitions from Ujan, her admission fees would have been taken care of. But in spite of all these exercises, her family opted for her early marriage. This is one true picture where our villages are standing still at this age of 21st century. The people there need more self awareness, freedom from century old shackles of backwardness of thoughts and attitudes towards life. This is right anvil where all of us should come forward and work hand-in-hand to shape their future.

On 22nd May, 2009 we made our next visit to our project site. This time, we had a considerable big group and it was heartwarming to note that many others also wanted to join.
We had a quite tall agenda this time. The foremost was initialization of our education program in that village. Initially we did some ground work on local education and understood that though most of the families send their children to schools but they cannot continue even to complete their secondary education, mainly due to abject poverty. The drop-out rate is quite high. We are starting the program first with our group of 21 families who are involved in “Bel-Mala” project. We are setting up a tutorial home for the children of these families where qualified teacher from Government High School would provide quality teaching to these children. The entire expense would be borne by UJAN. This time we officially announced the program to the villagers and in this context, we have provided each of these children an essential education-kit as a gesture of our love and determination. The kit contains school bag, pencils, eraser, pens, geometry box, exercise books; the content varies dependent upon the class of the student. We are also providing the admission fees to some children whose parents are unable to provide even that small amount. As part of UJAN’s policy we stated that all children of these families must not discontinue their education and we are trying to reach out to these families for ensuring a better and wholesome future for their children.

We got tremendous support from our members when we discussed this plan amongst our UJAN members here. Many of us have come forward with intent of contribution to this cause. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks and gratitude on behalf of all members to Dan Choudhury, Santanu Chakraborty, Sourav Bhattacharyya, Krishnendu Bhowmick and Sucharita Das who donated the items of this education kit. Most watchable thing was the sheer joy and excitement in those children, as we planned to keep it a little secret till this day. Also we believe this initiative has managed to build up a huge stable and trustworthy relationship between us and the villagers.
Our “Bel-Mala” project is now self-sustainable. However we are trying to re-organize the groups so as to maximize the output, so that group members can utilize this scheme to maximize their earnings.
We are planning for quite a number of education schemes and we are in touch with appropriate authorities to begin such programs there. Some of the big organizations are also being taken into consideration for sponsoring such events.
Another important sector is Health, where many of our members are inclined to initiate some movement. This time, we shortlisted a few common ailments in local area and we are in touch with Lion’s Club so as to jointly organize some medical camps. We hope something positive would turn up in near future. In this context, let me take the privilege to request you all to come forward in case any of you have any contacts with Lion’s Club, Rotary club or any such organization which are dedicated to such philanthropic activities.

It is a moment of delight that our initial activities of UJAN have been rolled out successfully and it is now moving from strength to strength. 28 members from 21 families were enlisted in “Bel-Mala” project. The project has been started in a village named Narrah in Bankura, where two separate groups have been created.
UJAN manages entire life cycle of the project, from distribution of raw materials to marketing of the end products. The unique strategy has created lot of excitement in local nearby villages where many villagers are urging to join in this program.
However, the cornerstone of activities of UJAN is not limited to providing Self-Employment to under-privileged people. UJAN believes that self-enlightenment and real individual development starts from education. In our last visit we took a detailed survey of education and health consciousness amongst those 21 families and to be fair, the picture is really worrisome.
71% of the children of these families are studying in schools; out of the children who dropped out for some reason, 33% dropped after Secondary Examination, 33% after 8th standard and 22% after 9th standard. The reasons are manifold – lack of finance to provide admission fees or tuitions etc. And quite likely, most of them currently studying may opt to drop out at those standards, because of the similar reasons.
UJAN has planned to provide necessary cooperation to these families to ensure that their children get education at least to the level of Higher Secondary. We are putting up a tutorial home where these children can get quality tuitions from qualified teachers. We would try to find out suitable professional or academic path for those who would successfully come out after Higher Secondary.
We wish to provide these facilities to all children in that locality or villages, but due to shortage of our funds, we have to limit the same to those families who have joined the project. Our initial idea was to generate some extra fund from self-employment projects so that education and health benefits can be accommodated from it. Though our “Bel-Mala” project is running successfully, but it has not yet reached a level where it can save extra rupees for us to continue these parallel welfare programs. So we are to start with contributions from our beloved members who have come forward with an exceptional sense of generosity to help these poor families. We would like to thank especially Sudip Narayan Choudhury, Santanu Chakraborty, Sourav Bhattacharya, and Krishnendu Bhowmick for their benevolent donation to this cause. And this selfless feeling and urge is the true motivation for all of us.

We have at last come up with a name of our association - "Ujan". It is a Bengali word; which means something close to "against the current" or "against conventional thoughts". It may correctly depict our aspiration to do something positive to the society beyond our daily mundane life. And we are really overwhelmed to see that so many have joined hands with us for this cause. We are sure however trifle the start may be, we will surely make it big and wide-spread.

The first project which we have so far shortlisted is "Making of garlands from wood apple upper crust material". "Wood Apple" can be termed in Bengali as "Bel Mala". In my last post, I mentioned that we have already visited a couple of villages and saw the significant artwork involved in it. We checked a couple of markets and have realised that there are immense pssibility to expand their area of expertise and thereby maximize the benefits to them.

But we are seriously pondering over a couple of interlinked activities with this project which can ensure overall upliftment of the group's social and economical status.

We are planning to integrate the provision of medical insurance coverage, good external tuition to the children of that group etc as part of the project. All these operations would be started gradually with progress of the project. The intent is not only to provide additional financial benefit to the villagers, but also to guide them utilize the same for their short-term and long-term benefits.

Making of garlands :-

Finished Garland (Most basic form):

Our Project Site:

At last, we have started our journey which we all cherished long to begin. Thanks to Sudipto, CB, Sumanda, Dhiman, Shaurya, Amitava for joining hands together. It all started with a simple resolution and determination of all of us to do something positive to the society. Our personal congratulation and thankfulness to all our colleagues who have come forward with the same desire with a true examplary selflessness. You all are truely our inspirations !

We thought of quite a few possibilities to venture with. At last, we selected a very interesting project which would be started in one remote village of Bankura. We got tremendous support and cooperation from Rajib Dutta, Chiranjib Dutta and Susanta Pal who would be the main backbone of this entire project.

We have not named the project yet. It is related to making small garlands out of dry "wood apple" crust pieces. We personally went there and amazed to see the terrific skill involved in the entire making. The villagers, most of them are women, earn substantial sum (by village standard) to meet their daily livelihood. These garlands are only the starting piece of the entire chain of handicrafts which are manufactured. We think that there are immense possibilities of taking the final product to more bigger market and therby catering to needs of bigger spectrum of people in that poverty-stricken area.

This blog will be used to post our views, upcoming events to aware all of you of our activities. You may also post your comments through ujan2009@gmail.com

- Saura