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CASE STUDIES

Brick Kiln Initiative-Usha Rathod

Usha Mohan Rathod aged 30 years was married off at a tender age of 15. When she came to her husbands place, the family comprised of Father in law, Mother in law, 2 brother inlaws with their families and 2 sister in laws. The entire family depended upon farm activities and worked as farm laborers to make two ends meet.

Due to prolonged sickness in the family and consecutive marriages of 2 sister-in-laws, the family was subjugated to severe debt trap. Gradually, brothers separated into nuclear families and Usha, her husband and three children started living in Naigam. Their situation had become so dire that she and her husband were on the verge of total collapse.

Fortunately, at this juncture, the community members supported them and helped them out of the depressed thinking. During one of such meetings with the ladies members of Self Help Groups, Usha heard about the group activities started by Priyadarshini Mahila Mandal in her village. She also joined this Jai Ambe Mahila gath and started savings in small amount.

At present, there are 7 Self Help Groups in her village. They all share tremendous unity, goodwill and intra group solidarity which enabled Usha to start her life once again. Several groups got together to provide them the initial fund of Rs.40,000/-  to operate and manufacture brick kilns. After the initial struggle and hard work with strong support of her husband and community members, she was able to sell the entire batch of bricks and was able to clear their dues in one stroke. Now, her economic condition has improved. She has become confident of availing significantly large sums of money as loans for manufacturing large batches of Bricks at a time. This enables the family to earn Rs.16,000/- per batch. Usha Rathod ‘s is an excellent example of community coming together to uplift a whole family from clutches of depression, which would have left them shattered.