Help for women’s cooperative

When the TOS in Chennai, directed by C.V.K. Maithreya, engaged in its extensive tsunami relief operations starting in December 2004, two self-help groups were established: the Annie Besant Ammaiyar Coastal Women’s Federation and the Annai Therasa Coastal Women's Federation. Both were helped to set up paper recycling plants as ecologically sound employment opportunities, principally for the wives of fishermen whose livelihood had been lost.

The Annai Therasa group, which works in the little coastal town Pazhaverkadu, north of Chennai, recently ran into rough weather, when the land they were being allowed to use to dry the paper after manufacture was reclaimed for construction. The women were therefore trudging all the way to a nearby cemetery to dry the paper.

It came to the notice of the TOS in Chennai that the terrace of the existing building could be an alternate place for drying the paper. The women tried carrying the paper upstairs to the terrace, but they were simply not strong enough. The self-help group could not afford a motorised pulley to lift the material.  We published an appeal for donations in the September issue of this newsletter and a New Zealand member came forward with the modest sum needed.  We are happy to say that the project is now complete, to the benefit of the health of the women in the cooperative. We feel that it is important to follow up on the projects we helped start in the first place, especially brave and innovative ones like these.