Empowering India's Rural Poor through Poultry

Last month we were delighted to welcome two of our colleagues from Shivia India (known locally as Nirdhan) to London – General Manager, Joe, and Head of Livelihoods, Chandrani. In their respective roles Joe and Chandrani meet the vast majority of the families we are working with and as head of our livelihood programmes Chandrani is in close contact with our beneficiaries on a weekly basis.  She travels to the villages where we work to check on the progress our farmers are making and gathers hundreds of individual stories from the people she meets.  While she was in London attending a number of briefings with our key donors, Chandrani told of two stories that she had gathered in the week before her arrival in London – both of which had a profound affect on her. She would like to share them with you...

“I met Rinku last week and was very impressed with the progress she has made due to our Poultry Development Services programme. Her story just swept me off my feet. She started the poultry programme with one toolkit using a little money that she had borrowed from one of her relatives. Her husband drinks heavily and he took part of that money to buy alcohol for himself. Sadly this type of behaviour is a common occurrence in the community in which Rinku lives, where many women work as agricultural labourers for 12-14 hours a day, only to have their meagre earnings snatched away from them.  Domestic violence is also common. Today Rinku has a very well built coop for at least 50 chickens and has used her earnings to open and stock a little grocery store where she sells a few things such as potatoes, onions, sweets and women’s bindis. She has stepped up to the next level where she is an entrepreneur in the true sense and a wonderful role model for her neighbours and other women in the community. Rinku’s ascent to become a living symbol of women’s power is nothing short of astounding. Her initiative to become self-employed by raising chickens, inspired by our excellent team of Livelihood Service Providers, is something I am extremely proud of.  

I also met Anjali who is a dalit (also referred to as ‘untouchables’) by birth. So distressed by social and physical exclusion, she attempted suicide when she was just 10 years old. She was married off at the tender age of 12, faced dowry issues and suffered from domestic violence at the hands of her in-laws. Finally she was thrown out of the house. Quite surprisingly, she was rescued by her own father who took her back into his home with her husband and two children. At his point she was just 17. She went on to have two more children but, despite the support of her father, her life was not an easy or happy one and her husband did little to support her or the children. When I first met Anjali two years ago she was a completely broken woman with no self-confidence and felt she was not worthy of doing anything for herself. With our intervention and introduction to the poultry rearing programme, Anjali is now a changed woman. Today she realises that she has joined a league of successful women entrepreneurs. Once a poor housewife from a remote village, she has broken away from the shackles of poverty. Her husband now supports her immensely and together they want to build a commercial chicken farm to support the daily needs of their four children. Her aging and ailing father is extremely happy at what her family has achieved, especially his daughter who he is so proud of.

These stories are real, the success even more so. But what makes these women important, perhaps more than success, is the flame of inspiration that they ignite in the hearts of other women to break free from poverty. Thank you for contributing to Shivia and for shaping the success of inspirational women like Rinku and Anjali.”

Chandrani, Head of Livelihoods for Shivia India/Nirdhan

We have just returned from a visit to West Bengal to see, at first hand, how our poultry-farming programme is progressing.  On this occasion we were joined by a small group of supporters representing The Artemis Charitable Foundation, one of Shivia’s key corporate donors over the last five years. 

Despite the increasing temperatures in and around Kolkata, we had a very successful trip and the whole group took away some key messages about how a small flock of chickens can help people living on the poverty line in these rural villages make a better life for themselves. 

“It is quite staggering how a clever toolkit practically administered can act as such a powerful catalyst to give individuals the hope and means for a better future.” Elaine Gordon, Head of Institutional Business, Artemis Investment Management LLP

The impact of our poultry farming programme is predominately felt by the women who take up the enterprise, and their children who tend to be the beneficiaries of the extra income earned by their mothers when she sells the produce, the eggs from her hens and the mature male birds for meat.

Over the course of three days, we visited 15 farmers, all women, who have been raising chickens with the help of your donations to Shivia, and earning money to support their family.  Like all of the people we have been working with over the last six years (nearly 9,000 farmers), every one of the women we talked to has a positive and unique story to tell about how chickens have changed her life.

In this report, we want to tell you just a couple of those stories, both of which highlight how our poultry programme has encouraged two very hard working women to become micro-entrepreneurs in their local communities.

The first is Tinku – she is 38 years old and married with two children aged 11 and 16.  With the extra income she has earned by selling eggs and chickens, Tinku has been able to pay for some private tuition for her children.  By our standards, this might sound unaffordable for a family living in poverty in rural India, but in her small village where the government schools are not providing a good education (often due to teacher absenteeism), the goal of many parents is to seek and pay for some extra tuition for their children. A good-sized chicken or a tray of fresh eggs can pay for one of those valuable lessons. Like parents the world over, Tinku and her husband know that a good education is the key to success in later life. 

Aside from raising chickens, Tinku has used her newfound sales and marketing skills to start a second micro-enterprise.  She is now buying inexpensive saris from a local wholesaler and selling them for a small profit in her village.  She is managing to earn an additional £12 a month as a result of her efforts. 

Our second example is Shila who has also used the money from selling her eggs and chickens to pay for her son’s education.  He is 16 years old and has just sat his first public examinations, which means he will be able to go onto higher education. Shila hopes her son will leave school with good results and be able to get a well-paid job in the city.  PDS has also allowed Shila to buy a gas stove, which will significantly improve their living conditions – most families in the village burn wood or charcoal for cooking which produce a toxic smoke, causing significant respiratory problems. 

Shila also has the entrepreneurial spirit and is selling some of her chickens to local families for festivals, weddings and other celebrations.  She keeps a mental record of future events to ensure she has enough stock to fulfil her orders.

We look forward to sharing more success stories like these with you in our next report and hope you will consider supporting more entrepreneurial women like Tinku and Shila with a £15 Shivia Poultry Toolkit.

With thanks and our very best wishes,

The Shivia team.