Solving problems together

The Plantation Community Empowerment Programme (PCEP) is a three-year initiative across 20 tea estates in ten districts of Assam, India. Its goal is to catalyse a thriving tea sector by improving the wellbeing and participation of communities living and working on the estates – many of whom face multiple hardships in day-to-day life.

To do this, the programme uses Care International’s innovative Community Development Forum (CDF) approach to bring estate management, workers, and the wider community together to resolve key issues.

Meet Manjula

Manjula Kahar is employed by ETP as the Community Mobiliser for PCEP on Moran Tea Estate. When the programme started here a year ago, her responsibility was to introduce it to residents, gain their trust, and involve them in its participatory approach. Today, she is the face of PCEP for the community.

At first, people in Moran assumed ETP was like other NGOs they had met, giving out free, but limited resources. It took Manjula some time to clarify that they were instead being invited to build their own, long term solutions to issues impacting the community.

“When I discussed PCEP, only a very few people came out,” she says. “But now, whenever I go to the lines [the neighbourhoods where tea workers and their families live], immediately they come out.”

Part of the community

Being a resident of Moran herself was helpful. Manjula has brought an insider’s understanding of garden life, its challenges and needs to the role. And by listening to everyone on the estate’s concerns, she is helping them act together.

“As I am a girl from this tea estate, and my home is here in the garden, I can meet them at any time of day, in the evening, or sometimes at night too,” she explains. “I go to them, [I ask] what are the problems, what kind of difficulties are they facing?

“Wherever there are problems, we will solve them together, as this is our own garden.”

She feels that what sets PCEP apart from other interventions is how it engages every segment of the population – workers, families, youth, and self-help groups for women, older and disabled people. In short, she says: “No one is left behind.”

A social safety net

Manjula has worked tirelessly with the community to ensure this. One problem their discussions identified was the range of Indian government social welfare schemes residents don’t access – people aren’t aware of them, don’t know how to access them, or can’t risk losing a day’s wages to complete the lengthy applications. Manjula’s response was to lead a massive uptake of social welfare for residents.

The Aadhar card, for example, is the official national ID. While mandatory for every Indian citizen, many people still don’t own one, and certain benefits remain inaccessible without it. Manjula helped 1,400 people in Moran apply for theirs. Another important scheme, Ayushman, offers free health insurance; Manjula helped 800 residents access it.

Elsewhere, Manjula has secured specific pensions for older people and widows, birth certificates for children, insurance for people eligible under the PM Kisan scheme, and scholarships for 70 students who belong to tea tribes. And by helping with the paperwork, she has ensured that nobody has missed out on work and pay.

Inspiring cooperation

Yet Manjula highlights that it is the community’s sense of ownership that is key to success. “How can we maintain this garden properly, like our own? How will our society progress? We discuss these topics,” she says. “Wherever a problem arises, we must solve it together on the spot.”

“And we solve those problems,” she affirms. “If we want a good environment, or if we want our communities to progress, then we will have to do the necessary work together.”

The CDF meetings are bringing these challenges to light. Some are immediate, some are longstanding: a primary school’s recent closure; the need for an ambulance at the estate hospital; alcoholism in the community. Others, such as the need for local disability support, are being addressed for the first time. However, with each problem raised, it becomes clear how much more aware and empowered the residents of Moran are today than a year ago.

As the programme enters its next phase of capacity building, Manjula remains motivated and enthused by her neighbours’ commitment to the PCEP participatory approach. “Their confidence level is increasing. And they are cooperating,” she says. “They are beautifully cooperating.”