Educational Rehabilitation of children of farm suicides

"The emerging farmer suicide capital of India" isn't a qualifier which any region in the world would ever want to allude to itself. Sadly Marathwada, a historically backward region of Maharashtra has been a helpless witness, falling prey to a yet another vicious phenomenon of farmer suicides over last few years. It is no wonder then that Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS), a leading nonprofit organization with an extensive experience in disaster response has felt the urge to extend its maximum contribution to alleviate the woes of the bereaved families. The rapidly spreading problem of farmer suicides is nothing short of a disaster and BJS aims to address a potentially bigger problem emanating from this scenario in a manner which holds the promise of having a long lasting impact on the lives of the survivors of the suicide victims.

The loss of a loved one and especially an earning member always deals a cruel blow to the kith and kin of the victim. Matters become worse for the impoverished and the marginalized sections of the society; the economic impact of the tragedy gets compounded by the psychological impact on the traumatized family members. At such times children belonging to such families become the most vulnerable of the lot and nothing can prepare them enough for the multitude of challenges that come in the wake of such a tragedy. It is extremely crucial to provide a conducive psychosocial environment to such children in order to prevent them from succumbing to cycles of trauma, depression and loss of purpose in their early lives. The hard hitting reality of the loss of income and life often leaves very little choice for the surviving elders in the family, but to go out and work (especially for sugarcane cutting as in Marathwada)to keep the hearth running. Very often the children are left alone at home to fend for themselves. In the absence of proper care and timely attention to such children, myriad social problems could surface in the long run for them. Thus it is critical to constructively engage them and channelize their minds in the proper direction when tragedy strikes. Education is by far, the only means to shape the lives of such children and keep them from going astray.

It is with this intent and after looking at the grim picture of the Marathwada region, that the project of the educational rehabilitation of the children (boys and girls) from  the households of farmers who have committed suicides across Beed, Latur and Osmanabad districts has been undertaken by BJS. BJS would do so by relocating the children, identified through a planned mechanism and moving them to its state-of-the-art Wagholi EducationalRehabilitation Centre (WERC) in Pune. WERC is a facility established by BJS specifically for such purpose since the 1993 Latur earthquake. BJS has a successful history and a proven track record of rehabilitating over 3000 disaster affected children since then.

BJS believes that for a crisis so acute, the intervention has to be long term and is therefore ready to invest close to a decade on every child who will thus be brought to WERC. This project will entail that the responsibility of the holistic education, food, accommodation, daily needs, counseling, healthcare and nutrition of all these children would be entirely borne by BJS from Std V- XII.  We are hopeful that this project will bring a ray of hope in the lives of the families of these children as much as it will be a life changing experience for the children themselves.