Art of Living rescues Vidarbha farmers

The distressed Vidarbha cotton farmers are now getting help. No, it is neither the state government nor the Centre with yet another relief package, but the Art of Living (AOL) volunteers. Over 1,086 trained young men and women are taking charge of several villages in the drought-prone district to encourage the farmers to roll back their lives.

Though started eight months ago, the ‘Project Vidarbha — Swavalamban programme’ has shown significant results. Under this programme youngsters in the village are identified and trained as youth leaders, who then take charge of the entire village. So far, the young leaders have reached out to 151 villages in Amravati, in which 55 leaders are reaching out to 90,000 lives.

The programme works at various levels — AOL part one course teaches breathing techniques to boost the farmer’s morale, Samagra Arogya Shibirs along with other relevant projects like organic farming, zero-budget farming, rainwater harvesting, hygiene, construction of toilets, etc.

With alarming statistics of one farmer ending his life every eight hours, Project Coordinator Jayant Bhole claims that not a single suicide was reported in the 151 villages they have worked in so far. “There are about 1,000 villages in the Amravati region. The current suicides are happening outside this region. We are training more youth leaders to reach out to all the villages.”

Taking note of their success, the Swavalamban project recently got official backing and entered districts — Yavatmal, Akola, Buldana, Washim and Wardha in November. As of now, over 4,512 villagers have also learnt AOL’s breathing technique, Sudarshan kriya, which has reduced stress levels. The biggest response came from Morshi taluka, with 16,000 locals taking the course in 14 days. “Before AOL, there was depression and debt everywhere. I’m confident that with zero budget farming taught in the course, the produce will improve and debts will be cleared,” says Devendra Borde, a farmer from Vidarbha.

Others like Anand Sabde from Nimbhi in Morshi district are hopeful that things will get better, even as poor yield caused him to give up on his fields. “The natural farming sessions have encouraged me to cultivate my fields again,” he says. Bhole said that families of farmers, who have also undergone trauma, have participated in the courses. On March 27, eight villages from Satara, which are involved in the AOL project, were shortlisted for the Nirmal Gaon Puraskar, which means all the houses in these villages have their own toilets as opposed to public toilets.