Project India 2008
Suicide is a rising epidemic among South Indian farmers, which has resulted in many women left alone to support a family. Farmers have been using suicide as their way out of loans that charge them exorbitant interest rates. Suicide rarely leaves these families completely debt free; most often they are left without a source of income. The compensation policy for “farmer suicides” in India reimburses only a fraction of the families for their loss. Those not compensated are left without the source of income that farming once provided and are often overlooked by existing micro-finance entities whose focus is using loans in suicide prevention.
A gap exists for an organization that focuses specifically upon helping the widows of these farmers support themselves. Current micro-finance ventures focus on the poor, those infected with diseases such as HIV, and war torn countries. Recent studies about farmer suicides in India, for instance those done by Rimjhim M. Aggarwal or Harishchandra Sukhdeve, focus their attention on setting minimum prices for crops or making micro-loans to farmers. My hope is that this social entrepreneurship program will help these widows by identifying culturally and economically appropriate business ventures in conjunction with meeting the women’s immediate monetary needs to start such ventures.
Helping a widow support herself is not something unfamiliar to me. As a freshman in college, a close friend of mine lost his father, and his mother was left to support herself and her three sons. I was there as she was denied loans for the capital to start her own company. She eventually relied on family, credit, and the small amount of life insurance she received to begin this company. We worked long hours, but nothing was more rewarding than knowing that her children would be provided for even without both parents. My focus on helping the widows of Indian farmers comes from long hours spent helping my friend’s mom with her business, working with the poor in the United States since high school, and the contacts in India who have expressed great need for such a program.
My attachment to India first arose when I was searching online for widow aid programs and found an article about South Indian farmers who committed suicide and left widows and children behind to support themselves. I understood right away that the experience from my friend’s tragic situation along with my finance and accounting background could potentially change these women’s lives. As an accounting major, with a minor in communication and a thesis on creating a micro-financing non-profit for South Indian widows, I began to realize how my current skill set could be adapted to the suicide region of India. My accounting knowledge could serve to educate these women on how to keep track of their sales and expenses to create good monetary practices for their business. Knowledge of lending strategies from finance classes will serve to help me assess sound lending practices for the suicide region of India and analyze the risk of potential loans. It is my experience in communication that will fuse these types of education together because it has given me a basic understanding of the Indian culture and how to communicate in a culture different from my own. To learn more about the Indian culture, I have made contacts with people who have moved to the United States from India in the last ten years, my sociology professor who has traveled India extensively, faculty at the University of Osmania in Hyderabad, India, and clergy who currently reside in India.
The program methodology involves working primarily through churches, many of which have tried to help families in the suicide region of Southern India by lending farmers money to encourage them not to commit suicide. The churches in this area are currently unable to provide for the monetary needs of living farmers with debt which leaves little to no funding for families in which suicide has already occurred. My project is community based, seeking to meet the needs of those in the immediate population. Clergy, leaders and parishioners of the church might better advise me of those in need, rather than governmental agencies who are farther removed from the people. I have made arrangements with the Amravati Diocesan Social Development Society and the Diocese of Khammam to live on site at their church facilities. At both of these churches, I will have access to training programs for loan recipients, translators, and transportation to villages in the surrounding area in need of grants/micro-loans. Being able to live on the premises and have access to church run programs will allow a greater percentage of funds to flow through to these widows as interest rates and overhead expenses will be lower.
Upon implementation of this program, I will be able to assist widows in Amravati and Khammam in contributing to the economy of India by providing products or services to people through entrepreneurial business ventures. When properly implemented, these businesses could potentially spur economic growth like differentiation and competitive advantage strategies found in more developed countries. Also, this program will be used to study which business ventures are most appropriate for the needs of Southern India and whether women will be interested in starting their own business instead of applying for government funded compensation policies. Overall, the more money lent to these women, the less support will be needed on behalf of the government and local resources that are already stretched too thin
Current Statistics
• Approximately 100,000 farmers have committed suicide over the last ten years in Southern India’s Suicide region.
• Currently churches are helping with suicide prevention programs, job training, SHG (self help groups- linked banking), assistance in obtaining government funds, etc.
• The target population of this program is the widows of the farmers in the surrounding areas of the Amravati Diocesan Social Development Society and the Diocese of Khammam (both in the suicide region). If there is funding beyond the amount needed by widows in the surrounding areas, the program will then target indebted farming families.
• Currently, only 79 out of over 20,000 villages are being reached with church programs and government funding. With most of the focus of these organizations being on suicide prevention a large need exists for aid in the aftermath of suicide. In 2006 there were approximately 1500 suicides that left women and children behind to support themselves.
Goals
• Primary Goal: To help widows of farmers in Southern India get out of debt and become entrepreneurs.
• Secondary Goal: To help people in Southern India get out of debt, preventing farmer suicide.
• Ultimate goal: Help people to create sustainable businesses, use repayments of loans to broaden the loan base, and reduce farmer suicides through grants that help alleviate debt.