Watershed development

Keshav told me about this. WOTR (Watershed Organization Trust) is based out of rural areas in Maharashtra, India, and it is a perfect example of empowering the people to help themselves. According to the WOTR vision, watershed development does not only mean developing catchment areas around rivers and managing the soil and land. Since the environment and the people living in that environment closely interact with each other, therefore the people should understand not to over-exploit the natural resources which are the primary source of their income. But this is just the beginning of the thought process. What is fundamental to it is making the people aware of what is good for them and what is bad in the long term. The crux of all development activities boils down to bringing awareness to the masses. Everybody in the world is reasonably smart and rational - the key is to get them thinking - the vision is to empower them so that they can take care not just of themselves, but the entire community as a whole. Everybody knows how to pursue their own selfish motives, but this does not generally lead to the best solution that is sustainable in the long term and has a sum larger than all all individual gains put together.

WOTR starts with watershed development that includes afforestation, soil, land, water, crop, livestock, and energy management. Then they go beyond into gender mainstreaming by promoting women because right from traditional times, women have looked after household needs such as food, fuel, fodder, and water. They help in the formation of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) where all the women come together to defend each other in times of diversity. Once this awakening has taken place, the same SHGs and many more come together into promoting other projects like micro-financing, health care, and environment sanitization. Farming is the main occupation of the people in the rural areas, and with all the extra awareness comes the need for a communication infrastructure, which in turn brings in more awareness, leads to the construction of schools, builds up a critical mass of educated individuals, and the development spiral keeps growing.

Over a period of 10 years or so, WOTR has expanded its activities to 800 villages and has over 100000 participants.