Kulusing is a village of Abada Gram Panchayat, which is a tribal dominated village of hilly and terraced land mass. The total population of the village is tribal, who are solemnly named as solely Lanjia Soura Tribe who are one among 13-PTGs(Primitive Tribal Group) existing in Odisha. They are called Lanjia Soura because of their traditional dress which they used to wear which appears like “Lanjia” or “Tail”. Similarly, the females of Lanjia Soura community use to cover the lower part of their body by handmade napkin leaving the upper part quite naked traditionally.
They speak Soura Munda language. They have scattered housing pattern. The village guardian deities are represented by wooden posts installed at the entrance of the village. They pursue shifting cultivation and prepare terrace fields for rice cultivation.
The Hira SHG has been formed in 15th December 2014 in Kulusing. Total 14 members and their regular saving is a part of their income. After the intervention of OPELIP, the members of Hira SHG has improved skill and techniques on Broom collection, finishing, binding with rope, snickering, value addition process, marketing linkages, and convergence and networking process through the different training program.
Hira SHG has formed a new uniqueness in the project operational areas for their new initiative. The demand for hill broom is very high in urban as well as rural are of the entire district. It has developed an identification in the village and became the confidence level high.
Before OPELIP intervention the community has no thought on hill broom as an income opportunity. Only it used to fulfill their domestic requirement for cleaning. Some people were used to collect the hill broom and sold it at a distress price. There were no collective business attitudes before. They were sensitized with numbers of meetings at SHG level by OPELIP staff. For rapport building, they were provided with unique saris and box to keep all records with safety.
The profit amount was very meagre which might seem insignificant to many of us, but imagine the joy of these women who are otherwise always confined to their domestic sphere, burdened with gendered roles of being the Caretaker, mother and various other Society defined roles. Some of them have not even seen the face of a school, forget alphabets and numbers. The excitement when they shared the message of their profit, was probably the best thing for us to work with them.
