Women in Orissa achieve Millennium Development Goals through willpower

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Zero dropout rate at elementary school level, sustainable environment, poverty eradication, increase in literacy rate, gender equality, empowerment of women — they have achieved it all.
The achievers of these challenging Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not highly educated and extraordinary urbanite people, but the ordinary members of self-help groups residing in rehabilitation colonies at Kalinga Nagar in Orissa’s Jajpur district.
Helped by country’s major steel producer, Tata Steel, the self-help groups called Tata Steel Parivars (TSPs) have successfully ensured that all children living in the colony go to the school and get education.
“The noteworthy achievement of Tata Steel Parivars at Kalinganagar is that these families have achieved the target of 100 per cent elementary education with zero school dropout rate,” says Sukanta Rout, an educationist who played a crucial role in motivating the children, most of them tribals, to go to the school.
According to figures, as many as 159 tribal children have been enrolled in the residential schools in Jajpur district. Similarly, 50 children have got the opportunity of studying in one of the premier schools of the state - Kalinga Institute of Social Science (KISS), Bhubaneswar. As many as 213 children are studying in schools as day scholars.
Simultaneously, there is significant jump in the literacy levels of the TSPs from 45 per cent in 2005 to 65 cent in 2010.
Interestingly, there has been an incredible and drastic change in the will power of women of these relocated families. The empowered women community here are now self-employed and going overboard for what they are doing. They have engaged themselves in poultry farming, gardening, stone carving, saura painting and in setting up of small industries, like phenyl and pickles.
“A few years before, we were quite poor. We did not have money to even buy food, let alone send our children to school. Now, with own our income, we are not only meeting our day-to-day expenses but also support our school and college-going children,” says Jamiti Mahanta, head of an SHG group.
While child and maternal health parameters are not encouraging in the country, the self-help groups here have achieved zero infant mortality.
“All we did to reduce the infant mortality rate is that we emphasised on institutional births. Women in advanced stage were taken to hospitals where they delivered healthy babies,” informs Sabita Jamuda.
Ms Jamuda, who is the leader of at least one hundred SGHs operating in the area, adds that due to cent- per-cent institutional delivery and regular medical checks-ups, the zero infant mortality rate target was pulled off.
The survey showed that in TSPs, out of the 92 child births last year, only two children were delivered with low weight (less than 2.5kg). However, no death was reported from those families last year. Amongst more than 300 babies delivered in the last five years, only one death occurred due to congenital anomaly.
Further, as a measure to combat HIV/AIDS, the self-help groups have taken steps to create awareness taking them to Red Ribbon Express with a proper campaign. This apart, they have developed a green sphere around them through massive plantation, thereby getting closer to the environmental sustainability.
Tata Steel is setting up of a 6-million tonne per annum integrated steel plant at Kalinganagar Industrial Complex at Kalinga Nagar in Jajpur district.