That this is no ordinary calamity is evident from the plight of Indira, in her late twenties and an inmate at the Kodagu Seva Kendra. ''I worked in a boutique as a tailor. After the landslide, the owner is refusing to give me a job. If I can get a sewing machine, I can earn on my own and support my family,’’ she told the relief agency official who had come to help her out.
''You have children? Are they studying, have you paid their fees?’’ asked Thammoo Poovaiah, who is coordinating the activities at the Kendra.
''My son is studying in class four and my daughter in class two. I have already paid the fee for the year and if I start earning again, I think I can manage their future education also,’’ said Indira.
''You will get a new sewing machine, there are donors,’’ said Thammoo Poovaiah and asked Indira to register her details.
Next came Kavita, in her late thirties. After listening to her, Poovaiah assured her that her son’s education would be taken care of. ''This woman was a trained beautician and was diagnosed with breast cancer. After learning about it, her husband deserted her. She is taking care of two children and fighting cancer as well as a divorce case. After cancer treatment, she was finding it difficult to work as beautician and her parlor business had drastically come down. She feels tailoring is a better option. We cannot be rigid about our rules on direct or indirect victims of the disaster. So we are finding a donor to sponsor her son’s education,’’ he said.
''We don’t handle anyone’s money at the Kendra, all we do is collect data of direct or indirect victims and verify it with the volunteers. We hand over the data to the district administration. We also reconstruct the documents lost by the victims. We merely liaison between the victims, government and donors,’’ he added.
Many groups are active in Madikeri, who are directly interacting with villagers and victims, trying to liaison between donors and victims to provide community based support. ''We are not directly involved in anything, we are coordinating through Mr Nagesh of Kalooru. We provide tailoring training for a group of women and are exploring options to get them some work. A training programme in food processing including wine making will also be taken up to provide them an alternative livelihood means,’’ said Balaji Kashyap of Brahmana Maha Sabha.
Rotary Club Mysuru West has come forward to adopt 500 children to provide them education till they get employment. Mr Ganesh Ayyanna of Rotary Club Mysuru West Circle said that the club had decided not to get involved in the reconstruction and rehabilitation process. ''We decided to concentrate on education and we got a donor who offered to adopt 10 students. We have decided to take up the issue with Rotary International to see how much more we can do,’’ he said. Not to be left behind, a group of youth under the aegis of 'Kodagu For Tomorrow’ are raising funds and delivering it to the beneficiaries whenever the Seva Kendra refers a particular case which needs financial relief to them.
Kodagu Special Additional DC Mr Jagadish agreed that these groups can do a lot. ''A lot of people are working on training programmes. An agarbathi manufacturing unit from Mysuru has decided to outsource its packaging part to Kodagu, so that it generates employment,’’ he said.
Kodagu is looking for a healing touch from a government which has to understand its problems better. Caught in the throes of a political tussle, the coalition government is yet to come to terms with the magnitude of the tragedy and the impact it could have on future generations. Maybe, what we need is more co-ordination between the government, rehab agencies and NGOS working on the ground to make sure the massive inflow of funds does not go in vain—and the Kodava is back on his feet, with his dynamism and robust energy intact.
