Village: Mahulpadar, GP: Sunapur, Block: Boden, District: Nuapada
Mahulpadar is a tribal resident village in the Sunapur gram panchayat of Boden block of Nuapada District. It consists of 128 households with a population of 512 people, out of which 249 are male and 263 females.
Mrs. Mahauti, the field facilitator regularly organized meetings with the village people, women, and youth leaders and has formed Didi groups and the Village Water Management Committee by selecting 10-15 members in each group, and often discusses water issues, watersheds, water conservation, plantation, environment, sustainable development, and many more environmental issues.
On 12.10.2022, Mrs. Mahauti and the junior project associate Mrs. Chandrakanti Jagat organized a meeting with the Didi leaders to discuss the above subjects, forest and soil conservation and the protection of the environment. In the meeting, she also added the facilities provided by the government horticulture department for the community and promoted the kitchen garden among the Didi members to help with their health care. Next, on 22.10.2022, Mrs. Mahauti again conducted a Didi meeting in the Mahulpadar village, and this time, she distributed varieties of vegetable seeds, involving tomatoes, papaya, lady finger, cabbage, drumstick, spinach, beans, chilly, and many more that she had collected from the Horticulture department.
She also conveyed the message to the Didi members from the officials that fruits and vegetable seeds are being distributed in the department, and for collecting these seeds, women need to submit their Xerox copy of the Aadhar card, bank passbook, and land registration paper and suggested to collect the seeds. Within a few days, the Didi group member collected mango seeds and other vegetable seeds for plantation. Then after a couple of weeks, the field facilitator again visited the village to conduct another meeting with those Didi members and discussed the importance of the plantation and its management and protection. The Didi members also got money sanctioned from the department for planting those seeds on their land and covering them through protective plastic netting to provide extra protection to the plant. A total of 20 women have received seeds from the horticulture department, among which 18 have planted 160 plants on their land, and 02 of them have planted 170 plants each in their lands. Firstly, they have dug a proper planting hole with an extra hole near that to store water in it for groundwater recharge and water those plants.
During the undergoing process of the plantation, Mrs. Mahauti organized another meeting with the Didi members to discuss the status of their continuing work and its impact on them. By mid-February and March 2023, the plantation work was completed successfully.
After the plantation of the mango saplings, somebody stole 30 saplings from the plantation site. Since there was no scope for getting quality saplings from the Horticulture department, the family, purchased 5kgs of good varieties of mango, they ate the mango, then used the seeds to raise the seedlings in the pot using organic compost. They successfully raised the saplings and planted them in the vacant pits. All 160 plants survived and growing very well.
On 19th June 2024, the evaluator and Chale Chalo team visited the plantation site, interacted with the beneficiary and found the initiative as a successful one using the highland for soil and water conservation. This action is taken as part of the farm level micro water security measures which ultimately will strengthen the livelihood option and enhance family income.