Sarpi stands for Society for the Advancement of the Rural People of India. It´s a non-profit organization established in 1978 by the Teresian association. SARPI´s vision is to promote the development of the rural village communities through empowerment of women and children.
INDOLINK has collaborated with this Indian NGO in their project to give access to the library books to the village people around Honavar.
INDOLINK members, Itziar Martinez de Antoñana, Sergi Sayols and Marcos Rodríguez Godoy visited Sarpi on 25th and 26th April. Sarpi´s representative and ex-member of INDOLINK team in India, Berta Balaguer, acted as a host and our team could observe and take part in a number of activities in the community life.
Honavar (Karnataka. India). Life is simple and relaxed. Nature is unspoiled. No pollution, no plastic waste, we feel in a paradise outside the noise of the Indian cities. Earth is of red color and plants and trees are awesome. Coconut trees, mango trees, cashew trees... surround us and protect us from the rays of sun.
We visit George and his family at his house in a local village. The village is located in an island. The only economy in the island is the manufacturing of ropes from coconuts. The process takes more than a year. The children get up at 4:00 am to help their parents for few hours before going to school. Work is tough, the people and the atmosphere remain beautiful.
We visited the fish port and saw the fishermen just arriving to sell their products. The fishermen in the picture shared with us some quantity of their catch as a gift.
Holy Cross monks have started a shrimp bed as a local economy development project. They have a simple and beautiful house by the river, which looks like a meditation retreat.
We meet the women working in the Kurta project iniciated by Berta Balaguer. These women of poor background have a job in a nice environment, meet other women and get a fair salary.
We attended the last programme of the library summer camp for children as honor guests. We gave the prices for the painting competition. A lovely new generation bringing lots of hope for a bright future.
Sarpi runs several programs in the local communities around Honavar. One of the projects is a school for special children where mentally handicapped children learn to play and live with human dignity. The public library run by Sarpi has just added a new service of an itinerary library that brings the books to the villages to improve their opportunites of access to culture. Sarpi has recently started the kurta project where rural women manufacture “kurtas” (Indian shirt) for export. Several summer schools are run for children. All the projects are aim at contributing to human development and social transformation of the area.
Special thanks to Berta Balaguer and Anita, Agosh, Elisabeth, Nancy, Santan, Lily, Gregoria from Sarpi team in Honavar.
For more information, see www.sarpi-india.org