Our first visit to Tridibnagar in lot 126 of Jharkhali happened in Jan 2020 at the request of Mr. Sekhar Mohanty and Mr. Kartik Sarkar, who ran the only primary school there – Rabindra Bidyaniketan.
While we went there to understand how we could contribute to sustaining the school, our visit opened our eyes how the women folk are fighting to save their land and livelihood from the onslaught of nature – series of cyclones and erosion of soil.
We realised the immediate need was to support their struggle with the nature by supplementing their modest efforts in mangrove plantation. Mangroves go a long way in protecting the land from cyclones. Children would go to school only when there is a semblance of stability in land and livelihood.
Pandemic set in immediately after our first visit and to make things worse cyclones – Bulbul, Amphan, Yaas hit the area in quick succession. Recovering from disruptions induced by the pandemic we went to the village in September 2021 and helped them in planting mangrove saplings along the riverbank. That time 2000 mangrove saplings were planted. Apart from an effort at protecting the land, it generated some earnings for the women folk too. We repeated this plantation exercise in the succeeding years, while continuing small help for the school. The efforts are yielding results. Mangroves planted (appx. 8000 saplings so far) have survived and grown and giving protection to the land.
The women folk of the village have organised themselves through Arpan Mahila Samity and have been a great source of strength in all our activities. We are now committed to sustainable development by combining livelihood and environment issues in our development work.
Until date, we have been able to cover a stretch of more than 500 meters along the riverbank, covering around 30 bighas of land and is providing protection to an extensive part of the village.