Full Name : Sangarapillai Vasanthi
Age : 32 years
Address : Nathan Store Street, Periyaneelavanai
Trade : Pottery including Anagi Stove making
Ms. Vasanthi, our one of the beneficiaries shares…
We are six members in our family including my sickly husband and 4 children out of which 4 male and 2 female children. All the 4 children are attending school. For the past 10 years, we are managing our family on the income of the pottery making, which is hardly enough to manage our family.
During the 2004 Tsunami disaster, our village Periyaneelavanai, which is closer to the sea was very badly affected and completely washed off by the Tsunami waves. 3 women were mentally affected, 186 lost their lives including my two brothers, who were supportive to our families. Due to the loss of lives of my brothers, our family was very badly dragged down to poverty.
From 1996 onwards, SWOAD is implementing various activities to assist 300 families in this village and, particularly SWOAD has provided training on how to protect ourselves during a disaster & follow up action after the disaster, benefit of the using Anagi stove and organic farming.
I am a member of SWOAD and professionally I am potter too. SWOAD has selected me to produce Anagi stove, but since I don’t have experience in Anagi stove making. SWOAD took me to a small pottery producing centre and trained me on the trade and requested me to produce 450 Anagi stoves, which are to be provided to the people.
Accordingly I have produced 230 stoves in five months which cost me Rs.13,000 and I have received Rs.50,600 at the rate of Rs.220/= per stove from SWOAD. The net profit from the trade so far is Rs.37,600.
SWOAD has provided Rs.7,520 as capital and I am producing Anagi stove continuously and issued them to SWOAD. The damaged stoves are sold for lesser prices at Rs. 100 per stove to the local people of the village. Up to now, I have sold 10 damaged stoves for Rs.1,000. After completing the requirements of SWOAD, I have planned to sell the product in the Periyaneelavanai Main road side. Due to the popularity of the stoves, many people approached me for stoves; even the shop owners are also requesting me to provide them these stoves. I am getting more income from this stove business than the earlier pots and pans business. Also, the people are eager to using these stoves. Now, I am confident that I could get more income from the stove production
Due to the heavy demand for the stoves, I could not cope up with the demand. Therefore, I have selected two young orphaned girls. They are trained by me and into producing Anagi stoves along with pots & pans. Now, I am paying Rs.1500 per month to each girl. Even though, this is a small amount. These two girls are saving this amount without expenditure. When they learn well, they would be able to earn more money.
With all these work, I am involving in home gardening. I don’t purchase any vegetable outside. In my garden, there are brinjol, lady’s-finger, bitter gourd, beans and chillies. I was using only cow dung as manure. But, after the training that I received through SWOAD on organic farming, I have gained the knowledge on organic farming such as how to maintain the organic farming, how to prepare the insecticide and compost manure, etc. Now, I am using the knowledge for my home gardening and producing poison & chemical free fresh vegetables for our daily use.
I am happy to say that the trainings that I have received from SWOAD are helping to producing poison free & fresh vegetable, cooking it in the Anagi stove, enjoying the meals and living happily