Christen Narazary belongs to the tribal Bodo Community in Kharjaigun village of Sonapar District in India. She is a hardworking and intelligent woman who has been educated until Grade IV. She was married off to another community and has two daughters. Christen was a traditional weaver, but she found a job as a tailor in a small organization.

In 2000, she returned to her traditional roots and started doing weaving work at KVA. Now, weaving is her sole source of livelihood and KVA ensures that she gets weaving projects throughout the year. Her interest in learning new things and tendency to experiment with designs and various items have lead Christen to being totally independent.

Christen’s husband Ratan, who is a tailor, has also became involved in the readymade garment microenterprise of KVA. Since both of them are associated with KVA, they get regular business throughout the year which is sufficient to sustain their livelihood.

Members like Christen contributes majorly towards the strengthening of the objectives of SEWA; and KVA shall continue to strive towards developing their skills and illuminating their lives with knowledge.

SEWA is the national implementing agency of MTCP2 in India.

About MTCP2

The Medium Term Cooperation Program Phase 2 (MTCP2), a five-year capacity building program supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the European Union (EU), has been implemented in 19 countries across three sub-regions—Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific—engaging 1,544 sub-national farmers organizations (FOs) with a total membership of around 22 million farmers. The funding support (total budget of $ 5 million for the whole duration of the project across 19 countries) serves as a catalytic fund that will allow FOs to enhance their capacity to be effective channels of economic services to farmers. So far, the program has contributed to the formation of strong national platform of FOs with improved capacity to engage in policy processes and mobilize resources from mainstream agricultural development programs like extension services, credit, and pre and post harvest facilities. The program also helped in transforming farmers associations into commodity-based cooperatives to strengthen the role of small-scale farmers within an inclusive and sustainable value-chain. The program is being implemented by the consortium Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) and La Via Campesina (LVC).

Tags:

Comments are closed