But at Landesa we know it also turns in quiet
I was able to share just such a moment this
year with a 14-year-old girl named Rutani.
Rutani lives in a remote tribal village called Bada Kalakote in the state of Odisha, India.
Rutani labored in the fields to help support her family, while her father ventured to the cities in search of work.
She and her neighbors have been farming their land for four generations. And each of those generations has been denied security and basic government support because they lacked title to the land they tilled.
Because Rutani’s parents didn’t have a land title, which serves as proof of permanent residence, they couldn’t send Rutani and her three younger brothers to the government residential school where the children would have enjoyed a free education along with free room and board.
Her parents also couldn’t apply for government subsidized seeds and saplings or agricultural training, and they couldn’t obtain jobs on government work projects that are guaranteed to India’s poorest people.
Rutani labored in the fields to help support her family, while her father ventured to the cities in search of work.
On the day of my visit, Rutani’s mother was home sick with the younger siblings. Money was so scarce that Rutani hadn’t eaten in two days.
But on this day, Rutani’s fortunes and the future of her village changed because our government partners awarded 155 families, including Rutani’s, titles to the land they had been farming.
“There is no food at my home today,” she said during the land title distribution ceremony. “But that’s okay, this is more important than a day’s work. This will be good for us.”
Some of you may know that I have a 14-year-old daughter. As a complete accident of birth, my daughter has a wealth of opportunities while Rutani has been denied so much.
Perhaps the title came too late to dramatically alter Rutani’s path in life, though her family’s increased security means food will be easier to come by. However, the title certainly will help her younger brothers attend school and help her parents make the most of their land.
“This is more important than a day’s work. This will be good for us.”
Those 155 titles will also change the history of her village. The village now has far more security than it has ever known. Families can make investments not just for today, but for the generations to come.
And one of those 155 titles may also change history far beyond the confines of her village. With the benefits afforded by secure rights to land, one of Rutani’s young neighbors may get an education and leave the village to do great things.
At Landesa we recognize that there are quite literally one billion Rutanis in the world – one billion people who are full of potential but without even the most minimal resources. People who are poor and hungry and stuck for generations in part because they don’t control the land on which they depend.
Perhaps they are sharecroppers, squatters tilling government land, bonded servants, daily wage laborers, or indigenous people who have occupied the same land for generations but never with any legal claim.
With your partnership we are helping give them the foundation to do better for themselves and their communities. It is a foundation for both economic development and stability. Because, across the developing world, land is often much more than just a place to grow food. Land ownership is often the entry point to becoming a full citizen.
Surendra Sabar, a resident of a tiny hamlet
a day’s journey from Rutani, can attest to this.
“Now, I understand that the government’s job is to help the people. And they have helped us to build our future. Now, I have land and hope.”
“Before (we got our land titles), the government never came to our hamlet,” said Surendra, a 27-year-old villager. Surendra and other residents of the hamlet eked out a living on the margins, sharecropping for more established farmers in other villagers. “We didn’t understand what is a government for. We just cast our wood (vote) and that was it.” Said Surendra, “I had no idea how I would survive in the future.”
Anti-government extremists across India, like radicals the world over, have capitalized on just such a potent mixture of poverty and disenfranchisement. Their ranks are flush with the young, angry, and hopeless, eager to change the course of history with violence.
But a partnership between Landesa, its local partners, and the state government of Odisha, gave Surendra and his neighbors another tool to change the course of their history, and a stake in the system, by making them landowners.
Surendra and his wife quickly transformed their new plot into a lush garden full of okra, eggplant and a variety of green leafy vegetables. And they have put the power of their patta (the local name for a land title) to work, by calling on government services and support for their efforts, jointly seizing this opportunity to carve out a more secure future for themselves.
“Now, I understand that the government’s job is to help the people. And they have helped us to build our future,” said Sabar, while sitting on the stoop of his mud and thatch home. “Now, I have land and hope.”
Our continued partnerships with governments around the world allow us to share with you stories of individual lives changed, and also a broader view of transformational, historic change on a large scale.
In China, our continued partnerships benefited
2.6 million
farming families this financial year alone.
Also in this year we completed our 5th survey of land rights, in which we interviewed more than 2,000 farmers across 17 provinces. The results of our survey have helped inform the most senior leaders in China as they continue to guide their country’s historic transformation.
In India, our partnerships with state governments and local NGOs
brought land rights to another
811,942 families
this financial year alone.
In its first full year of existence, the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights has initiated a fellowship program, placed a stronger gender lens on Landesa’s work in China and India, and is implementing innovative women’s and girls’ land rights pilot programs in Uganda and West Bengal, India.
The pilot in West Bengal, India is focused on keeping poor landless girls in school and safe from early marriage and child trafficking, by giving families micro-plots and providing their daughters with special agricultural training. The pilot program, which is in its early stages, has already brought land ownership to 2,291 families and enrolled 118 girls in special classes aimed at boosting their status in their families and communities.
And we’ve begun work in two very exciting and deserving countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
We look back at fiscal year 2011 confident that together with our partners we’ve helped shape history – by bringing more than
3.4 million families secure rights to their land.
In the last 46 years, we have helped more than
109 million families gain secure land rights and the opportunity for a better life.
By 2015 we aim to help another
14 million families
become land owners so that they can invest in their land to build a better future for themselves and their families.
We are grateful for your partnership as we work with governments to help change history for all of the Rutanis around the world.
Tim Hanstad