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The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh is a true mosaic of peoples and cultures, varying habitats and diverse environmental zones. In this patchwork of different tribes, customs and languages, Future Generations SEED-SCALE process has been especially fruitful with its emphasis on individual communities setting and tailoring their own priorities to their own needs. No "one-size-fits-all" model of community development could possibly succeed in a region as diverse as Arunachal Pradesh.

A local Indian group, Future Generations (Arunachal) has been formed to help implement the Future Generations process in different communities, among different tribal groups. Here are a few snapshots of the on-going community development work in this remote corner of India:

Women Improve Village Life

The leaders of the work in Arunachal are local women known as Village Welfare Workers (VWWs) who help collect data, deliver home-based services and mobilize their community to implement positive change. Women are both the advocates and agents of change. As keepers of the home-fires, women are intensely motivated to help their families, and here, as elsewhere, are generally the first to embrace promising models of social change.

Once news circulated in Arunachal that village training projects had been established, women from throughout the region walked for days to attend the first sessions, simply on the basis of the rumors they had heard. They left their homes and families to learn what needed to be done. When they learned about the SEED methodology and were informed that data was needed, they walked in teams through surrounding villages conducting surveys. Ultimately, the teams from the sites surveyed 1,300 homes and over 10,000 people. Based on that, service profiles were developed for each village. The results from the SEED surveys have grown more sophisticated each year as the volunteers learn how to narrow in on the important issues and how to collect the data. The surveys now focus on health, economic, and environmental issues.

The data showed that the needs across the state were quite different. In the Apatani community alcoholism and diarrhea are major problems; in the Adi community, malaria and income generation; and in the Nishi area, diarrhea and food supply. Each of these have fairly straightforward community-based solutions.

To engage women in implementing solutions, core communities created women’s councils that meet on a regular basis to educate each other, gather data, plan projects and support collective action. In each and every group there is one VWW who shares knowledge regularly through weekly meetings. Some village groups also have combined meetings and activities.

Support continues for supervision and on-going training on priority needs, such as trauma management, diarrhea, pneumonia, maternal care, birthing assistance, immunizations and child growth monitoring. Additionally, micro-credit programs have started in each site, which help women establish individual businesses--such as raising pigs, fish and supplies for weaving. With such support, women have established their own kitchen gardens. Previously, women had to buy vegetables from outside their communities. Now for the first time, they are raising and eating their own pumpkins, carrots and green vegetables and have the potential to sell their own food. Women have also distributed seeds to school children and other community members to increase local food security.

Inspired by the new self-confidence of the local women's groups, men from the village took interest in the process of community change and formed their own Farmer's Clubs. Today, the women's groups and farmer's clubs coordinate action through regular meetings convened by their villages' Local Coordinating Committees.

Community-based action in Arunachal Pradesh now radiates from three core community sites to 52 neighboring villages.

Life in an Arunachal village is tough during the monsoon. Landslides sever routes and telephone lines, cutting connections to the outside world and reducing the access for health care. Cholera, an age-old problem during monsoons, sometimes kills dozens of children in a village. The threat of cholera, however, has now been reduced by training conducted by the Village Welfare Workers. Mothers are taught to give their children an oral rehydration therapy, a solution of rice, water and salt. In villages using this simple therapy, cholera deaths have been reduced by over half. News of this success has spread throughout the region encouraging more women to establish training groups in their own communities.

The women’s groups felt they needed their own training centers. Women in one village took the initiative to construct the meeting hall themselves. The first step was to find suitable land for the structure and request permission from the owner: a landowner came forward and happily agreed to donate the space. The next step was to collect bamboo, posts and tin for the roof. At first, the women postponed construction for the arrival of the tin, to be donated by Future Generations--Arunachal, but the women were so eager to get to work they began collecting bamboo and cane from the jungle and putting up the walls. The children helped by carrying the material to the construction site. The first man to support the women in the construction effort was initially skeptical of the role of the women’s groups. But after having dinner with one of the Village Welfare Workers, the man was convinced of the good work of the women. He promised to support them in any way possible. True to his word, the very next morning he was out working on the bamboo structure. With the support of the entire community, the women’s training center was completed in days, just waiting the arrival of the tin, which eventually came. Other women’s groups took inspiration from this example.

After reviewing their SEED survey, the women of one site noticed very low levels of immunization in their community. They responded by inviting the local physician to their weekly meeting to talk about the implications. When the physician came and said, “Because your rates are so low you must bring your children to the clinic...” one woman interrupted and said, “I’m never going to bring my child to your hospital--it STINKS.” The physician replied, “The sweeper left three months ago and I’ve not been able to get a new one.” Another woman answered, “Clean it yourself.” The physician replied, “I’m a doctor. Sweeper’s not my caste.” Considerable disgust then followed with the result that the women arose from their bamboo hut, walked over to the hospital, grabbed what cleaning equipment was present, and put that clinic in spick-and-span order. Each week thereafter the women start their meeting with a 15 minute clean up of the clinic. The physician has been so pleased that he now comes to the weekly meetings as an advisor. Forty women, armed with syringes, then went to the other villages that the clinic was supposed to serve and gave inoculations to every single child.

When spring arrives in this remote Apatani village, children and women of all ages are in the fields with their hoes preparing a unique kind of rice paddy. The women in the Apatani Plateau are famous for cultivating fields that simultaneously grow both rice and fish.

In the 1950s, local farmers discovered the combination of growing rice and raising fish in the same fields. The government had originally encouraged people to stock fish in special ponds, but farmers thought such ponds were wasteful when they could raise fish in their wet paddies. They cultivate a wet rice that thrives with the help of an elaborate irrigation system. The wet paddy then creates a home for the fish who in turn fertilize the rice.

Many sustainable farming and forestry practices are found among these tribal communities, including a century or more of blue pine cultivation - an extraordinary demonstration of environmentally sensitive forestry - and sustainable bamboo plantations. Continued blending of these traditions with modern approaches is needed, however, to make them more productive. Now through the work of Future Generations Arunachal, villagers here and in other sites across Arunachal Pradesh decide what farming methods are most appropriate for their land.

With its unique biological and cultural diversity, Arunachal Pradesh has the potential to move to center stage in India as a model of participatory community development that meets peoples’ needs and maintains the environment.