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| Eco Village Tours leadership by local women |
Connecting Cultures has teamed up with The India Responsible Tourism Foundation (IRTF) which is based in South India to bring you authentic cultural eco based tours and holidays. Sustainable Tourism development programs headed by the foundation leader Rupesh Kumar won the Responsible Tourism of India Award for 2010, a prestigous award that celebrates the innovative community social and environmental programs that they have set up in South India through the work that its members have done. Work Skills of local people living in the villages in which the IRTF are based are nutured and developed to a level where jobs have been created in sustainable food cooperatives.
In one village where I had the privledge to visit a group of 17 women have taken over the lease of a disused rice field and after twelve months of hard work have a thriving productive agricultural cooperative set up. All the fruit and vegetables are grown organically using only natural pest control methods and avoiding the use of chemical spraying of crops. The food gardens that surround the village houses and in the disused rice field supply all the fruit and veggies for the womens families in the local village. The excess produce is sold to the locally run food cooperative that was set to in part supply food and produce to a group of 9 regional hotels that signed up through the project to buy locally produced produce to supply their kitchens that serve domestic and international guests that stay or eat at the hotels.
The women who work the farm have now set up their own group bank account and have set up a micro loan scheme for their members to access so that they can borrow at 1% interest rate up to 5000 rupees at a time. Micro Loan Schemes such as these allow women who may not have otherwise had the chance to get a loan from a mainstream bank access to small loans. Women can buy for instance a sewing machine they could not otherwise afford to get through this scheme and start their own home based clothing business.
I had the pleasure of being guided on a tour of the local farm and experiencing first hand the generousity of spirit of the women when I visited the village recently and was warmly welcomed into their homes. I was guided around and took a tour of the farm with a group of the women, who showed me how they grew the plants and how every part of a vegetable or fruit is used, in cooking and for medical healing purposes as in the ancient art of Ayurveda . Ayurveda seems to be readily practiced as a given thing within the communities I visited and is incorporated in every aspect of life. Often a whole plant is used, nothing is wasted, roots, stems, leaves, seeds and fruit are put to a whole range of uses, from medicinal teas and brews that cleanse and detoxify the body, to making wonderful tasty traditional indian curry dishes.
The smiles on the women's faces told me how much pleasures there was in growning your own food, sharing it amongst members of the community and cooking for guests. I reluctantly thanked the women and said my goodbyes and was excited at the prospect of creating an Eco Village Tours package and to bring overseas guests back into this village.
Through the IRTF members within the women's group have had the opportunity to be part of a local tour guides program and trained to lead groups. Local women leaders are now guiding international tourists down the backwaters of Kerela to experience by canoe the life in a village and take in the wonders of the local bird and flora.
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