On the 30th of April we left Madurai for the Nilgiris in the north of Tamil Nadu to escape its oppressive mid-summer heat. The Nilgiris are famous for its tea plantations, its remarkably cooler temperatures to the rest of the state(temperatures hovered around the late teens), and the high concentration of private schools for the rich. To reach this almost life saving sanctuary (I am seriously melting in Madurai's 40 degree heat!) we had to climb for what seemed like hours up an insanely steep and windy hill with an uncountable number of stomach in mouth hair-pin bends - Think Takaka hill x 100!
There were a lot of people to visit and a lot of people to learn from all of whom I can't fit in this blog :-(
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| Group photo after our awesome experience at PMS |
A significant highlight for myself and for the rest of the group was our visit to PMS (I can't remember its full name only its unfortunate initialism) in Ooty. This organisation exists for empowerment of transgender people and people of 'other genders' so that they can live lives full of confidence and integrity as well as for the illimination of HIV in their communities. Here we met with 3 people from the transgender community. Only one of the people could be officially deemed transgender as only she had had the transforming operation.What shook me the most was when one of our hosts said that she prays to God everyday to stop creating transgenders because of the torment that they go through. Through listening to their stories of extreme oppression and exclusion I could understand why she would pray that prayer. All three of them no longer speak to their families because their families have not accepted them for who they are and have actively excluded them; all three have been ostracised and excluded from their communities, facing excessive discrimination; all three were sexually abused and taken advantage of throughout their teenage life; and all three have been effectively forced to participate in sex work. From listening to them, their stories sound all too common amongst their community. It was most certainly an eye opening experience. This is why organisations such as PMS exist. PMS seeks out people of 'other genders' so that they can have a place where they can feel a sense of belonging and to be who they really are and not who their families and society want them to be. Just before we were to leave the organisation, after having spent three and a half worthwhile hours listening to their moving and truly inspiring stories, we all broke into dance. It wasn't quite Bollywood style but it certainly highlighted how well we had connected with each other.
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| Being shown some of the hotspots along the railway tracks |
A second eye opening experience for all of us was meeting with women who work in the sex industry and with an NGO who actively promotes sexual health awareness amongst these marginalised women. While in Hyderabad we had met with people who work with people who have been forced to work in the sex trade by violent means, in the Nilgiris we met with women who "voluntarily" work in this industry. I bracketed the word voluntarily in speech marks because in about 98% of the cases poverty is the oppressor which has effectively forced them into this far too often violent trade. In Ooty our guide, who is the manager of a local NGO, showed us some of the "hot spots" in the area, that is, to put it in polite terms, where the transactions take place. We walked about 200m along the railway tracks (What Ooty is famous for) and every now and then our guide would take us into the bushes on either side of the tracks to show us the exact places where it would take place, even pointing out the condoms which his organisation had distributed free of charge to sex workers. I couldn't help but imagine the immense physical, emotional and mental pain that quite literally hundreds of women had gone through alongside these railway tracks over the years all in order to provide for themselves and their families. It was a pretty emotional experience, silencing me for the rest of the day.
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| Exploring a tea estate near Ooty |
Another of our other focuses in the Nilgiris was the tea industry and the issues related to that. The Nilgiris are blanketed by tea plantations which makes the hills look incredible beautiful, especially in comparison to the barren land which dominates the landscape of the rest of Tamil Nadu. However, many of the people who work on these tea plantations struggle, making barely enough money for their families to survive. Even though over the past ten years the price of tea has been rising, those who produce receive only approximately half of what they did 30 years ago for their crop. Tea pluckers in this region earn between 100 and 200 rupees a day, which is the equivalent to between $2.20NZD and $4.40NZD. Essentially the system of the tea trade/industry is keeping the poorest people in the supply chain - the growers and pickers in developing countries - in poverty. During our stay in the town of Coonor we visited a nearby village of migrant tea workers from Sri Lanka who had migrated to the area in 1983 (Sri Lankan civil war) and have been there every since. They expressed to us how their conditions in their village had not improved in the 30 years that they had been their because they had never been provided the opportunity to rise up the socio-economic ladder. Without the promise of a fair price for their crop, tea producers have little hope of change in the future.
This is where the Chamraj Tea company comes in...
In stark contrast to this, on one of our final days in the Nilgiris we visited the Chamraj tea factory, a large tea factory associated with Fairtrade. According to our guide, one of the company's managers, it was the first tea factory in India to gain Fairtrade accreditation, having extensive welfare schemes for not only its employees but also for others in the neighbouring communities. These schemes cover education, healthcare and pension all of which are incredibly important for the workers and their families and all of which independent pluckers and growers miss out on. While it is impossible to know to what extent the factory really has the interests of its workers in mind the visit was still very refreshing. I asked our guide whether the tea workers are involved in the decision making as I had heard far too many stories during my stay in India of workers being treated as insignificant and disposable objects in the line of production. His answer was a resounding yes. The pickers and growers, both men and women, have a voice throughout the company, importantly being involved in deciding how the Fairtrade premium is spent, really empowering the workers and, in some cases, having spill over benefits for women's empowerment. After these experiences my morning cuppa' will never be the same! I will not look at tea in the same way.
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| Our student coordinator and a couple of women who work as tea pluckers on a tea estate in Ooty |
During our stay here we also helped out at a Vocational Bible School doing magic tricks and puppetry, briefly explored some of the issues surrounding the Adavasi in the Nilgiris (the tribal people of India (The other week we went to a tourist site and because foreigners have to pay more I tried to convince people that I was from an undiscovered adavasi tribe... They had none of it)), and even went on a tiger safari on which we saw elephants.
We then quickly descended down the hill, stopping only for emergency stomach relief, to the 40+ degree heat of the plains of Tamil Nadu
