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Indian fisherwomen develop economic independence

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Indian fisherwomen develop economic independence through Samudram

Lush green fields lead to the bustling port of Gopalpur-On-Sea and the offices of Samudram in the small fishing village of Koturu, Orissa, in India, where 65-year-old B Chitamma greets us with a warm smile as we step into her spartan office. Koturu was not like this when a young Chitamma came here from her home village in Andhra Pradesh after marrying a Koturu fisherman.

Chitamma was shocked by what she saw: an open well for drinking water, no school, no hospital, and people constantly borrowing money for medical expenses, marriages, festivals, even to buy food. Chitamma began meeting women house-to-house and eventually cobbled together 15 groups comprising around 20 women each which each began saving Rs 30 every month. Thus was born the Kali Amma Nari Shakti Sangh, registered in 1991-92. It was vocal in demanding schools and services and taking action against illicit alcohol production in the village.

In 1995, at a large gathering of many sanghs, Samudram was born. This state-level federation of women fish worker organizations was tasked with developing marine fisherwomen and their families along the coast of Orissa. Led by 11 executive members (Chitamma is president), Samudram has 3,080 members and works now in 21 coastal blocks in Ganjam, Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapada, Bhadrak and Balasore districts of Orissa.

A major thrust has been tackling cheating in the fish and prawn trade, by middlemen who either offered very low prices for fish at landing centres or discouraged others from selling their catch to Samudram. “We encouraged our members to take up trading, establish linkages with wholesale traders and exporters for the Samudram brand of products. Along with capacity-building of women on production of value-added marine products, training by professionals, exhibition of products at various festivals, and district and national development exhibitions have helped us break free from the shackles of the middlemen,” Chitamma says.

Samudram now has five procurement centres for fresh and dry fish, one each at Godaband, Arjipalli, Sanolianuagan, Kokharkeda and Poddampeda, run by trained fisherwomen, churning out products like fish and prawn achar (pickle), fish papad, fish balls, fish pakoda, fish cutlets, fish cakes, and fish paneer. “Since almost 70% of the total marine catch in the state consists of low-priced fish (like ribbonfish and pink perch), which fetch a low market price, it is either discarded or made into fish meal. But the meat of these fish is as nutritious as any other commercially important fish. So we decided to make value-added fish products from these (low-priced) fish, as well as prepare by-products from processing waste.”

Armed with support from OXFAM, ActionAid, the Orissa Traditional Fisher Women’s Union (OTFWU), and the College of Fisheries, Samudram also embarked on a sustained marketing blitz. With technical assistance from the Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai, Samudram now even sells its packed products in food-grade packets in markets as far away as Chennai, Delhi and Howrah.

This story was extensively edited and adapted from a wonderful story entitled “Orissa woman shows path to self-reliance” written by Aditya Malaviya of Infochange on Jan. 21, 2008 and distributed through OneWorld.net.

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