Kisaans In Need

Why have we decided to fundraise? 

Hundreds of thousands of farmers across India are protesting against the introduction of three laws to reform agriculture which make it easier for corporations to buy from farmers and give these corporations a disproportionate amount of purchasing power. The laws will also result in the removal of minimum support prices paid to farmers, and they will also take farmers to bankruptcy and allow the corporations to seize their land.

The protests are being led by agriculture union leaders from Punjab, as well as many other states including Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and has earned support from the entire nation.

These laws were ratified in September with no prior consultation with farmers unions or within the government.  The farmers tried to communicate to revoke the laws to no avail, the protest march to Delhi was begun in late November. Currently, there is a stand-off as millions of farmers, farm labourers and their families occupy the border of Delhi, stating they will not leave until the government revokes the bills.

This appeal will focus on supporting those who have been impacted by the protests. To date, over 732 protesters have lost their lives. MLSS systematically on a case by case basis going to the impacted families and helping them with support from the donations provided. This included:-

Planning: MLSS India team with the help of our UK team started working on a process planning of how to start helping the less fortunate families. This included both office and ground work.

Our office based team started gathering the list of all people who died in this protest.

This list was then handed over to our ground team who physically visited all families all over India. Majority of families were from Punjab and Haryana. Our team also visited Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Our team surveyed all 732 families by visiting their homes one by one. Our team faced a lot of issues working on this phase as there were number of villages with same name and even they were 100 kms away. MLSS completing this task was difficult however we did not stop even if it was raining heavily or if it was heavy temperature of 45 degrees plus.

Our survey team use to handover all survey information to our office team, then our team differentiated the families in two categories (Less fortunate and stable)

Then all less fortunate families list was prepared and our team based on their survey information allocate the type of help MLSS can provide. This include below type of seva which is being in progress.

Home improvements – Some homes of the farmers were re-furnished, which were not in condition to live. These farmer families were supported by MLSS in construction of their roof lanters, building of new homes for those who does not have a place to live because their main earning member died in protest.

Child education – Many of the farmers who died in protest were of young age and some were old, few had teen kids which were studying in good schools, but due to death of their parents or main family earners their education stopped, during this down period MLSS supported these families for education of their children’s in good schools by paying their education fees and other educational requirements.

Monthly Ration – MLSS started delivering ration kits every month to less fortunate farmer families in  areas of Punjab, Haryana, UP who were not able to run their households, this kit consisted of all the best items which a stable family requires in their day to day lives. This kit consisted of Wheat, Rice, 10 types of grains, sugar, tea, salt, various spices, oil and toiletries.

Loan Clearance – Every family who lost their main earners in protest felt into debts as other members were jobless, after the survey of these families who doesn’t even have good amount of land, MLSS started repayment of their loans, so those families can live their life calmly without undue stress.