Monitoring Visit to Tading, Samtse
During the monitoring trip, the team met with 15 households individually in Tading, for testimonial collection and to assess the machinery distribution through the second phase of the project “Improvement of Livelihood for Merak & Sakteng, Trashigang and Tading, Samtse” funded by Sunline Foundation.
Along with installation of the machines, capacity building on group governance, operation and maintenance of the tools/machines were also carried out for increased productivity. The machines were distributed in groups based on the number of households, whereby the members identified one member to operate and manage the machine. Each member is required to make a minimum payment either in cash or kind while using the machine, which is eventually saved or used towards electrical charges or any other cost the manager may have to incur to keep the machine functional.
One of the project beneficiaries, Tsho Lham Doya said, “This project has helped women in the village to reduce drudgery and time as it would usually take one to two hours to grind about five kilograms of maize, but with the grinding machine, it takes only a few minutes.” She added, “The younger people in the community do not favour manual work so they usually opt to migrate to towns to find a source of earning. Since the machines reduce the manual work drastically, we are hopeful they will show some interest in staying back and taking on farm work.”