TIST
CHEZHUMAI©
Tel. 044-22246844, No. 4, Lakshmi Nagar, E-Mail prabakar@tist.org February 2003 6th Main, Nanganallur, Chennai 61
Your Panchayat Head Supports TIST
By V.S.Sagalagunam -President, Vedal Panchayat
TIST - The International Small Group Tree Planting Program has come to Kancheepuram District, Kancheepuram Circle, Walajabadh Union and #99 Vedal Village Panchayat and its surrounding villages. Through the organization of TIST, individuals are encouraged to form Small Groups to grow trees. The groups in turn cultivate seeds, seedlings and trees around their residence, and in their fields and thus through the propagation of this cultivation, today, many trees of different varieties are being grown by small groups in the Vedal Village Panchayat area. Through the growth of trees of these varieties, TIST is not only bringing the benefits of these trees to these villages and this country but also the World Environment is being safeguarded by the TIST Organization.
For growing and maintaining these trees, TIST provides incentives to the members of the small groups. I strongly encourage the public of Vedal Panchayat to avail from this wonderful opportunity of cultivating these trees to beautify our area and also obtain the incentives provided by TIST for your economic benefit. As your Panchayat leader, I humbly request everyone to join and support the TIST program in our area. Thank you.
Ekambaram Group
By Prabakar Srinivasan
We would like to introduce the Ekambaram Group to everyone. This Small Group, consisting of 6 members in Vedal village, has been very enthusiastic, hard working and very active from day one of the TIST program. While several other groups were contemplating the benefits of TIST, members of Ekambaram group understood the benefits of TIST early on and reaped those benefits during the season. The incentives that his group has earned for the first and second quarters was put to good use by group members.
Mr. Adhikesavan (aka Adhi), one of the members of Ekambaram group says “I am proud to share the details of the benefits we have received through TIST. When we had no money to do any additional investments, it was TIST that had helped us by providing incentives for the nurseries that we started. We used this initial incentive received from TIST to buy some vegetable seeds, which we then cultivated in our fields. The ladyfinger (Okra) that yielded, made our living comfortable for a period of two months. This has now given us confidence to invest further in TIST with other varieties of tree seeds that we will grow in our nursery. We have already transplanted our first set of tree seedlings into the ground. The incentives from TIST for our new and existing tree plantings together with the income from the vegetables will now substantiate our earnings for the next few months.”
Adhi’s wife Manjula says “We are very happy and proud to have TIST in our village first and we are working hard for our group to get more benefits from it. After receiving training to work as a small group, we are even more committed to work hard together as a group”.
A Word on TIST from your Postmaster
By Mr. Narayanan, Postmaster, Vedal Post Office
The TIST team lead by Mr. Prabakar of Chennai has implemented this wonderful tree planting program in our villages through which villagers by forming small groups have planted lots of seedlings and trees, thus paving way to more greenery and to bring rains to our area.
This program is also helping the people who live below the poverty line by providing small groups that plant and maintain trees with cash incentives. Small groups are also opening savings accounts in our post office through which they will receive payments for their plantings from TIST. I encourage all small groups to approach me at the post office to open their savings accounts at the time of their group registration with TIST. I will do my best in helping you open your accounts efficiently. I encourage everyone to join TIST and benefit from it.
NEWS Bulletin
By Sreelatha Prabakar
TIST has come a long way in these villages surrounding Vedal since our first journey almost 9 months back when our first friend, the Satellite showed us the map to Vedal as a prospect for the TIST Program. The enthusiasm and commitment of the villagers to the project and their hospitality shown to the TIST team has provided so many successes to the program in such a small period that it still feels like a dream. With the Almightly's grace & blessings, together we all have been able to achieve this.
As most of you are aware, the TIST team has been conducting Small Group registrations in your villages over the last 2 months. Registration is the process that officially admits a Small Group into the TIST Program. Small Groups that register provide TIST with information about their members on a registration form that is signed by all members. At this time TIST staff provides the Small Group members with a Welcome Packet, takes a group photo, and trains group members on the various documents in the Welcome Packet. The Welcome packet gives a lot of information for the benefit of the group members on how they can proceed towards their goal of planting lots of trees. If you all carefully read and follow these procedures, you can do wonders as a TIST Small Group and also benefit tremendously from the incentives received from TIST. You will learn much more about starting nurseries, planting trees, working in small groups, managing your TIST finances, conservation farming and various other useful things which you would not have known before in that depth.
Over the last 2 months, the TIST team has found that conducting registrations is very tough as all the members of the group are not available at the same time to sign the forms and obtain the training on the Welcome Packet. We are now using some newer ideas brought forth by group members and others such as, doing registrations in two stages, using coordinators living in the villages to take group photos, requesting group members to train fellow group members on the Welcome Packet etc. This has improved the pace of the registrations but we would like to be able to register groups more rapidly. Therefore we urge Small Group members to co-ordinate themselves and be present for registration s in full strength when the TIST team arrives.
In spite of the hardships in doing registrations rapidly, we have received tremendous response from villagers during registrations. The response in Aandiseruvallur is worth a special mention where the group members organized themselves very well to make registration proceed efficiently. Our thanks also go out to Mr. Elumalai in that village for his support and coordination in getting the registrations done. So far we have successfully registered 23 groups in Aandiseruvallur, Vedal, Melapulam and Molacchur. These groups have been trained on the Welcome Packet either one on one or through a training seminar. We have also partially registered several other groups in these and other villages and are working hard to complete the registrations for those groups within the next couple of weeks.
Getting registered is the first step you have to take as a Small Group to reap the benefits of the TIST program. We request everyone to co-operate fully and help us in getting the group registrations done in a speedy and efficient manner. Let us all work hard together to make TIST a grand success in this area. Please feel free to approach any TIST staff if you have any questions or concerns about the registration process or any other issue related to TIST.. We are eager to serve you! Thank you.