Volunteers at a livestock training programme in Tinsukia. A Telegraph picture

May 15: Tattered clothes and dreams of a good life will soon cease to define the tea labour class, thanks to a US-based charitable organisation that is turning stories of deprivation into ones of economic self-sufficiency.

Initiated by Mercy Corps, the Community Health and Advancement Initiative in India (CHAI) project aims at bettering the lives of tea families by helping them set up business or honing skills that will help them gain employment outside the estates.

Four tea estates in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia — Deohall, Hapjan, Maud and Moran — are the current beneficiaries of the project, which works with help from Tazo Tea Company and Indian Tea Association as its partners.

The project is working and how.

Take Satrughna Kalandi, for instance.

Satrughna had got used to living off his brother’s earnings, a meagre Rs 1,500 a month, and despaired how all hope of a better life must end the muddy paths of the tea estate where he lived.

The verdant surroundings of the Moran tea garden held little promise if one did not wish to tend the tea bushes and Satrughna was beginning to resign to a dependant’s life, when CHAI happened.

Along with 22-year-old Tintus Bodra and four others, Satrughna approached CHAI with the proposal to set up a poultry business.

The project soon organised a poultry farming training in collaboration with the government veterinary department.

They were then provided with credit to set up poultry units with 100 birds.

The birds were sold after 45 days and soon Tintus began to earn Rs 4,000 by working for only a few hours a day — a deal a tea garden worker would never have imagined.

“With projects focused on economic development, CHAI strives to improve the lives of residents in tea estates and neighbouring communities,” said Rosy Choudhury, project director of Assam CHAI.

Rosy said the project focuses on three objectives — to identify and promote viable micro and small enterprises that offer employment, skill building among unemployed youths, and provide merit-based scholarships to students from low-income households.

Sokila Sobor, a resident of Deohal tea estate, for instance, recently completed a six-month cutting and tailoring course from Dibrugarh Polytechnic with CHAI’s support and is keen on opening a tailoring shop of her own. CHAI helped her with a loan to open the shop next to her quarters.

“She is very happy that CHAI did give her the opportunity for tailoring training and now she owns her own tailoring shop. In future, she will transfer her shop to Deohal main gate and build a permanent tailoring and embroidery shop,” Choudhury said.

Lack of skills is one of the primary reasons for the rising youth unemployment and CHAI provides skill-building courses to better their chances of employment. Some women have even taken up beautician courses.

Inspired, Hapjan Tea Estate has allotted 1.5 hectares of fallow land to a group of unemployed youth for patchouli cultivation.

Nearly 40,000 patchouli cuttings have been planted and the first harvest is expected in late May. The Hapjan management has also helped the youth with tractors.