Goats, work, arrested principal, land and debt

It's time to do an unpdate on Aryan's* family; this time we have good news, bad news and "medium" news. We'll start with the good ones! This week the family got two new members as one of their goats had two healthy babies. The family now has seven goats total, four more than when we started this project! Not long now before the goats outnumbers the people in this family.

Another piece of good news is that the oldest son, Prakash*, is working at the moment. He works for a contractor building a house. This is a temporary job, but we hope the contractor is satified with his work and will use him again on a later occation. It certainly is an opportunity for him to show what he can do and demonstrate his value as a worker. Prakash* is happy about the job, and his mother even more so.


And then to the bad news; The oldest daughter, Roshni*, was enrolled in a local university to learn how to design and sew clothes. The principal/owner of this university was recently arrested, accused of illegaly occupying government land. In addition to this he is accused of taking land from poor families by force. Hence, the police has taken control of all his properites and the school is closed. The future of the university is uncertain. We are happy that the police has taken steps towards the prinicpal/owner, but this means that the students no longer get the education they have paid for.

We are working on solving a land issue for the family. They own a piece of farmland, but don't have

access to the land since someone else has taken control of it (not he principal though!). This is a bit complicated and hence this issue is solved directly between Cathrine/her family and Vijay/Aryan*s family. They have hired a laywer, but are waiting for the original documents from Aryan's brother. His sister owns a adjoining piece of land which is also illegally occupied and the brother is not willing to give the documents unless we also help his sister. This is somewhat understandable and we have offered practical support to the sister as well. Now we are waiting for her to be present, because we can not do anything for her if she is not on site (she lives in a different village).

The last issue we are working on is some old debt the family has. This is also solved privately between Cathrine/her family and Vijay/Aryan's* family. The family borrowed some money from a group a long time ago and Vijay is trying to locate the person who founded this group in the first place. This is important to solve the current conflict about interests on the loan. Anyway; Vijay has money available to pay of the original debt, but we are witholding the money until all matters are solved.

Otherwise, life is as usual in Tikri, with the younger girls in shool during the day. All the kids participate in our literacy program, together with a few other kids in the neighbourhood. And if you haven't read the recent blog written for us by the English teacher in Tikri, you can read it here.

*Names have been changed to protect the family's identity