Old and Young Residents Suffer During India’s Drought
Drought Relief
India Aid
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Jhharokhan Paswan is an 80-year-old-Dalit woman from the village of Chandauli, Uttar Pradesh that ActionAid is working with. Like her neighbors, her life is dramatically affected by the region’s seven-year-long drought. Jhharokhan and her husband had a lifetime’s worth of experience struggling to eke out a living. Last year, however, the drought claimed her husband’s life. Now alone, Jhharokhan did not even have enough money for a funeral.
"I have little to eat, and few clothes,” Jhharokhan told ActionAid. “This sari is all that I own.”
Chandauli’s residents are smallholder farmers who rely on the yearly monsoon to nourish their plots. However, in recent years the rains have become unreliable. This year’s monsoon was 26 percent drier than required to guarantee a good harvest.
Many of Chandauli’s farming families are seeking day labor jobs in the slums around Punjab and Delhi. But not everyone can go. Jhharokhan is one of the many elderly people left behind by their displaced families.
To support residents left behind, ActionAid’s partner organization, Kriti Shodh Samsthan, provided Jhharokhan with 88 pounds of wheat from its grain bank. While the organization has been able to assist some hungry families, nearly 65 percent of families in Bundelkhand are in need of food aid.
Please support ActionAid’s emergency relief efforts in India. We can end poverty. Together.
