When rural India becomes family

At a time when our attention is increasingly shifting from the rural to urban milieu journalist Akshatha Shetty and an engineerfilmmaker Piyush Goswami in Bengaluru quit their jobs and sold all they owned to travel across rural IndiaThese children are from Sardarpura in Rajasthan Here people donrsquot have any regular source of income apart from agriculture The village lacks basic infrastructure and the only hospital is dysfunctional The condition of the schools are abysmal with little scope for the children to compete at higher levels Pic courtesy Piyush GoswamiThis was two years ago Since then they have covered Rajasthan Tamil Nadu Kerala Karnataka Uttar Pradesh and Nagaland while living in remote districts and off the money they earned by writing about these experiences on travelA woman and her son in Rajasthan return to their village with their cattle as the sun sets In this area of Ransisar Jodha high fluoride content in water leads to premature arthritis PICs courtesy Piyush GoswamiEventually they realised that though they did manage to draw attention to the people and their hardships by writing about them it did little to actually change anything So this time with the experience they gathered they are heading out again but to bring about possible change For this they intend to use social media platforms to focus on specific stories of an area and use crowdfunding tools to address poverty or lack of electricity or simply inadequate communication between providers like NGOs or government bodies and the needy They have named this project Rest Of My FamilyThe duo learnt about the plight of Jodhpurrsquos prosian print textile factory workers there textile printing is still done by handStart from the familyAs part of the first leg of this campaign the duo will embark on a drive across India nonstop for an entire year To sustain it they are running a crowdfunding campaign that ends on Monday Next they will spend time with fishermen at Dhanushkodi a coastal village in Tamil Nadu declared uninhabitable by the government because of repeated cyclones But they will also halt in between and head the way the stories lead themA family in Bodinayakanur Tamil Nadu abandoned by the men in their householdldquoWe decided that we wanted to create a more efficient work structure for them with our efforts where we would not only highlight an issue but also facilitate relevant support for individualscommunities we met and documented Itrsquos how Rest Of My Family was born This project is an attempt to connect rediscover our relationship and understand our responsibility towards the larger family that we are a part ofrdquo shares ShettyLife on the roadGiving us insight into the life stories that theyrsquove encountered Shetty narrates one about a boy from Bodinayakanur Tamil Nadu they had earlier written about ldquoWe met 14yearold Mari who worked at a garage and earned about R 100 a day His mother works in the cardamom fields while his grandmother works in construction All the men in their family have abandoned them He left school early to lend his mother a helping hand Mari is not interested in going to school but has a deep interest in automobiles Hence we are talking to automobile companiesstateoftheart workshops that can absorb him and provide him an opportunity to shinerdquo Shetty saysShe explains that the issues vary between regions communities and individuals ldquoSince our project is a storydriven one the issue or the support that we are trying to extend will vary in nature and scale With one story we might be trying to get support for an individual or family At other times we might want to empower an entire community Sometimes the help needed might just come through an individual otherwise we may have to try crowdfundingrdquo she informsThe traveller duo left Akshatha Shetty and right Piyush GoswamiBring in the crowdsThough the amount collected through crowdfunding has already touched 19 818 the uncertainty and difficulty of sustaining a project like this is still a challenge But the team is confidentldquoOur only source of income is our documentary work We also freelance with a few publications and are living from pay cheque to pay cheque now We are certain that as long as our journey is honest and we stay true to our philosophy we will be able to continue to do what we have been doing We have come so far only through our dedication and sincerity And we will let that decide our futurerdquo she signs offTo follow Log on to restofmyfamily wordpresscom ampTo contribute Log on to wwwindiegogocom projectsrestofmyfamilydriveforchange