Helping Families Choose Learning & Living

• Between January and June 2021, our partners at Baba Nanak Education Society had recorded 40 new suicide cases.
• In June 2021, they recorded 7 more cases and they are tallying their final July numbers now.
• BNES notes how many of those ending their lives in desperation are laborers, Mazdoors:

"Many of these labourers owned land until a few years ago.  They had very little land to begin with.  To meet expenses (including debt repayment) they sold off one little bit of land after another until they had nothing left. Their next option was to earn as agricultural labourers. Since farms have shrunk to micro size, those who still have land can meet their labour requirement with family labour.  Possibility of earning as an agricultural labourer declines further and further.  Labour is now required for only a few days each year.  When even agri-labour income dries up, many simply give up and take their own lives."

• BNES has also noted a rise in the number of women committing suicide:

"One reason for this may be the spread of micro-finance agencies set up specifically to extend credit to women.  These outfits are now found in even remote villages.  A woman takes a loan, cannot repay, takes another loan to repay the first loan."

Your Dasvandh helps signal that people care; that some relief is available; that men and women, kisaans and mazdoors, may have other options than debt-induced suicide.

Thank you.