Poverty Reduction Project In Gangodawila.

Development Economics Group No: 20

Group members

CPM 1 7047 2 7136 3 7388 4 7685 5 7673 6 7399 7 7081 8 7217 9 7202

MC No 61003 61092 61343 61641 61629 61354 61037 61173 61158

Name V.K.M.Chandima

Contribution Rate 95% 95%

E.K.L.P.Egodage 90% D.Sulochana 90% I.S.Vithange 95% P.M.Udayangani 90% L.A.S. Maduwanthi 90% R.J.Darshani 95% W.H.M.W.D.Herath 95% H.P.H.R. Harshana

Acknowledgement
We would like to thank to our supervisor of this assignment, our lecturer Mr. Janak Kumarasinghe for the valuable guidance and advice. He inspired us greatly to work in this project and his willingness to motivate us contributed tremendously to our project. Also we thank to lecturer Mrs. Thilini Saparamadu for showing us some examples that related to our project. Also we thank to department of econ for offering the Development economics subject. It gave opportunity to us to serve the people to improve their standard of living through what we gain from the university for last four years. Our special thank goes to Doctor Mrs. Geethani Randeniya who did a great job for our project as our key resource person and Mr Senith Peramuna, Mr Dammika Rathnayake for their help for succeed of our project. Also we would like to thank Mr. Samantha Silva, Gramaniladari Udahamulla area and people of that area for providing us favorable environment facilities and support for complete our project.

Finally, an honorable mention goes to our families and friends for their understandings and supports on us in completing this project. Without helps of the particular that mentioned above, we would face many difficulties.

Executive Summary

The area that is focused in order to carry out this poverty survey is gangodawila area in nugegoda. When we deciding on this area for this purpose we mainly concerned about the income distribution disparity that is so crucial factor in such urban areas.as university students we spent near 5 years in this area and most of the time we have observed that while thousands of rich people spending very comfortable lives, at the same time some of people are suffering from extreme poverty without even fulfilling their basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, education and health for their survival. So as a responsible party we found that it is our duty to give our attention to such people in this area and give our maximum support to them to develop their lives in to satisfactory level. The main purpose of this survey is to determine the living standard of people in gangodawila area based on their income, expenditure, literacy, sanitary and standard of living. Throughout this project we intend to give our kind assistance to our target group of people in order to reduce their poverty in several ways. Mainly we are not going to focus on only income poverty , rather we are hoping to increase their standard of living considering several dimensions such as literacy and sanitary. Therefore at the end of this project we hope that they can increase their standard of living in to a considerable extent. After evaluating different alternatives, finally we implemented a medical camp and awareness program for our target group of people. We believe that through this program we could help them to increase their standard of living in to a considerable extent by developing good healthy surrounding.

INTRODUCTION

The social issue of poverty can be seen in any country of the world. The unequal distribution of income leads to the poverty among people and therefore the education, health, living standards etc of people are also reducing. This project was undertaken to determine the living standards of people in Gangodawila area based on their income, expenditure, and literacy and sanitary and study the nature and the complexity of the poverty in the each area in order to reach following objectives. Objectives To determine main source of income and expenditure of households. This is to identify their income and expenditure patterns of people. To asses and determine the quality of their lives. This is to recognize their standard of living. To determine the characteristics of poverty and identify the people in greatest need. This is to look for the different aspects of poverty and their features and to identify the people who are not having even basic needs. To identify major inadequacies that should be satisfied. By identifying the people in greatest needs, the project seeks how the poverty can be reduced. To identify resource availability and unused resources in this area. At the same time the project team searched for unused resources of the area to implement them a way to earn an income. To identify the support we can provide to reduce poverty level and increase their standard of living. Finally the project decides what should be carried out to reduce the level of poverty of the area.

The project selected 50 families of Udahamulla area living by the both sides of railway. The poverty could easily be understood just by looking at their homes. The following gives a basic idea about the area. District Gramasewa wasama Gramasewa Niladhari Total population Colombo 526A Gangodawila- South

Mr K. Samantha Silva 8274

Map of the Area

Mainly the project paid its attention to increase the standard of living of the people by uplifting their health.

Survey Methodology
Sample We used quantitative and qualitative methods for this survey. This Survey used a convenient sampling survey method for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Sample size is 50 families

Data

Primary Data
Questionnaire In order to identify demographic, social and economic characteristics of households a Semi Structured questionnaires were designed consisting of following modules for the quantitative survey. Household members and partners Employment status Living Conditions Health Income and Consumption Expenditures Education

Data Collection and Processing The survey field work carried out on 8th and 9th of November by group members consisting of 9 students. While Quantitative data will be gathered through Questionnaire, Qualitative data will gathered through individual interviews and focus group discussions. Gramasevaka of 226A Gangodawila- south provided his great assistance to select and find the selected households. Further group of Villagers who helped us with giving information regarding this area initially also joined with us throughout the data collection process. The questionnaire were checked for completeness, internal consisting and correction of coding. The main indicators of poverty, Kuznets ratio, poverty gap index, Gini coefficient, Lorenz curve and HDI index will be estimated to the measure the poverty level.

Observation The project observed the behavior of people, cleanliness of the surroundings etc to have an idea about the area. Interviews The project team interviewed few people to get some knowledge about the area.

Secondary Data
Grama Niladhari The project team met Mr. Samantha Silva, the Gramaniladhari of Udahamulla to get overall information about those families.

Limitations of the Data Collecting Process Insufficient time frame for a reliable study. Difficulty of approaching to the target group. Not providing true information. Small Sample Size is not sufficient to give a reliable generalization about the population.

Data Analysis.
Income Distribution

According to the gathered Data we can see that 53% percent of people, that is 27 people among the selected sample of 50 people fall to 5000-15000 income range depicting us most of people in the selected sample having lower level of income relative to the Sri Lankan income level. Only 5% of people that is 2 people having above 35000 monthly income depicts that high income is a rare feature of this people. Most of people in this area are suffering from severe income poverty and even they hardly fulfill their basic needs. Most of people engaging in temporary jobs and their earnings having huge volatilities.

Kuznets ratio
Income of top 20% Income of bottom 40% = 282000 410000 0.68

According to the theory the ideal value for the Kuznets ratio is 0.5. But the ratio for our sample is 0.68 depicts that there is an income disparity among people in this area, but it is not so severe.

Income Sharing
Top 20% of income Bottom 20% of income Income disparity 282000 197000 85000

Disparity of Income sharing for the top 20% and Bottom 20% is 85000.it also further proves that there is a kind of income disparity, but it is not a severe.

LORENZ CURVE

The gap between Income line and the line of equity indicates the significance of the income disparity. Hence income line is very much closer to the line of equity (45 degree line) here, the income disparity is relatively low and the income sharing disparity is not a severe issue to this sample of people.

GINI COEFFICIENT 1-(2/T*sigma+1) N 1-(2/895500 *13580000 +1) 50 0.241764 The ideal value for the Gini Coefficient is Zero that indicates there I is no any income disparity. But here for our case it is 0.241764 Indicates even though there is a kind of income disparity, it is not a severe issue.

Employment Analysis

According to the data we have gathered analysis revealed that 47% of people employed in temporary basis. Only 5% had government jobs and 11% had privet sector jobs. 26% were laborers and 55 were house maids. So we can see that a large percentage of people generating lower level of income through their jobs. Further we identified that there were a severe income poverty among them and the main reason behind it was the higher level people engaging in temporary and low income generating jobs.

Education Level

Here we mainly considered about education level of adults among this people. According to the analysis 8% of people have passed their Advance Level in their Education, 32% of people have passed their Ordinary Level, and 24% of people passed their grade 11 ,16% passed their grade 5 and 19% passed their grade 8 in their education. Further one of an important thing we have examined, there was only one person who are in the Undergraduate Level. According to this analysis we can conclude the Education level among Elders are at a considerable level, but the huge income poverty hinder them to not standing up to that level and develop their lives through education. Ultimate result is lack of proper education is they have to engage in low income generating jobs and it is the main reason to the huge income poverty.

Human Development Index

This Index measures the levels of social and economic development based on four criterias Life expectancy at birth Knowledge (education) Combination of adult literacy rate and Primary, Secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio Gross national income per capita The HDI makes it possible to track changes in development levels over time and to compare development levels in different countries. According to the theory the ideal value for the HDI index is 1. But according to our data have gathered it is 0.2358 (23.58%) and it indicates that for this group of people having lower level of human development that is based on the criterias it has took in to account.

Water Facility

According to our analysis among this 50 families, 13 families dont have a proper water facilities.so they have to go so far away from their homes to collect water to their day today water needs. As we know water is a very basic need for the human beings, this people are not in a position to fulfill this basic need.

Health Issues
lot of people suffering from low level of nutrition 5% of people having two meal times. The space for living is very small low standards of toilet facilities Breeding mosquitoes Blocked drains Not getting basic calorie needs high rate of Alcohol usage Father or elder male children of every family use alcohol Not a proper system of cleaning surrounding and Drains 26% of people dont have water facilities for their homes Due to this reason there were lot of hygienic problems. 90% of the people take first aid for most of the times for their various diseases and go for government hospital for serious cases only.

Proposed projects to solve issues

Providing public tap line for people who are not having water facilities Providing Sheets for roofs Distributing Water Tanks for people to Store Water Medical Camp and awareness Program for the People for development of health background of people

We mainly focused on the providing public tap line for people who are not having water facilities. But Sri Lanka water board not supply any public tap lines to this kind of areas due to an internal policy issue.so we had to reject that proposal and we had to go for another alternative. Providing sheets and distributing water tanks were very much costly and we were unable to get enough sponsorships to carry out those projects as we planned. So ultimately we had to go for our next alternative plan that is a one day medical camp and awareness program for people and we were successful on it.our main purpose of it was A long and Healthy life for all

Medical camp and the awareness program

Reasons for selecting this project. Poor health condition is one of the major determinants of poverty, where poverty is both a cause and a consequence of poor health. Poverty increases the chances of poor health and on the other hand poor health in turns traps communities in poverty. Thus it reflects the vicious cycle between poor health and poverty.

Link between poverty and poor health conditions. Deprived of adequate information on importance of a healthy life, access to health services is less for marginalized groups letting them neglecting the health concerns. Poor people use to make harsh decisions knowingly putting their health at a risk. For example even though the farther has a illness , if he s the sole bread winner of the family he would go to work to satisfy the hunger of the children Since most of the people suffering from poverty and depending on daily income basis ( Most of the people in Gangodawila are laborers) The cost of doctors fees, a course of drugs and transport to reach a health center will be unbearable for a family without a proper income. Thus they will ignore the use of health services. Illness of a family member may lead to the burden of caring , where often who o\is assigned to look after the sick one will either have to give up the education , or take extra burden in earning an additional income to meet the household costs. Overcrowded and poor living conditions can contribute in spreading airborne diseases and infections. Lack of clean food, water and sanitation facilities can also lead to fatal diseases.

The detailed analysis of the data collected through questionnaires and observations reveled that one of the major problem faced by the people of the Gangodawila area is aligned with poor health conditions. It was reveled that they were paying least level of consideration in adopting good health practices and lack of concern on their illnesses where most of the time they tend to ignore their illnesses.

Identified health issues. Not getting basic calorie needs. Sanitary problems. Blocked drains. Breeding mosquitoes. Habit of smoking and use of alcohol

These problems were mainly due to the poor awareness on the importance of health and also about the best practices they should adopt in order to lead a healthy life. Therefore our group decided on conducting a medical camp along with an awareness program. The intention was to enhance their health conditions to a satisfactory level in order to ensure that the vicious link between poverty and poor health will be reduced at least for some extent. The project was conducted emphasizing the following objectives.

Awareness Program
The awareness campaign was focusing on the below three objectives. 1. Introducing good health habits. 2. Nutritious food that can be consumed at a lower cost. 3. Development of a healthy surrounding.

The medical camp was conducted with the intention of identifying the prevailing health level of the people. The required medicine was given to the people along with medical advices.

The Resource persons. The Medical camp and the awareness program were conducted by Dr Geethani Randeniya , from Kalubowila Teaching hospital.

And further support was given by two final year medical students of University of Sri Jayewardenapure namely Mr Sineth Peramuna. Mr Dhammika Rathnayake

Venue The awareness program and the medical camp was conducted on 10th December 2013 at the Udahamulla Reading Hall. Time From 9 am 1 pm

Number of Villagers Participated was 50.

Areas Covered in the Awareness Program. The awareness program was based on the above mentioned three objectives. Dr Geethani Randeniya shared some valuable ideas to enhance the awareness of people towards good health habits. There was a positive response from the audience where they even clarified their doubts by asking questions.

1. Introducing good health habits The participants were educated about the importance of using boiled water, why mothers should make sure their hands and nails are clean before preparing food and feeding children, how children should be taught good health habits from small age, how illnesses should be prevented and what steps should be taken when a disease is spreading. Furthermore since open spaces are limited in the area to dry their clothes villagers were using insecure methods to dry clothing. (Use the railway line). Doctor advised them on ways to dry their clothes without having bacterial infections. 2. Nutritious foods that can be consumed at a lower cost Under this topic people were educated about the bad effects of using instant food items and how it can deteriorate the health conditions. Furthermore the doctor gave them the basic idea of a nutritious food plan. Since it was reveled that most of the males were alcoholic adopted the negative consequences of alcohol usage was also explained.

3. Development of healthy surrounding Since the villagers have a very small living are and space is limited in common, Dr Geethani Randeniya explained the importance of having proper health area and the way to destroy unnecessary belongings in order to keep a clean and tidy place to avoid infection problems. She also advised about the bad consequences the untidy surrounding will bring towards health and ultimately toward mental satisfaction. Under this topic advice was given on how to keep their surrounding clean. They were further advised about the importance of cleaning the mosquito breeding places and their surrounding in order to prevent the spreading of diseases.

The Medical Camp.

This was conducted in order to recognize the prevailing illnesses of the people in the Gangodawila area and to give them medical advices along with the required medicines. Apart from addressing their illnesses the camp was concerned about the Body Mass Index (whether they are having a suited weight in comparison to their height), and their vision level.

It was reveled that most of the villagers are suffering from poor eye sight due to various reasons. Some were even having after effects from cataract operations. It was reveled that they have failed to adhere to the advises given to them by the doctors after doing the operations and the eyesight was at a very lower rate. Thus Doctor Geethani Randeniya directed them to the relevant clinics in the eye hospital and the Kalubowila Hospital and gave them the relevant advises.

The blood pressure levels of the villagers were also checked and it was reveled that most of the people were having lower blood pressure. Thus relevant medicine and advises was granted. By conducting the medical camp it was reveled that most of the children and young parents were having a lower body mass index less that 18 compared to the accepted range of 18 -23. Therefore we distributed the required vitamins and Dr Geethani Randeniya advised the parents on how to improve the weight of children to the accepted level.

Outcome of benefits from the Medical Camp.

Diagnosed various illnesses and distributed the relevant drugs to the patients. MRI measurements and provide relevant vitamins, Iron tablets and necessary food supplements as a short term remedy for lack of health standards. Distributed general drugs like tablets for blood pressure, balm for aches, painkillers and other necessary tablets for elder people. Conducted vision tests and test the BP in order to provide them a recommendation from a physician. Provided consulted letters by Doctors to direct the patients to the relevant clinics if needed. Collected special prescriptions and bought the relevant medicine to them. Consultation about the vaccinations relevant for small children.