TYPE WRITING AND TAILORING INSTITURE FOR THE TSUNAMI AFFECTED WOMEN OF PULICAT

The Institute for Typing and Tailoring was inaugurated by Mr.Francis of The Family India and blessed by Rev.Fr.Peter Shuetz, cmf, the Mission Procure of the Claretian Province of Germany on May17, 2007 at 5 pm at Pulicat.

The Pulicat Lake falls 75 kilometres north of Chennai. This lake receives water from the sea depending on the tidal movement in the sea. During the high tide the fish enter the lake along with water. There are 25 villages around the shore of the lake and they depend solely on the fishing in the lake.

These villages have suffered the brunt of tsunami. They lost the fishing equipments and houses. Sixteen people were killed in Koraikuppam, Sattankuppam and Vairavankuppam.
After tsunami the sand closes the bar mouth of the lake and so the fishery resource in the lake is reduced to greater extend. Most of these villages had only catamarans and wooden rafts to fish in the lake. Now they are not able to venture fishing in the sea.

The fisher women usually remain idle at home due to lack of alternative livelihood. Majority of them are illiterates and so do not have the possibilities of employment in other sectors. Only a few of them involve in the post harvest activity of selling and drying fish. In order to provide alternative forms of livelihood the project of imparting typewriting skills to the girls who have basic education and dressmaking skills to the illiterate women was initiated. Every year the institute will train 128 women on dressmaking and 80 on type writing.

The Claretians from Germany who have funded for several tsunami projects, provided finance for this project too. The Franciscan Sisters of St.Joseph of Vepery (FSJ) will run this Institute. The Claretians and the Family India have executed the Project.