your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
Anna Tishkovets
Donor
When we met Tharsiny, she was sitting quietly outside her small home, her hands tracing the worn wooden edge of the step as if feeling the world she could not see. Her husband sat nearby, his legs scarred and weakened from the final war—legs that could no longer bear the weight of hard labor. Both of them live in darkness, their eyesight lost, their lives shaped by struggle.
Each day, they must walk one to two kilometers to fetch water—an exhausting journey they make not just for drinking, but for bathing, cooking, and every necessity of life. For their school-going children, the lack of water means days often begin and end in hardship. And within the home, peace is fragile—her husband’s battle with alcohol sometimes spilling into violence.
Yet, on their half-acre of land lies the possibility of something better. With a well, they could grow food, earn an income, and keep their children nourished. As Tharsiny spoke, her voice carried both weariness and hope—the hope that someday her children will not have to carry the same burdens she does now.
We’ve captured their voice so you can hear their story.
(Background – we identified agriculture as Tharsiny’s primary source of income, with greater access to water and some focused training she would be able to better cultivate crops for her income. She is connected with the right buyers, but the main issue which left her without a living income was she was not able to produce enough).
How are you doing now?
I am very happy now. Palmera gave me a piped water facility. I am able to earn income from it by growing vegetables. I found it very difficult to bring water from a distance without a water facility to do my agriculture. I had to work very hard to bring water to my land – I can’t tell how big of a help this is now that I can access this water.
Have you seen any changes in your family?
My family is very happy. My husband was also working as a wage laborer but now I am also able to contribute with fruit and vegetables so I can also earn some income. I have two children who go to school but because we didn’t have water at home, even going to school was a big challenge because I would have to take my children a distance to bathe them in the morning before school. But now because we have water at home the children have a bath themselves, get ready themselves and go to school. That has made me really happy.
Have you joined the village women’s group?
(Palmera established a village bank in our community to develop financial literacy—a place where we could save and access loans to reduce our debt from predatory lenders).
I have joined the village women’s group, where I save money and have taken loans, which I’ve repaid. With those loans I bought chickens. I talk to the other women and while there I feel happy to share with them. At the group I also can engage in other trainings – how to put the right medicines for my vegetables, how to manage the pests and because of that my fruit and vegetables garden is now in a good condition. (Palmera provides individual training and continued group trainings to ensure women can manage the end-to-end issues to support good agricultural production).
What is your future goal?
My goal is to turn my entire land into a fruit and vegetable cultivation. It’s a big dream, but I believe it will help me earn more income from my fruit and vegetable cultivation. My wish is to continue living a happy and prosperous family life.
Anna Tishkovets is the person who has supported you and helped make your dream come true. do you have a message for her?
I have to say thank you in the biggest way to her. I am praying to God for their blessings as they have blessed me.
Please note for many beneficiaries sharing in written form is not easy. We sit with these men and women to support them to share their story and have added context so you can weave together what you have made possible.
My name is Tharsini. I live in Rangan Kudiyiruppu. I have two children. Both are boys. My husband goes to whatever daily wage work he can find.
During the final war that took place in 2009, I sustained physical injuries and lost sight in one eye. Also, I struggle with infections, which have occurred due to neglect. Because of this, I’m unable to find work. So we were in extreme poverty. We struggled greatly and worked hard to find three meals a day to satisfy our hunger. There were many days when we gave food to our two children and went hungry ourselves.
(At the time we met Tharsiny, her family was deeply affected by the consequences of the war and deep poverty. With yours and Palmera’s support, the family began to recover and rebuild their lives.)
On behalf of my family, I express my gratitude to Anna who provided this assistance to my family during that time. I was first told about a self-help group run by Palmera and was encouraged to join it. When I went on the first day, the people who had come to that village savings group had saved an amount of over 50 rupees per saving session. I had no money to save. Seeing my family’s situation, on the first day, they gave me two thousand rupees for my food needs. And helped me save.
(Palmera established the village bank in her village to develop financial literacy, a place to save and revolve their savings as loans to reduce their debt from predatory lenders. Through the village bank, people come together each week to talk, to share what is going on and support each other. This is a foundation for change. Because change happens in community and that is exactly what these structures support.)
Earlier, there was no water for us. The well we had been using for the house was in an unusable condition. In the beginning, my husband did not agree to anything. He said, “They will give the materials, but people won’t come to install it.” But they gave the pipe-fitting tools and were determined to see it installed. And have the man who initially disagreed with everything, to use them.
(Building a new home was not something Tharsiny could have done alone when she first came to the programme. With Palmera’s further support, the income she had built, and the strength of her community around her, she was able to make it possible. This is what the programme is designed to create. Not dependency, but the conditions in which a family can take the next step for themselves.)
Two months later, because I had previously taken a loan from a local bank and was late in my ability to repay it, I hid inside on two occasions when they came looking for me. Later, I took a loan from the self-help group and paid that off. After three months, my savings amount was nine thousand rupees.
Both my children’s education was very poor. So I was now able to enrolled both of them in an evening tuition centre.
(Through the programme, Tharsiny has been able to place her children’s education at the centre of her household planning. When a mother can pay school fees without crisis or borrowing, children stay in school. And with that, the path forward for the next generation begins to open.)
Palmera also helped me to set up a home garden and whenever the children had time, both of them would help in the garden. Appreciating these efforts, the Palmera gave us a livelihood.
My preference was to cultivate groundnuts. In the very first season, I cultivated groundnuts on two acres. I harvested from that and sold it for 60,000 rupees. With that, I paid off the loan I took from the village savings p group and also bought four small goats.
(Palmera focuses on peanuts because it is a profitable sector that many in the region were not able to profitably engage in. What was needed was to address many last mile agricultural barriers including new practices, technologies, access to quality seeds and collective purchasing of inputs and selling, all activities that we supported Tharsiny with.)
(Palmera introduced goat rearing as an additional livelihood. It creates a sustainable source of income, bringing her hope and happiness.)
I continuously and properly fenced four small plots. By cultivating continuously once every three months, today I earn an income of 75,000-80,000 rupees per month because of groundnuts. Because a fence was properly set up during the course of the groundnut cultivation, I was able to plant other types of vegetables along with the groundnuts. To observe the growth of the corn crops, my two children walk around the garden where the crops are irrigated with canal water. Seeing this brought me so much happiness.
Considering future needs, we also planted twenty good-quality coconut saplings. And we who at the beginning wondered why we had ended up here, slowly began to think that dawn would break.
(The assets Tharsiny has built through the programme -her animals, her cultivation, her skills- belong entirely to her. When Palmera’s support ends, these income sources do not disappear. What she has built continues. This is what sustainable economic independence looks like.)
My husband has reduced his alcohol consumption and now only drinks if there is some event. Because of this, no problems arise in our family. I would come home and share the caring advice that the village savings group and the Palmera gave us with my husband and children. Because of this, many changes have occurred in our lives.
Just like the change in my family, we will never forget the progress that families in our village have made because of the Palmera. They were like a mother to us, giving advice and being supportive of our progress.
And we are also thankful to Anna. We pray wholeheartedly to God that the life of Anna, who provided help to our family, may be more prosperous and happy.
We wish you a long life.
Tharsiny
This is our final letter from Tharsiny. The programme is complete. And what she has built will not end when our work does. She came to us with no savings, no reliable income, and no clear path forward. She leaves with all three. And with the skills, confidence, and community to keep building what she has started long after this programme ends. Thank you for making all this possible. We couldn’t have done it without your generosity.
