IDPs look for survival via self-made goods
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, November 05 2023:
Left with little option to earn even a trifling income, IDPs have been making and marketing different products.
In a bid to help IDPs sell their products, an exhibition cum sale was organized today at Singjamei Kshetri Leikai.
Different products made by the IDPs staying at various relief camps in Imphal, specially those staying at the Ideal Girls' College, Akampat were sold at the exhibition.
Mutum Nganthoinganbi, displaced from her Churachandpur home, has been struggling hard to feed her one year old baby through the earnings from the exhibition cum sales which is held at some places in Imphal and its vicinity since the past few weeks.
Nganthoinganbi seemed slightly relieved as she counted today's earnings which were a little higher than the previous days.
The 25 year old mother of a daughter smiled and said that she could feed her baby for at least a few days from the earnings made today and yesterday.
The young woman who participated in the exhibition cum sales for the second time said that she needs to spend at least Rs 350 in three days to buy 'Lactogen' (baby milk powder) for her baby.
She said that she found it really hard to manage even this small sum as she has been staying at the relief camp (Ideal Girls' College) for almost six months and earning nothing.
Nganthoinganbi maintained that the kind of suffering which she and her family have been going through after thousands of Kukis, spearheaded by Kuki militants burnt down their houses is a nightmarish experience.
Nganthoinganbi went on to assert that her family is starting a new life with zero assets and conveyed that her house has been flattened to the ground using excavators after they fled to Imphal.
Another 30 year old woman Thokchom Usha stated that her mother-in law and some other IDPs staying together in the relief camp have been vending their self-made detergents and a few other products door-to-door in search of livelihood since the last few months.
Saying that her family and other IDPs staying at Ideal College are now filled with anguish and sorrow, Usha stated that they will get relief only when those aggressors who drove them out of their birthplace by attacking them on May 3 are punished in a befitting manner.
She said that they are now looking at a very gloomy and uncertain future.
Maibam Ratan, a member of the Relief Camp Committee, Akampat informed that the two-day exhibition cum sale which began yesterday at Singjamei Kshetri Leikai Thongkhong was organised in a rush in view of the destitution faced by the IDPs at the Akampat relief camp.
He added that the event was a kind of a charity which needs to be fully endorsed by the public in the days to come.
Mention may be made that the ongoing crisis in the State has so far displaced more than 60,000 persons in various parts of the State, including all the Meitei residents of Churachandpur, Moreh and Kangpokpi.