GRA Camp: Report of Winter Camp 1999 at Sindhudurg

Duration of Camp : 5 days, 27 Nov. to 1st Dec, 1999

Place of Camp: Sindhudurg, Maharastra 

GRA (Group for Rural Activities) organised a camp to villages in Sindhudurg region from the 27th of November to the 1st of December,1999. The main objectives of the camp was to introduce the students to the kind of life people live in rural areas and to interact with the people from the rural areas. Following are main activities carried out during the camp.

27th November,1999

There was an informal introduction of the participants of the camp.We left Thane Station by the Mumbai-Madgaon Express at 11:35pm.

28th November,1999

We reached Kankavli station at about 8:00am and caught a bus to Devgad. We reached Devgad at 10:30am. At about 4:00pm we left to visit the lighthouse in Devgad which was about 40 minutes walking from Devgad. The in-charge of the lighthouse told us about the instruments, conventions and such other details about the lighthouse. We were back by 8:00 pm.

29th November,1999

We left early at 7:00am for Kunkeshwar Temple. The journey to the temple was an interesting one. We first went to creek and crossed it by boat. Then we walked along the creek, then along the seashore for about an hour. On our way we saw an unique method of fishing using dragnets. We reached the temple at around 9:00 am.We came back at around 1:00 pm and left for a village called Suandhale by S.T. bus at 4:00 pm. We were staying at Mr. Krishnaji D. Gokhale's place. There we saw mango cultivation on a very large scale (about 2500 trees).

30th November.1999

We left early for Vijaydurg fort. We were in the fort for a couple of hours. There was a dock nearby and after requestiing the Customs authorities they alllowed us to go inside one of their boat and have a close look at the engine and other equipment on board. We were back in Saundhale by 6:00 pm. We visited a mango canning unit owned by Mr. Makrand Gokhale. In the evening we formed four groups and visited houses of the locals and interacted with them to know more about their lifestyle and their socio-economic habits.

1st December,1999

We left Saundhale by S.T. bus at 5:30 am and reached Devagd at 7:30 am. At 10:45 am we visited Devgad College and interacted with the students as well as teachers. We found that the College offered various courses for B.Sc, B.A., B.Com and M.A. The disscussion in the College with the students and the teachers proved to be not only interesting but also fruitful since we got an insight into the problems faced by the students and people in that area. After that we saw the mango canning unit owned by Mr.Parker which was very similar to the one we had seen earlier. We saw the mango cultivations owned by Mr.Parker and then had a bath in the sea nearby. We had lunch at around 1:30 pm and then visited the windmills in Devgad. Out of the twenty windmills installed to generate electricity one had been cannibalised, and the remaining were facing maintainence problems. We left Devgad at 4:45 pm by S.T. bus and reached Kankavli at 6:45pm. We had dinner at Kankavli and boarded the Madgaon-Mumbai Express at 8:52 pm.