Recently a local daily newspaper published a photograph of a woman with an infant in her arm ; she was trying to light the fire to cook a meal, two little boys were standing idle in the room. This is probably the most common scene of Mauritian families living in extreme poverty. A society cannot progress if one part of it lives in extreme poverty. In Hinduism, poverty is referred as a serious disease (Daridya Moha Rog). Similarly Karl Marx stated that, if a man does not have his bread, all his other needs, desires and humane feelings become non-existent.

The burden of poverty is more on women for obvious reasons like:

• The woman bears and nurses the child. Thus she requires minimum nutrition and basic meals. When she cannot have access to these, she suffers from diseases like anaemia, low blood pressure, mal nutrition, etc.

• Under any circumstances the woman being responsible to cook the family meal, she goes through the stress of having the means to fetch the food herself. Often the father abandons the woman when her health deteriorates after a few childbirths due to lack of proper medical care and malnutrition.

• Young girls who cannot afford to buy sanitary towels are bound to use any unhygienic old cloth or rugs resulting in sexual diseases.

• In extreme poverty, women have no access to knowledge of family planning methods or she cannot afford these. Thus she may become the victim of many pregnancies or sexual diseases like HIV /AIDS.

• Children growing in extreme poverty often become street children, victims of drugs, prostitution or violence.

Therefore any Poverty Eradication Programme needs to focus on women, especially in Mauritius where they are more than 50% of the population. Our empowerment programme with its objective ?to offer a fishing rod than a fish? , is targeting to train women in entrepreneurship. But the women in extreme poverty cannot be covered by the empowerment programme, as these women are in need of the most basic things in life ? a shelter, a meal, clothes, health care. She can be empowered only when she can have these bare minimum.

Such poverty can be worsened with climatic conditions like cyclones, floods, etc. We recently witnessed the heavy torrential rains which have left many families homeless and with nothing. Unfortunately we may expect such natural disasters more often due to the climate change. The alarming increases in prices of food and transport add to the precarious situation of economies and to the families already living in exclusion.

Therefore it is high time to think of something concrete to help these families specially the women and children who are most vulnerable. These women and children in extreme poverty should be reached directly and be rescued and helped. In fact we are fortunate that geographically Mauritius is small, unlike India or China where to reach all the corners of the country is very difficult.

To provide proper shelter, square meals and clothes, the State is required to set ?State Homes? to accommodate those in extreme poverty. Simultaneously these homes should have training programmes to train them in different skills in organized manner under close supervision. Such programmes should produce daily consumable goods. These homes should be allotted enough state land for farming , agriculture, horticulture, honey production, cattle breeding to produce dairy products, food preservation and so on.

The goods thus produced could be used for the consumption of the inmates and the excess sold to earn revenue for the running of the homes. Such projects would reduce the dependency of our island on other countries for food. Emphasis should be given to produce local food like maize, manioc, ?patate?, bread fruit, which eventually could reduce our demand for imported food like rice, flour, wheat. As we know that in Africa ?couscous? is used as staple food instead of rice or wheat, which are not produced locally. We should increase local food production to face the global food crisis which may get worse due to climate change.

Parallel with industrial development and tourism, agricultural land should be kept free from construction for local food production. It is to be noted that recently the farmers in Manila, Phillippines have strongly protested against the conversion of agricultural lands for tourism. We also need to pay urgent attention to the increase in demand of food with the increase of tourists. If we are targeting two million tourists (double the population of Mauritius) by 2010, we should give immediate attention to make provision for their food consumption. Already the seasonal and tropical fruits like letchi, ?longan?, mangoes, papayas are sold at the local market at an exhobitant price as these fruits are supplied to the hotels at a very high price, thus depriving Mauritians access to our local fruits.

Our present Empowerment Progamme targets to train the women in entrepreneurship like handicraft among others. It is to be noted that to earn their living by selling their products depends much on their quality. If these products are to be placed in ?tourist villages?, then the quality of the handicrafts should have international standards. It is amazing that some authorities have schemes to train middle-aged women with minimum primary education in marketing skills by giving them ?placement? as sales girls in shops. It would be more appropriate to group and train them in modern cultivation and farming.

While engaging the women in productive skills,?State Homes? should have nurseries and schools at least up to the primary level on the spot so that the children can have easy access to education. These children should be provided free school material, books, games. The Homes also should have their own dispensaries for day to day health care for the inmates.

Once the women are trained in productive skills to earn their living, they could be helped by the empowerment programme to enable them to earn their living away from the homes and on their own .

In fact by setting up such homes, the State would help those in extreme poverty living in exclusion to survive, to reduce street children, prostitution, victims of drugs, sexual diseases and eventually would succeed in making them able to depend on themselves.

<B>Ranjita BUNWAREE</B>