hey also helped the newly organised farmers lease a plot of 10 kattha (approximately 0.34 hectares) to start their collective farming exercise. Interestingly, this is the exact area of land per family that free kamaiyas and activists have been demanding for kamaiyas freed last year.

"For the first season we tried to grow vegetables individually, but soon realised that dividing the small plot among ten owners was not practical. We also realised that as small producers it was difficult to find a market for our produce," says Phulpati Chaudhari, president of the group. Instead, they decided to farm as a group. In the last season, they grew thousands of kg of onion, potato, tomato, cabbage, karela and beans. With economies of scale, the vegetables were easier to market and found willing buyers. "It was the first time I handled so much cash," says an excited Jag Mohan Chaudhari, the group's accountant.

The families don't just have enough vegetables for themselves now, there's also the increased cash flow which they urgently need. Sundari Chaudhary had nearly lost her eyesight to cataracts, and last year she could finally afford to have them treated. The children are eating better and all those under 15 go to school, compared to only literate person among their parents.

However, there are still problems, including the management of finances. Last year CCS helped them form a savings and credit group, Ekta Bachat Samuha. Each family is required to save Rs 20 a week, and send a representative to meetings. But for the last four months, the savings have been stagnant: none of the members has been able to put the money aside for their compulsory weekly savings. On average, a family earns about Rs 1,000 a week from the sale of vegetables and the daily wage work they find in Dhangadi bazaar. The savings book shows the families have Rs 8,000 between them, but there is no cash at hand, mainly because virtually all members have taken loans and haven't started paying them back.

The other worry is the land itself: their three-year lease term is coming to an end, but the group is not confident their landlord will renew the agreement, and they don't feel confident enough to negotiate with him. "Individually we are nothing. Collective farming is what is vital for us. If we cannot lease land, we will go hungry again," Phaguram Chaudhary, secretary of the group, told us. Worse, they don't even have ownership documents for the land their huts are built on.
The road ahead is rocky and uncertain, but these ten families are still proud that they have stuck together and achieved so much. An achievement that their thousands of newly-freed brothers and sisters can learn from. Despite the problems, the relentless sun, and temperatures in the area of 40 degrees, they each continue to take their turn watering, nurturing and harvesting the vegetables they have come to rely on.