Volunteers from Southwick Baptist Church, West Sussex, England, constructing a bridge.
A group of well wishers from the Southwick Baptist Church, West Sussex, England have arrived at a lesser known village in Nagaland in Mokokchung district. The group have come to Akumen village specifically to assist the village folk in all round development and self sustenance by involving the whole community in different trades and alike.
Revd. Lynda Hulcoop of Southwick Baptist Church who is also the Team Leader and visited this Akumen village on two earlier occasions said that the people of England are very much interested to learn the beautiful social fabric system of the Naga society which is not common to English society.
It is learnt, a few generous people of England have sponsored the team from the Southwick Baptist Church to visit Akumen village and carry out the ongoing development activities in collaboration with Akumen Baptist Church.
A group of the team have started building two bridges on the Akumen soil using locally available indigenous materials for the benefit of the community. School children are being taught basic hygiene and music by another group.
School uniform for the L.P. School children are also given to the needy children free of cost. Some financial assistance also given to the Village Education Committee for procuring of essential teaching tools for the lone Govt. run L.P. School in this village. Financial assistance in the form of scholarships has also been awarded to few deserving students who are studying outside this village. The woman folk are being given crash course on card making, weaving, cutting & tailoring including knitting and embroidery works for income generation and sustenance.
A dispensary was also built through the participation of the community and inaugurated on 2nd Nov’06 where a permanent midwife and periodic visit by a Doctor have been arranged and expenses will be sponsored by the Southwick Baptist Church.
The team has strongly observed that rearing of pigs and country chickens will be best bet for all homes in Akumen besides other vocational activities for more proactive approach to self sustenance of the entire community.
For the past few days, the villagers of Akumen are honestly very busy with the foreign delegation and practically could see a new ray of hope to live in this world as because the successive Governments could hardly reach them the basic needs till date. Now that through the initiative of this venture from England, Akumen people are really ready to grab anything that leads to community upliftment.
All these could happen to Akumen only because of an iron lady Mrs. Alemla who hails from this village and working as a nurse in Assam tea garden hospital and was married to an Englishman Mr. John Twiss from England working as a Manager of a tea garden in Assam. They migrated to UK in 1976 and Mrs. Alemla got British citizenship and lived there after. But the long cherished desire to educate and uplift the poor strata of her villagers, Alemla Twiss never failed in the last 30 years and came here along with her loving husband and team mates to see her dream come true.
Er. Temsu Wathi Ao
District Informatics Officer
Deputy Commissioner’s Office, Mokokchung
