The Wheel of Fortune

On the veranda of his humble abode in Puwakdandawa - a coastal village in Tangalle that is reputed for its pottery, K P Jayasena smacks a mound of clay into shape. When he loads the clay onto his potter’s wheel and manually spins the wheel, he seems able to coax the clay to do his bidding. Almost magically, the malleable material is transformed into intricate objects of art and utility.

Every Sunday, the village people take their produce to the Tangalle pola or market place. A wide variety of earthenware items are available at the pola - from simple clay pots and pans to ornate vases and intricate terracotta artefacts. In addition to on-the-spot sales, the potters frequently get orders from holiday resorts in the vicinity, which use the vases and artefacts in their décor. Ornamental pottery and garden lampshades are particularly popular with the beach resorts because they enhance aesthetic appeal at a low cost.

It was on one such Sunday in December 2004 that fate played its cruel hand; the entire marketplace was washed away, along with the wares on display…

Sunethra Marasinghe, President of the NGO Human and Environmental Development Foundation of Sri Lanka (HEDF), initiated activities in the village to assist the villagers in livelihood development. The pottery workers of Puwakdandawa were helped to form themselves into a community organisation, a CBO. When the NGO received its first tranche of SSGF funding for the tsunami-affected, Rs 120,000 (US$ 1,175) was disbursed to this Tangalle-based CBO consisting of 35 potters. The CBO started a revolving fund and distributed loans of Rs 5,000 (US$ 49) each to 22 recipients. These loans helped the community of village potters to limp back to business. Other foreign aid agencies and local government authorities also chipped in for some of the activities.

The members are only just realising the benefits of collective work: One CBO member owns a tractor, because of which he handles transport of the potters and their goods to and from the polas. The group has devised a simple savings system, wherein each member contributes Rs 50 (US$ 0.49) every month towards creating a corpus of funds that is available as instant loans. An interest of 5% is levied per month on borrowings. This is considered reasonable. Previously, local moneylenders and middlemen used to charge them usurious interest rates of upto 20% per month. With the formation of this CBO, there is only one group of people that is unhappy – the local moneylenders!

Working as a community, these villagers say, “We have moved beyond our traditional pottery trade. Best of all, we are not at the mercy of the middlemen anymore.” The wheel of fortune has turned full circle for them… and they owe their improved livelihoods to SSGF.