Matua Rural Development Foundation

Our foundation, Matua Rural Development Foundation, is out in Village-Dhakuria in the Chand Para locality. We are right by the Dhakuria Kali Bari post. It’s a very rural setting in Parganas North, surrounded by fields and small houses. The office is a simple structure that we’ve fixed up over time. It’s not much, but it gives us a place to meet and keep our things. Being out in the village means we have to deal with a lot of practical issues like bad roads and unreliable electricity. We spend a lot of time walking or biking between different parts of the village to check on things. The office has a corrugated metal roof, so it gets pretty loud when it rains. We have a few plastic chairs for when people come to talk to us. Most of our work happens outside the office anyway, talking to farmers and families in the area. We aren't a big team, just a few of us who grew up around here and wanted to do something for the community. It’s a lot of physical work and sometimes it gets frustrating when things don’t move as fast as we want. But we’ve lived here all our lives, so we’re used to the pace. We just keep plugging away at it, one day at a time, right here in Chand Para.