Widowed By Tiger Attacks, 400+ Women Now Need Your Help To Stand On Their Own Feet

“Every day in the lives of the people living in the Sunderbans  is a battle. A battle for survival and a battle to bring two square meals a day for their family. Their lives are fraught with dangers from snake bites to tiger attacks. There are multiple cases where they are attacked by the tigers and don’t return alive,” - Jhumki Banerjee, Trustee of Notun Jibon Foundation. 

This is no story but a real life account  of the tiger widows or the ‘bagh bidhobas’ in Sunderbans, the marshy mangrove area in the delta of the rivers Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna in the Bay of Bengal. With hardly any employment opportunities available for them, they have a very difficult life ahead of them. 

How Notun Jibon Foundation has been helping them

Founded by Arup Sengupta in 2017, Notun Jibon Foundation has been serving people since its inception. Their sole motto is to give people a second and a new chance at life, quite literal to their Foundation’s name. 

What started off as a small blanket distribution drive on Christmas eve for the homeless in Kolkata, a few years ago, soon expanded into something much bigger. They’re now catering to 350+ homeless children, working in the red light area of Kalighat and Rashbehari area of Kolkata with s*x workers and their children. They also have a remedial school in the same area where they are teaching underprivileged children. 

“Notun Jibon has been working relentlessly to help the people of Sundarbans. Their need is urgent. Always challenged by natural disasters and human-animal conflicts, the people of these villages don’t have permits from the forest department to go to the core area, which makes their work illegal. The bagh-bidhobas or tiger widows, therefore, cannot claim compensation and so they rarely inform the authorities about tiger-linked deaths,” - Jhumki Banerjee.  

The main occupation of these people are fishing, catching crabs or collecting honey. More often than not, they’re the sole breadwinners of their families and with them being killed in the tiger attacks or maimed in the process, it becomes very difficult for these poor families. Notun Jibon Foundation wants to stand beside 400 such widows and help them fight this crisis. 

You can support them 

“Last year, during Amphan, we saw how the Sundarbans have been ravaged. The islands were submerged under water and the people there had lost all their livelihoods and had nothing to eat for weeks. Cyclone Yaas did the same. These people have been living in makeshift shelters without proper food. Their condition is deplorable.” 

Notun Jibon wants to give these people groceries so that they don’t sleep on empty stomachs. They also want to build houses for the ones struggling, especially the tiger widows, who have no one to help them. You can donate groceries and construction material to help them in this crisis.  

About the NGO: Founded by Arup Sengupta in 2017, Notun Jibon Foundation has been serving people since its inception. They’re now catering to 350+ homeless children, working in the red light area of Kalighat and Rashbehari area of Kolkata with s*x workers and their children. They also have a remedial school in the same area where they are teaching underprivileged children. The Foundation is also working to help the cyclone affected people in Sundarbans and as well the tiger widows. 

Note: All the donations  towards this campaign is eligible for Indian Tax Exemption.