Anchoring in on hope

On the banks of the Rushikulya, we once again met Krishna, returning from a day’s fishing, heavy with despair at his bad luck. Krishna, like most fishing families in his village, belongs to the Noliya caste, a large community that fish across the open shores of southern Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. During the fishing season, Gokurkuda overlooking the Bay of Bengal, is Krishna’s home, but in the off-season months, his home shrinks to the decks of a large trawler, docked in a Mumbai or Cochin harbour. The COVID-19 pandemic had already thrown Krishna into deeper debt, forcing him even to sell his own fishing boat – a traditional dungi. The only option before him was to join a small crew of migrant fish workers, sometimes taking his children with him. His story is shared with an unsettling similarity across several fisher families, caught between the ocean they rely on and the uncertainties of a fishing life today.

Krishna recalled the time he learnt to fish from his father and about the unspoken codes of growing up, dependent only on the sea for sustenance. “I was taught how to fish and also how to drink, and now I do the same with my son”. Fishers have long been portrayed in highly racialised and discriminatory tones; as brutish and unreasonable and as hopeless drunks, in countless colonial reports as well as postcolonial plans for their ‘improvement’. Addictions and substance abuse as coping strategies among marginalised communities are often traced to systemic neglect of their well-being. The marginalisation of small-scale fisheries across the world is mirrored in the Bay of Bengal and the desperate coping strategies of generations of fishers. The Noliya community across Odisha struggle with substance misuse, a lifestyle forced by lack rather than choice. Krishna however, hopes that his son’s generation will break the cycle of despair.

A similar sentiment of hope was echoed in faraway Junglighat in the Andaman Islands. Telugu fisherwomen we spoke to often said, “We don’t have time; we have to sell fish. We have lived our lives. Engage with our children; they still have theirs ahead of them. We want them to know more”. Whether in fish landing centres with older women or along the coast with men, the bet of a better future consistently is placed squarely upon youth and children. 

How to break the cycle of despair? On the one hand, there is deep positive regard and relation for the sea among young fishing peoples, offering hope and prospects for a fulfilled life. On the other hand, young people also bear an overwhelming burden of expectations from a life dependent only on the sea. Climate and overfishing-induced catch fluctuations, social marginalisation and indebtedness make it difficult for young fisher people to pursue actions for a better life. School, a crucial space of socialisation, witnesses high dropout rates among fisher youth due to push migration and the urgent need for daily wages. Before long, these systemic absences create a generational pathway for poor coping strategies, health knowledge, nutritional security, and access to safe spaces for learning (both physical and psychological). The cycle of despair turns into a generational one when social living is impacted; substance misuse, gender-based violence and degradation of recreational coastal spaces accentuate the impact. 

At the heart of Dakshin’s SeaChange community engagement is the recognition that ecological uncertainty, poor health outcomes, and the absence of role models, practices and pathways shape generations of precarious lives. Over the past two years, we have been working to build foundations for positive youth engagement, particularly through our focus on sports and adolescent health initiatives. Sports serve as a powerful entry point to play – a critical practice that is often absent from today’s tuition-focused education systems. Conversations around adolescent health have opened up safe spaces to discuss food and nutritional security, issues of gender, pressure to achieve, and emotional and mental well-being, even for those not attending formal school. These spaces also build linkages to how young people view their environment, identity, and their hopes for the future to protect and thrive. 

In both Odisha and the Andamans, we have introduced interactive workshops to address various health and wellbeing topics, from sustainable menstrual practices to mental health. Led by Community Catalysts (emerging leaders from small-scale fishing communities), these activity-based workshops provide young people with a space to explore their physical and emotional well-being, gender equity, and aspirations for their communities. We also address practical issues, like envisioning villages with improved WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) facilities, and building a holistic view of health in these contexts. Rights and entitlements they can access, also play a big role in building conversations on young people’s agency. 

How might young people shape a cycle of hope for their community? SeaChange’s intersectoral approach helps us tie together interventions that build skills, and knowledge and strengthen systemwide social networks that enable fisher people to participate in prevailing problems such as climate impacts, substance misuse and depleting fishing incomes. This approach is inspired by acts of resistance. In Purnabandha, an estuarine fishing village where alcohol misuse was a major issue, local youth supported by women’s self-help groups, successfully convinced the village committee to ban alcohol even if for a temporary period. 

Youth engagement is a cornerstone of our work, creating a platform for schools, parents, village committees, and other key stakeholders to unite. This approach reflects our commitment to addressing the interconnectedness of humans and their environments. Our ongoing work is not just about addressing today’s challenges but in breaking generational prejudice and marginalisation – the cornerstone of a resilient future for fishers, as they express it, “We want to live a life where we would like to be remembered after death. Do good things so that people take us to have led an exceptional life!”.

Pavitra Vasudevan is a Senior Programme Officer with the Community Wellbeing and Environment Programme at Dakshin and a Mental Health Practitioner. On the lookout for stories of resistance and hope in individuals and communities, Pavitra’s work weaves together nurturing spaces and collective persistence for wellbeing.