India honours elderly Catholic for preserving environment

An elderly tribal Catholic from eastern India’s Jharkhand state who recently was honoured with the nation’s fourth highest civilian honor, credits his community for his work to protect the environment and conserve water.  Indian President Pranab Mukherjee on April 12 honoured 83-year old Simon Oraon with the Padma Shri Award at a ceremony inside the parliament building in New Delhi.  The award recognizes his work to bring back green space to the tribal villages of his Bedo area, near the state capital Ranchi.   Speaking to UCANEWS, Oraon, known as the "waterman" of Jharkhand owed the Padma Shri to all those who made his mission succeed.  Oraon, who dropped out of school in the fourth grade, said that as a child, he witnessed famine and abject poverty that destroyed hectares of farmland and killed livestock, forcing his family and villagers to migrate to save their own lives.  To remedy the situation, he along with friends, built a check dam in 1961 to trap rainwater.  After the dam gave way twice, they lobbied the government for help in building a concrete dam. They also planted trees in the area.  Noting the positive changes, villagers began returning to the area and improving the environment soon became a movement.  He told UCANEWS more than 1,600 families now grow crops on nearly 850 hectares of land, supplying vegetables to Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Kolkata cities.  The prestigious Jesuit-run Indian Social Institute in New Delhi holds up Oraon as a role model for people in drought-affected areas.  (Source: UCAN)