MAKEOVER

Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin ("There is none like Jassi") was a popular TV show that told the story a bespectacled, ordinary girl, with braces over her teeth and an odd style of dressing. Though somewhat naive, Jassi was an intelligent woman. The show chronicled how after a makeover, she looks so different that even her friends and family cannot recognise the new attractive and confident personality.

The person who scripted the success of Jassi is Venita Coelho, writer-director-filmmaker with an impressive journey of work and accolades. Presently, Venita stays in a small, picturesque village of Goa called Moira. And it is here that she and her team are putting together the script of the collective destiny of Moira. They have started creating the Village Development Plan of Moira.

Moira has drawn inspiration from the villagers of Chandor. In 2006, while Goans were agitating against the Regional Plan 2011 that threatened the lives, livelihood and environment of Goa, the Chandor Development Forum was putting together the basic systems and mechanisms, that were found to be absent in the Government plan. The ‘Five Year People’s Plan for the Sustainable Development of Chandor (2007-2012)’ reflects the attitude, approach and action plan of community that has connected to its needs, vision and mission of community solidarity.

Chandor’s model is inspiring more and more villages of Goa to script the desired makeover – to be better as a village. For too long, too many of us only complain about the way things are. We need to learn from Chandor and Moira that our dreams will happen only if we combine our individual competencies to script the collective makeover of our villages.

If the village that we love has to BE BETTER
We must put our heads and hands together!
- Pravin-da