Hello everyone.
I returned to Delhi on Tuesday night after my field trip to Lucknow and Kanpur. It's hard to summarise all that I saw and learned - the week was humbling, inspiring and heart-breaking on so many different levels.
On my first day to Kanpur, I met Rani, a Dalit activitist working with women who suffer the twin oppressions of caste and gender. They are deprived of basic human rights such as education, health care and jobs. They are often unskilled, have little or no land, are ignorant about their voting rights, are unable to obtain healthcare from primary health centres (PHCs) owing to social taboos and lack access to education or vocational training.
Rani works tirelessly to raise awareness of women's rights, providing leadership training as well as workshops on issues such as domestic violence and alcholism. I was amazed by her passion and dedication.
She took me to a rural village where 80 per cent of the 300 villagers worked as agricultural labourers. Rani had helped form a women's self-help group headed up by Geeta, a mum-of-three. She invited me into her home - a simple brick affair shared by 12 people from two families - for a cup of tea and told me about how her husband, a factory worker, had not earned a single paisa in the last three months because of lack of jobs. Despite this, she was keen to cook dinner for me and wanted me to stay the night.
I was unable to do so however - and instead returned to the busti (slum) with Rani. That night, I bathed from a bucket in a small bathroom under candle light (due to the umpteenth power cut that day) and slept on the floor of Rani's office/bedroom alongside three others.
The following day, I travelled to Lucknow where I met Naheed, a 36-year-old woman with incredible energy and spirit who is fighting for the rights of Dalit Muslim women and their children, who face discrimination because of their gender and religion.
She took me to a village "school" she'd set up in Azim Nagar. I was greeted by the sight of 20 children sitting cross-legged in orderly rows on a large yellow plastic mat under the shade of a neem tree. Many bore the hallmarks of malnutrition - their over-sized uniforms hung on too lean, too small bodies. Two colourful posters attached to the brick wall of a disused, ramshackle government building - which Naheed hopes one day to transform into a proper classroom - featured English words, illustrations, and numbers. Flies buzzed around us incessantly and the heat was intense. Some of the kids danced, sang and showed off their English skills. When I asked what they wanted to do when they grew up, the more confident ones shouted out: "Police inspector!", "Doctor!" or "Social worker, like Naheed". It was very touching. Naheed is doing a wonderful job but I couldn't help but think what kind of future faced these kids.
My field trip was followed by a two-day Dalit Foundation workshop in Lucknow for around 30 grassroots campaigners. I learned tons about the complexities and challenges of fund-raising in India, and managed to conduct case studies with a handful of activisits. Each of them had amazing stories to tell - but even with the help of a translator, I felt I only skimmed the surface due to my lack of Hindi. I was very frustrated with myself. On the plus side, I was able to deliver some workshop training on: "How to write a case study," which I think went well!
Now I am back in Delhi writing up my case studies and moving onto my next mini project - trying to redesign the DF newsletter.
Hope you're all well.
More later,
Tina.
