By IANS
New Delhi : Women in a hilly village battle alcohol abuse. A Dalit youth improves the health and education scenario in his village. Such heartening stories impacting the marginalized were at the heart of a global meet here.
The three-day conference, Re-visioning Social Transformation in the 21st Century, is the fifth of its kind to be held in India. It saw a lot of participation from civil society groups, academicians and students.
Andre Ling, who works with Seva Mandir group in Rajasthan, shared some of his experiences while dealing with the people of village Delwara, the challenges to bring them together, win their trust and finally working towards improvisation of the existing system. And it wasn’t easy for a foreigner.
“The Panchayat is a culturally embedded body, quite distinct from the community. It was quite a challenge to make the people understand that their responsibility doesn’t end in electing the leaders,” Ling told IANS.
“We had to make them realise that they must demand their rights, be it supply of safe drinking water or building of toilets or schools. This they have started doing. One of the most positive developments was the enthusiasm by the women who wanted to do something for local development,” he said.
Similarly, Bhumika Jhamb of the Center for Budget and Governance Accountability here shared her experiences in a village in Nainital in Uttaranchal where the women led a spirited campaign against alcoholism.
“The women were tired of putting up with their drunk husbands every night… They couldn’t bear their hard earned money being spent away carelessly. That’s why they decided to start a campaign against alcohol abuse.
“They raided the liquor shops and got ruffled many times. But they refused to give up and approached the block development officer. These are stories that can be emulated elsewhere for the society’s overall development,” Jhamb said.
But feel-good stories were not the only ones that came up for discussion.
“There was a Dalit tribal woman who was elected to the Panchayat. While it should have been a happy occasion, sadly it was not… because this woman simply couldn’t articulate herself,” said Ling from Rajasthan.
“We tried guiding her, but it didn’t help. Probably she was under pressure from the male members of her family who were running the show themselves. The moral of the story is women have to be empowered first so that they take decisions.”
Some of the topics that were discussed at the meet that ends Friday were social transformation through economic development, accountability in rural wage employment programmes, youth programmes, globalisation and women’s livelihood.