Transforming a community

“I have an adolescent daughter. Here in our community we do not shun girls during their period. We keep them at home. We do not bar them from the kitchen. For me it is most important to keep my daughter healthy and strong during her period. Women lose blood every month and it can get very stressful and weakening. I want my daughter to have enough nutritious food to eat – vegetables, saag, dal, soups – so that she has enough strength.”

“From the Rupantaran training I learnt a lot about cleanliness. Keeping your surroundings clean helps you prevent yourself from getting sick. A clean house just looks nicer and you keep wanting to stay at home with your family, and even your neighbours give you compliments about it. During the Rupantaran classes, I noticed some women were very shy and fearful of making mistakes. I think we must be willing to make mistakes in order to learn from them. For example, my granddaughter Anjali did not go to school earlier. But I learnt what a great mistake it would be to keep her away from education and have started sending her to school.”

“I think the Rupantaran session on savings and expenses was the most useful for me and my family. Together with my daughter Sanjana, I weave gundri - traditional mats –  at home and sell them at the marketplace for Rs 150 (about US$ 1.5) apiece. There is a season to harvest the reed, after which we leave it to dry in the sun, and then we store it at home so that we have material available when we start working. Sometimes we weave more than half a dozen mats a day, and every year we must be weaving more than 2,500. The money we get from this we keep in a piggy bank and then use it to buy vegetables and stationery for our children, and sometimes we use it to cover household expenses.”

“I learnt about the dangers of child marriage from the Rupantaran sessions. If you marry your daughter off while she is an adolescent, she will be under pressure to have children right away and that negatively impacts her. My sister-in-law was married at 15. Now after having three children by the age of 25, she looks withered and falls sick all the time. I will not let my daughter Laxmi get married until she becomes an adult capable of dealing with pregnancy. I don’t want her to suffer like we did.”

“I liked the session on gender and social inclusion the best. Our society focuses on sons and I also did the same. But now I pay equal attention to my daughter Pooja’s needs. Sometimes I show her more love because I want to compensate for my past mistakes. Pooja is in grade 8 right now. I will support her studies as long as she wants to keep studying in order to delay her marriage. Even when she turns 20 I will not pressure her to get married. It is up to her to decide when she wants to get married.”