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05613
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CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Genesis of The Workshop
Case Studies
Changing Structures, Changing Lives
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SPARC, Maharashtra
Taking Control of Our Health
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SEWA/CHETNA, Gujarat
Training Programme for Building Women’s Cadre
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RISE, Andhra Pradesh
Training Rural Women
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MYRADA, Karnataka
Opening Doors
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ASTHA, Rajasthan
Training Field Level Women Activists
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PRAYAS, Rajasthan
Training of Trainers
JAGORI/ACTION INDIA, New Delhi
Analysis of Case Studies
Towards an Alternative Vision
Community Health Cell
Library and Documentation Unit
367, "Srinivasa Nilaya"
Jakkasandra 1st Main,
1st Block, Koramangala,
BANGALORE-560 034.
Phone : 5531518
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PREFACE
With the growing emphasis on the concept of women's empowerment over the past few
years, the area of training of women has taken on even greater importance and relevance. There
are a number of training programmes for women which are being carried out by both
governmental and non-governmental agencies all over the country.
In this context, a workshop was convened in December 1987 to facilitate a process of indepth analysis of the various models of training for women and thereby help promote women’s
organisation and participation in the development process. This compendium of case studies is
a result of the process of analysis which started in the workshop.
We are grateful to all those who participated in the workshop, as well as those who have
contributed their case studies for this compendium, and shared with us their experiences in the
area of women’s training. We are particularly grateful to Mona Daswani of SPARC and Mirai
Chatterjee of SEWA who, as members of the Editorial Collective, assisted in the analysis of
these case studies.
DECEMBER 1989
Introduction
The concept of empowering women has been the
subject of much discussion and debate in various forums.
Several models of empowerment have emerged and have
been implemented at the grassroots level. Several critiques
of the empowerment concept have also relocated the
debate in recent years, by moving away from the target
group empowerment orientation to critically looking at
the key issues of participation and control that women
can have in processes that affect their lives.
Historically, women have been part of a strict maledominated patriarchal system which has not allowed them
to realize their potentials and individualities. They have
constantly been relegated to the background and their
role Ips essentially revolved around domestic production
processes and child-rearing and caring services, and
conferred upon them a secondary status. They have been
seen as supplementing men’s work and wages, if at
all. Thus women have not been able to meaningfully
participate in events outside their homes. As a result
of this conditioning, their own self-esteem and self-concept
have become extremely low. They see themselves as
worthless, unable to do anything on their own. ignorant,
foolish and generally inferior to men. Fears of this type,
conditioning, socialization and being constantly subject
to the oppressive social structures, have resulted in women
feeling that compared to men. they have little to offer
to society in pedagogical terms.
The nature of participation of women has also been
defined in male-oriented terms. The strength and
capabilities which women possess have not been
recognized and accepted as valid. Also, the world view
of training for women has been influenced by the concept
that women are to fit within a framework of existing
learning norms, thus further peripheralizing the
involvement of women.
With the growing recognition and sensitization to
gender equality and equity in society in the last decade,
all the traditional value-systems today are being questioned
and challenged, including the basic assumptions that are
constantly made regarding women's abilities to learn.
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Training women is even more important in view
of the fact that more and more development programmes
today are being focused on women as the "target group".
There is a growing realization that tme development
is not possible without the equal participation of women.
order to empower them, has to lift the oppressive
structures and burdens off the backs of women and
enable them to see themselves as they really are strong,
capable, responsible individuals who have as much a
right to their lives as anyone else.
Women’s training, therefore, not only aims to validate
and translate the individual strength and tenacity of
women into collective strength but also to search for
an alternative framework within which change can take
place, if we need to move beyond the rhetoric.
To achieve this, we, as trainers, are struggling towards
an alternative world view of women, so the task is
dual - while on the one hand we are exploding myths,
on the other hand we are also developing concepts to
replace those myths. This is the challenge.
The type of training women undergo, therefore, in
But our experiences on the ground and of ourselves, X
showed a very different canvas. Women’s learning styles
as well as perceptions, are very different from those
of men. It is this reality that we would like to focus
upon and highlight in our search for a gender sensitive
framework of Participatory Training. Such a search has
been a result of cumulative rich and diverse experiences
of several women activists and trainers -- who have
been themselves undergoing a process of questioning
the existing value-systems, and redefining their own
contexts as women in the present society.
Genesis Of The Workshop
As women trainers in the field, many of us are
constantly seeking and innovating on training
methodologies and strategies which would be sensitive
to women's realities and issues, such that women would
be empowered in the collective learning process. The
present framework of the philosophy and methodology
of Participatory Training has not specifically addressed
itself to women’s learning needs, their unique styles
and processes of learning. Women have been generally
subsumed under the broad category of 'learners’. Such
an assumption stresses that the formal and informal'
learning processes of women are akin to that of men
learners.
The initial analysis that emerges from these
experiences cannot but be situated within the larger
framework of women’s status, position and roles in
society.
A group of 18 women trainers from 14 organizations
from different parts of the country met at a three-day
workshop in Delhi in December 1987 to explore the
various dimensions involved in training poor illiterate
and semi-literate women at the grassroots level. The
format of the workshop was based on case-study
presentations. Several common issues were explored and
reflected upon, myths exploded, concepts refined through
a collective process of retrospective and introspective
analysis, which we are sharing with you in this
presentation. We have also shared these analyses, with
some more women’s groups who also contributed their
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case studies for wider dissemination.
We are sure that as the practice in the field moves
ahead, there would be many more issues in training
women that would need to be highlighted, reflected
upon and refined. We hope this process of learning would
continue.
Finally, as women trainers, we cannot undermine
our own learning from these experiences and from poor
women themselves. We must acknowledge that working
with poor women can be a humbling process and the
power of these experiences can change our lives and
our perspectives too, if we realize it.
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CASE STUDIES
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CHANGING STRUCTURES
CHANGING LIVES
A Participatory Training Programme for
Women Pavement Dwellers
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- SPARC Team
on a piece of the pavement, either along a main road
or in smaller lanes, close to their place of work. We
refer to a single group of pavement families as one
cluster. A cluster may be as small as 25 households
or as large as 200 households, depending on the nature
and length of a particular street. In the early part of
our work, we asked the people to identify their own
cluster; often these had been given distinct names by
them.
Background
SPARC is an organisation which is concerned about
the problems of the urban poor. We initiated our work
in 1985 with pavement dwellers in the city of Bombay.
In our analysis, they are one of the most disadvantaged
sections of those rural migrants who come to the city
for economic reasons. The informal sector offers them
myriad options and work is invariably found. However
with escalating land values and a crunch for space, these
migrants are unable to acquire even a room in an
established slum. Hence, they establish their own shelter
Behind the dismal facade of plastic and bamboo
live the families, often from the same community. They
have no access to civic amenities and therefore have
to develop innovative strategies to meet their own
requirements. Pedestrian toilets are used by them, water
is obtained either from railway stations, families where
the women are employed as domestic help, or even
fire hydrants. All the activities such as cooking, washing
and child rearing are carried out in a structure of
approximately 6 by 8 feet. It is ironic that pavement
dwellers contribute to the city through their labour but
use virtually none of its resources. They are completely
isolated from the mainstream and are often not aware
of what facilities may be available to them.
They are invisible to the city authorities except as
eye sores who are encroaching on public property. There
is no acknowledgment of their contribution, instead they
are constantly hounded by the local authorities. Pavement
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dwellers lives are fraught with insecurity due to frequent
demolitions of their homes. It is quite clear that this
strategy of periodic demolitions rarely achieves the
Municipal Corporation’s objective of the clearing of a
street. However, it serves a more detrimental purpose,
namely that of terrorizing the poor, so that they are
continuously reminded that the city has no place for
them. After a demolition, people may stay away for
a few hours, or even a few days, then they invariably
return and re-establish themselves. They have learned
to cope with these demolitions as yet another urban
reality. The very material they use for construction of
their homes is relatively cheap and replaceable. Other
than loss of belongings and occasional violence, the
demolitions do little physical damage. Yet they have
the tremendous psychological effect of increasing the
sense of powerlessness of the poor.
We at SPARC believe that it is possible to bring
about a change in the existing situation provided that :
1.
2.
3.
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People who are isolated, passive and fragmented
become active participants in the process of
social change.
Individuals through sharing common experiences
establish bonds between themselves.
Those who have so far allowed destiny to
determine their survival, assume control over
their lives.
4.
5.
A position of powerlessness can be changed
into one of power.
People can gain access to new and relevant
information and knowledge.
We also believe that women bear the major burden
of poverty without having access to any powers of
decision making either in the family or the community.
However, once women are involved in a process of
change, they display tremendous potentials as leaders.
This leadership can be collective and one which reflects
the concerns of the entire community. Hence the focus
of our work is to work with poor women, and involve
them in collectively seeking alternatives to their present
situation.
The Judgement-A Watershed
Until July 1985. there was no definite policy related
to pavement dwellers. Their existence was tacitly
sanctioned, even though its precarious nature was
constantly reaffirmed. However, the situation changed
when the Supreme Court passed a Judgement on the
Pavement Dweller Case on 11 July. 1985.
This was a case which had been under deliberation
for the past four years. The petitioners argued that since
the Constitution guarantees every citizen the fundamental
right to life no one may be deprived of this right except
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by law. The right to life includes the right to livelihood
and since pavement dwellers livelihood was linked to
their place of residence, they should be permitted to
stay there. Although the court granted that all citizens
have a right'to livelihood, it still conceded that pavements
were public property, and another group of citizens,
namely the pedestrians could not be endangered by having
to walk on the road, because the pavements were
occupied. Hence the right to life of pedestrians had also
to be considered. It was stated that pavement dwelling
is illegal, and it was within the jurisdiction of the
Municipal Authorities to demolish structures without
notice, or alternative accommodation.
This threw a completely different light on the
situation. In the past, some pavement dwellers with
access to resources had been able to appeal to the courts
for a stay order in the event of a localised demolition.
However, the Judgement closed all doors to legal redress.
This affected groups all over the city of Bombay, and
the women with whom SPARC works also participated
in demonstrations and protests organised by various
voluntary and political groups. It soon became clear to
them that they could not return to their villages, and
therefore would have to seek alternatives within the
urban context. However, women who had not needed
to think beyond the following day now found themselves
having to plan for their future.
They were completely ill-equipped to do so. and
therefore would have to undergo a process whereby they
could leam certain skills and acquire some knowledge.
This was not limited to merely moving from one form
of shelter to another, but an opportunity to bring about
a complete change in their lives. Shelter was only the
issue which catalyzed women and their communities to
get organised to take control of their future in the city.
In order to do this, they were ready to participate in
a training process.
Formulation Of The Training
It became clear to us at SPARC that the training
would essentially provide an opportunity for women to
reflect on their situation and acquire certain skills. The
focus of the training was to develop an alternative vision
of community organisation, based on a rejection of the
present existing one. Since this could not be done in
a vacuum, the issue of shelter would be taken up, as
being the one which affected the entire community
deeply, including the poorest members. In order to initiate
the struggle for shelter, we evolved a strategy based
on the following assumptions:
(1)
(2)
(3)
that the poor have a right to shelter;
that collective action can help them gain access
to this right;
that the government system can be pressurised
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in order to accept that the poor have this right.
In the present situation, it was clear that shelter
was a crisis for the poor in the urban context. Their
immediate need was to seek an alternative. This crisis
situation was used to evolve a training programme with
the following objectives:
To facilitate a process whereby
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
Women participate as active and equal members
of the community.
Individual concerns are shared and become
collective goals.
Alternative information, based on their own
reality is developed by the poor.
Existing information is analysed.
Women’s collectives form an alternative
leadership.
Women are empowered.
We at SPARC were emphatic in explaining that shelter
was very much a women's issue-it was they who made
the pavement dwelling a home, and it was they who
were most affected by any demolitions since the men
were almost always away at work. After a series of
such meetings, a common consensus was reached that
the women would indeed be active participants. This
was the prelude to the training programme.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
It brought about a general acceptance in the
community for placing women in the vanguard
of the training.
This position was publicly ratified.
Their key role put women in a position of
responsibility from which there was no turning
back.
Any fears, anxieties, and doubts were also
shared, so that they did not act as deterrents.
Phase I
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Making A Public Commitment: Pre-training
1. Group Discussions
The first step was a series of mass meetings where
both men and women attended and spoke about the
impending demolitions. It was clear that not a single
person was even considering the aspect of returning to
their village. It was also certain that their lives on the
pavement were shortlived. Hence it was imperative that
the community seek alternatives for themselves.
Once a decision to move from the present dwelling
was taken, a series of group discussions followed, including
tracing their migration to the city, the history and
development of the pavement cluster, why families are
compelled to stay in the city, how people survive and
the kinds of problems faced by them. This was initially
a discussion among women from the same cluster, where
most of the families were from a similar rural area.
This process varied among clusters, and was complete
only when women had been through the range of topics.
Often, similar discussions were held between members
of different clusters. For the first time a collective
reflection on the situation of the poor by poor women
had occurred which achieved the following :
(a)
(b)
(c)
that concerns are common;
they derived strength from one another-.
time and space for women to share with one
another was created.
This had a tremendous impact on strengthening the
groups which were formed, and sustained them for future
activities.
2. Site Visits
According to the city authorities, there is no vacant
land available in Bombay. This myth had to be destroyed
and the best way we felt was through* site visits to
vacant lands. How did we locate these lands?
Women themselves had heard about marshy
stretches of land through other slum and
pavement families who lived in other areas.
(ii) Through the city’s development plans many of
these vacant lands were identified.
(iii) Speaking to professionals in the department of
urban development was a useful source.
(i)
Hence, this was an important step in obtaining
information contrary to what women had been told all
these years.
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What the women learnt from these site visits was -.
That vacant land does exist in the city, although
it has not been made available to the poor.
Physically viewing a stretch of land has an
impact far greater than hearsay. This was also
a lesson in how to obtain information about
an issue.
(b) For many women this was the first time they
had left home alone. Travelling by train, visiting
far off places was a discovery, an exposure.
Women from different pavement clusters
interacted with each other, in a new
environment, where they had a common goal.
This strengthened the basis for networking.
(a)
3. Formation Of Area Committee
Until now, the training had been open to all the
women in the community out of their own free choice.
This was a conscious decision taken by SPARC since we
did not want to select trainees. Rather we felt that
those who participated in a rigorous process should do
so out of their own free will and with the sanction
of the community. The community, especially the men,
should be well aware of what the women were saying
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and doing, in order to avoid misconceptions or develop
hostility. However, once site visits were carried out, it
became clear that certain concrete tasks had to be
completed. Not everyone in the community would have
the time or the capacity to participate. Hence a natural
selection of leaders occurred. One woman for every 15
houses was chosen to assume responsibility for concrete
tasks. These were known as the Area Committees. They
also had to conduct regular meetings with the 15 houses,
so that everyone in the community at large would be
kept informed.
What the women in the Area Committees learnt was:
(b)
(C)
(d)
to function together as a team
effective leadership qualities, since they received
direct feed-back from the community-,
how to involve others and facilitate- collective
decision making;
having to conduct meetings themselves was
preparing them to assume trainer roles in the
future.
4. Enumeration Of Their Own Homes
This was planned as a simple exercise, wherein
each cluster would determine the exact number of families
living there. This was based on the following rationale :
(i)
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The poor had until now never quantified
information about themselves. Any census in
which they were included was done by
outsiders, sometimes the government, often
voluntary agencies. Hence it was important for
them to generate an alternative statistical base.
SPARC had learnt through past experiences that
enumeration is a powerful tool in mobilizing
the urban poor. Hence, it was planned that
women would undertake this exercise
themselves.
In retrospect, we see this as the watershed of the
training. The impact of the enumeration was tremendous
- the number of physical stmctures did not total up
to the number of families-, the latter are greater in number
by about 40 percent. This is because people rent out
space, nuclear families expand, single member families
occupy a stretch of street, homes are used for a range
of occupations, etc. All these issues had to be resolved
before women could arrive at a common consensus about
the exact number of families in their cluster. This
enumeration was repeated until the results satisfied the
majority of the community.
(ii)
Often, this was a fmstrating exercise, both for the
community, and for us at SPARC, since it was difficult
to arrive at an exact number. However, we saw this
as a very important group-building exercise, one which
strengthened the training process, therefore it was
continued. Of all the individual steps, this took up the
maximum time. For the women :
this was a concrete exercise which they did
collectively, thus strengthening the team's ability
to perform tasks;
(b) they developed a tremendous insight into the
community dynamics;
(c) their own sense of confidence increased since
the community saw them in a position of doing
something concrete and vital;
(d) they developed bonds between one and another,
which set the basis for them to assume the
role of alternative leadership in the community.
(a)
5. Settlement And House Design
In the established schemes for the urban poor, it
is architects who develop low-cost housing designs. More
often than not, these are based on a middle-class world
view and are not relevant to the needs of the poor.
Hence, they are often rejected by those upon whom
the plans are thrust. Since the training process involved
an opportunity for women to plan for their future in
the city, an important component was settlement and
house design. It must be emphasized that this component
comprised not more than 10 percent of the entire training.
However, it was important, since it gave women an
opportunity to let their imaginations run free, to dream
and visualize what sort of homes they wanted for
themselves. At the same time they had to come down
to the reality of their means and resources, and
community needs.
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Professionals, such as architects and city planners,
were ready to work with the women as resource persons.
The first step was for women to shut their eyes and
analyse how they had utilized the space in their existing
homes. Then simple measurements were explained; for
example, a 5 yard sari is 15 feet, a mangalsutra is 20
inches and so on. Women then created house models
out of cardboard. The architects spoke about the
importance of light and ventilation. The settlement design
was * one which evolved out of a series of discussions
among the women. They articulated their needs, such
as wanting common toilets, shared by 4 families and
the architect would suggest a design based on units
of four. All plans which emerged arose out of basic
community needs, and it was highlighted
(a)
(b)
(c)
that dreaming and fantasy stimulate creativity
and were perfectly valid;
realistically analysing the communities needs and
resources was possible;
it is a myth that illiterate women are unable
to learn sophisticated architectural concepts.
Phase II
1. Critique Of Public Housing
Although there is no policy related to the pavement
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dwellers specifically, the Government and other voluntary
agencies have schemes for housing the economically
weaker sections. We felt it was important for women
to analyse these schemes for two reasons:
2. Hardware Of Housing
We refer to three major components as hardware
land, material and finance. Each of these is distinct,
yet interrelated.
*
(a)
(b)
Since these are government schemes for public
housing, specifically for the urban poor, the
women should know about them.
These plans can be compared with their own
ideas about settlement and house design.
This was achieved in several ways : city planners
met the women as resource persons and made slide
presentations-, government offices were visited, pamphlets
and other materials were obtained, which were translated
by SPARC personnel; model schemes both in Bombay and
in other cities were visited by core group of women.
This had the following learning impact :
(a)
(b)
(c)
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women felt a sense of confidence that they
could critique the housing schemes from their
own perspective-,
they developed a sense of pride in their own
designs, which were based on people’s needs,
unlike the others which they saw-,
acquiring and processing information was no
longer an unfamiliar exercise-, this reaffirmed
the earlier training.
of land is a difficult proposition
w Acquisition
and negotiations with the government have been
initiated.
(ii) Women have been visiting various places where
building material is prefabricated, and
determining which of these is appropriate for
themselves.
(iii) Finance has been tackled in two ways: by saving
small amounts of money each month in a local
bank and inquiring about loan facilities for
housing from established credit sources. The
savings are handled by local women from each
cluster, and accounts are held in individual
names.
The learning potential in this is tremendous :
(a)
(b)
It reaffirms the reality that there is no policy
or scheme available for pavement dwellers,
hence the women will have to be prepared
for a long struggle.
Most established institutions like banks are not
willing to even grant entry to pavement
dwellers, until they find out about the
investment these women have made. Thus, a
sense of confidence in themselves and the
training was affirmed.
(c) Banking procedures were learnt.
(d) A sense of discipline was inculcated; planning
for the future involved a different rigor from
merely planning for the following day.
The Time Frame
The training was divided into two phases :
The initial phase and the second phase. The initial
phase took exactly one year, and the second phase took
six months. Thus the entire process of training was
completed in 18 months for approximately 500 women
from 7 different clusters. Details are given below :
NAME OF
CLUSTER
DATE OF
JOINING
TRAINING
NUMBER NUMBER
OF
OF
FAMILIES LEADERS
1. Apna Jhopadpatti 15th March ‘86
9th April '86
2. Nagpada
9th August '86
3. Water Street
9th August ‘86
4. Tank Pakhadi
29th Sept. '86
5. Shanti Nagar
6. Dockyard Road 25th Sept. '86
3rd Nov ‘86
7 Jhula Maidan
Total Number
97
153
91
37
55
22
40
7
10
8
3
7
5
7
495
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The training environment was a simulation of
women’s own reality. The most important facet was
to create an unpressured atmosphere, where women could
learn at their own pace. The first group of women
who participated in the training were the most
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adventurous. Information about the training spread among
other clusters; as and when women were convinced about
the training, they came to us and expressed a readiness
to participate. Those who joined later benefited by the
learning processes of the earlier participants. Each group
had its own characteristics, which were used to the
advantage of the training.
For example, Apna Jhopadpatti, Water Street and
Tank Pakhadi are located very close to one and another
and helped each other through the various steps. Nagpada
is a heterogeneous, scattered group, who had to
continuously be reassured and although they joined in
April, at one stage they were found lagging behind.
Shanti Nagar is an extremely homogenous group, most
of them are ex-prostitutes who have left the trade and
were very eager to change their situation. Although they
joined later, they worked hard at each of the steps
and were able to keep abreast of the other groups.
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However, mechanically going through the stage of
land visits, enumeration, formation of committees was
not enough. The training was a process of attitudinal
changes and depending on the group, a gestation period
was essential. For example, Jhula Maidan, on seeing the
other, wanted to race through the steps. However, the
women had not yet acquired the basic values such as
collective functioning, sharing and mutual trust through
this acceleration and they .soon found themselves in the
midst of disagreement and discord.
This had a significant learning impact, both for the
women, and us at SPARC An important aspect of the
training process was that of group-building, of
understanding community dynamics, resolving conflicts
and re-constituting the groups. Hence, no matter how
tedious certain steps may have seemed (for example,
the enumeration referred to earlier) this played an
important role in the group-building. Jhula Maidan had
initially wanted to go through the steps very fast rather
than invest time and energy in each. However, it proved
of essence to the training to allow each step to progress
at its own pace. They were helped through this by
the other women who understood what the training
entailed.
Each group would meet in the office once a week,
each meeting had a specific learning agenda, which
followed from the discussion of the previous week.
Approximately once a month, resource persons were
invited to speak to the entire group, giving specialized
inputs. Field visits were planned according to each group’s
convenience. Often clusters worked out convenient times
and went together. Later on women from different clusters
would meet once a week and conduct their own meetings
in order to periodically review the training.
The Outcome
A natural reaction to a description of this training
is: What happened ? Did the women get house ? The
answer is No. The objective of the training has never
been to build houses, and the women have been well
aware of this. Even those, who at the start of the
process thought that they might get a house, found
at the end of it that the kind of learning which they
had undergone was quite different. To use a colloquial
translation, the Bihari women said. Dimag khul gaya hai
(our minds have opened). One of the outcomes was
that the women were able to create their own points
of reference. No longer were they a fragmented isolated
group. They had concretely analysed why they are in
the city; they were aware that there was no returning
to the village. It was clear that until they attained a
certain level of organisation and demanded for their own
rights, they would not gain access to any of the city s
resources. This was important, since it demonstrated that
an alternative vision of community organisation was central
to the training - shelter was the critical issue that had
been used to trigger this.
In the urban context, the crisis is around the issue
of shelter. This affects the poorest among the urban
poor, and hence is a powerful issue. Once women are
centrally involved in the process of shelter planning,
long term changes which affect the entire community
are feasible. Their self-confidence and ability to deal
with their situation is tremendously advanced, due to
a quantum leap in their own perceptions. For example,
when a demolition occurred in one of the clusters (Apna
Jhopadpatti) the six groups mobilized one another and
arrived at the demolition site in a show of solidarity
and strength. This time the Municipal Squads found
themselves face to face with a dignified group of women,
who instead of being terrorized, displayed a sense of
calm and said. We will dismantle our own homes, and
did so while singing songs in order to keep up their
i
17
own morale. There was sadness in the air, yet there
was a sense of strength and power. This will go down
in history as one demolition in which goods were not
lost and no physical violence ensued.
18
Until now. only the women's involvement in the
training process has been described but the training had
important repercussions for two other groups
the
government, and for us at SPARC. When the women
presented themselves and their concerns to the
government, this was found to be a new experience
for the bureaucrats. Until now. they had only their own
preconceived notions about pavement dwellers. Suddenly
they were faced with a group of articulate women, who
knew what they wanted, and how to go about attaining
their rights. The women were so well informed about
the housing schemes and shelter-related issues, that
officials have been astonished. They know more than
us. has been the reaction of some of the more progressive
officials! This became more evident when officials came
out of their offices to meet the women in their own
environment - the women were very comfortable and
therefore clear in voicing their needs. The officials soon
realized that they could not dismiss the women by trying
to offer them resettlement in one of their model projects,
which was too distant and underdeveloped to be viable.
Thus, the negotiations were initiated based on women’s
needs. Although bureaucratic procedures are long and
tedious, the women are confident that they have the
ability to sustain the negotiations.
Finally, for us at SPARC, the training has been an
empowering process. When we started, we were full
of anxiety, since the issue of shelter was new to us.
In retrospect, we realize that this was to our relative
advantage, since we had no preconceived notions. As
we came across new information, we shared this with
the women and tested the validity of the hypothesis.
Hence, we were able to critique the various aspects
related to shelter from the point of view of the poor,
particularly women. All those who participated in the
training feel very empowered. As trainers we now have
to move into a more supportive role, as women undertake
more and more of the direct organizational work.
Perhaps the most important outcome of the training
was the women forming their own organisation called
Mahila Milan. This arose out of a direct need to sustain
the various activities which are both related to shelter
and to take up other issues. Mahila Milan has a
membership which is open to all poor women living
in the city. It is structured only in their own specific
concerns. It functions independently of SPARC, meets on
a regular basis and takes it’s own decisions. One of
the important functions performed by Mahila Milan is
aligning with other people's organizations and ensuring
women’s participation. We believe that autonomous
people's organizations, like Mahila Milans can play a key
role in the struggle of the poor. Establishing links between
such organizations and creating a federation is essential
for building a national movement of the urban poor.
Mahila Milan has another important role to perform,
namely that of sharing the training process which they
have undergone with other groups. This is not only
a very effective way to reaching out to other sections
of the urban poor, but it also strengthens women’s own
capabilities when they move from the role of trainees
to the role of trainers. Hence, this training has wider
implications in the context of a national movement.
i
naQO 0
W-HJJIJSJ
19
TAKING CONTROL OF OUR HEALTH ;
Some Experiences of
Community Health Workers Training
- Mirai Chatterjee, SEWA
- Pallavi Naik and CHETNA team
In our search for putting some order to these,
few key issues emerged-.
1.
2.
3.
4.
How We Began
When we first discussed the prospect of health
training for women, we were excited. We spend long
hours dreaming and discussing the various possibilities
for organizing and empowerment that such training
offered. Greater knowledge and control of our bodies
could lead to collective action for greater control over
our lives. It was this possibility that excited and prompted
us to explore what none of us had been involved in
before - health training with poor, non-literate women.
And yet we were faced with several questions. What
would our health trainings be like ? What would these
include ? Who would be involved ? And how would
we do it ?
5.
6.
We strongly believed that we had a right to
know about our bodies and our health.
We also believed that all women could be
involved in the process of sharing and
supplementing their existing knowledge about
their bodies. Literacy was no barrier.
Our concept of health was holistic, including
our mental and emotional well-being.
We were committed to primary health care for
all and especially the poorest and weakest in
the community. Health training was to be an
important element of our primary health care
work.
We valued both modem and traditional concepts
of health and disease, and hoped to use the
safest and cheapest elements of both.
We hoped that our health work would lead
to a greater consciousness of our status in a
patriarchal society, leading us to further action
At the time when these ideas were crystallizing
in our minds, we were a small group. These were the
SEW A Health Team of three, twelve women from
Shankarbhuvan. a poor neighborhood where SEW A
members live and some friends from CHETNA. Organizers
from SEWA had become close to some of the
23
i
Shankarbhuvan women over a period of several months.
Some of the women had been long-standing members
of SEWA. Others were curious about the organization,
and still others had little faith in collective action. “We
were bom in this mess, raised and married in it and
will die in it”, they argued. “This Shankarbhuvan will
always be this way”.
Yet it was the women themselves who suggested
that we work on the issues of health, water supply
and sanitation. They explained that they and their children
were always sick, and to top it all. water supply was
a big problem.
They also suggested that health trainings be organized
because. “We know nothing about our bodies and health”,
(a view that they would revise later !). Some women
were not confident about participating in such training
How can we learn these things ? We are completely
illiterate”. Others, though nervous, were excited about
learning and being involved in a new. different kind
of activity.
24
At the same time, many men in the community
were curious and amused about the kind of exchange
of ideas and discussions that we had been having with
women. They said that our hopes for the future were
little more than tall talk. After all. what can women
do? Who cares what they think, need and feel ? And
besides, so many like us. had come and gone, and life
at Shankarbhuvan remained unchanged.
Others were apprehensive about our intentions. We
were giving their daughters, sisters, mothers and wives
wrong ideas, stirring them up for nothing, they said.
Some even thought that we had actually come to recruit
women for sterilization operations ! Still men felt that
it was impossible for completely illiterate women to
learn and teach anything. “What do they know?” they
jeered. “How can they learn ? They have no brain.”
Finally some said that if their women-folk worked
with us. people would laugh or spread rumors. It would
be a disgrace for the whole family. As Arjanbhai. father
of two of our future health workers explained. “My
two divorced daughters have brought enough shame to
the family. I don’t want them wandering here and there”.
Despite the ridicule, apprehensions and some
opposition that we faced from our families and the
community, we were determined to go ahead with our
ideas and plans. The SEWA Health Team and CHETNA
decided to work together for all the health training.
CHETNA had. for several years, been working in the
field of community health education, and we shared
a common perspective on this. At the same time, we
were united in our commitment to poor women and
in our belief that they have a right to know and can
leam about their bodies and their health, regardless of
levels of literacy. The Shankarbhuvan women, the SEWA
Health Team and CHETNA friends thus began to
conceptualize and plan the health training together.
However, our CHETNA friends were to be the main
trainers, till such time as others were ready to assume
this role. They would, therefore, be chiefly responsible
for preparation of subject matter and learning materials,
organising these and sharing whatever they had collected.
Together with SEWA and CHETNA organizers, some
women from Shankarbhuvan were to participate in the
training. The next question was : Who would be
involved ? The issue was settled in one of our meetings
at Shankarbhuvan. Nine women initially wanted to
participate in this training. They had to withdraw because
of marriage and moving away, and other family
commitments. Finally six women decided that they would
be the first health workers of Shankarbhuvan.
They suggested that the trainings be once a month
for three or four days duration. They could not spare
more time, as apart from household work, they were
all daily wage workers, involved in various trades of
the informal sector. They re-sewed old cement bags for
transporting onions and potatoes, scrubbed and re-painted
old tins, peeled garlic and sold vegetables, old clothes
and scrap metal. Their earnings were between eight and
ten rupees a day. SEWA decided to pay Rs. 10/- per
day in lieu of wages for the days that they would
be involved in training. The women also felt that these
trainings should be held either at SEWA or CHETNA
offices, as there were too many distractions at
Shankarbhuvan. Finally, as a support to our training,
we decided to have a "clinic" twice a week, providing
basic curative care to Shankarbhuvan’s residents for a
i
nominal fee. The “dawakhana" was also a practical means
to train women in diagnosing, and providing curative careand health education.
The Measles Epidemic And After
The topic for our first training was decided by the
outbreak of a measles epidemic in Shankarbhuvan. At
least four children died before we could act. Our
intervention was difficult because of a whole host of
beliefs and rituals that we did not even understand
at that time. We felt helpless and somewhat confused
about what we could do. We arranged for measles vaccine
from the local municipal dispensary, and government
health workers immunized the children. Meanwhile, we
closely observed and suggested treatment for children
who developed complications as a result of measles.
We also fixed the dates of our first health training
with women. Although a sad event in Shankarbhuvan
had prompted our training programmes, we were
enthusiastic about starting.
25
llj
All of us had a lot to learn about measles and
health beliefs in general. Our training began with a
discussion of how measles is viewed in a traditional
community like Shankarbhuvan. and what is done to
cure it. We learned about its diagnosis by a "bhuva"
(local-healer), of how the 'Mata' (Mother Goddess
associated with the disease) had to be appeased and
child’s death had to be accepted because the 'Mata' ordained
that it be so. Then, others of us shared our
modem knowledge about measles, its transmission
and how and why it is a killer of children in poor
communities.
From our measles training, several points emerged
which we incorporated in our subsequent sessions. First,
starting with what we all know and experience every
day sparks off greater interest and involvement of all
participants. So we discussed how Ramiben’s son got
measles, how it was diagnosed and reasons why the
little boy eventually died. Our training methods and
materials from this point onwards incorporated our own
experiences, down to the charts and drawings which
portrayed life at Shankarbhuvan.
26
In addition, we found that we particularly enjoyed
those trainings where we all could participate and
contribute throughout. We tried to ensure, therefore, that
there was a role for all the participants in our training
sessions. Sometimes we divided into small groups and
created role-plays and "stories, piecing together flip charts
in which the CHETNA artist captured life at
Shankarbhuvan. Other times we made up rhymes and
"garbas" to help us remember immunization doses, how
malaria spreads, the use of chloroquine and other issues.
We also tried to learn in pairs - one of us would ask
the other about something we had just learned, and
then the roles could be reversed to check whether both
had understood and absorbed the material.
Further, rather than viewing a disease in isolation,
we always discussed its socio-economic implications. Why
is it that poor children do not survive a measles attack,
whereas others do ? How is malnutrition related to our
status as women ? How does insufficient and intermittent
water supply affect our health? We felt that not only
were such issues close to our hearts but also that we
must begin to confront and analyse these, if our work
was eventually to have some impact on our health and
our lives.
Another thing we learned quickly was that our
trainings rarely proceeded as planned. Often some of
us were tired because we had been up all night with
a sick relative, or were unwell ourselves or had been
dancing at a wedding till the wee hours. Consequently,
we sometimes found it hard to concentrate or just felt
very sleepy. On the spot changes in our training became
a common practice, based on everyone's mood, energy
level and requests.
By experimenting, we found topics, methods and
materials that were particularly appropriate, and some
that were useless. Even the pace of discussions and
presentations had to be altered frequently because of
our moods, knowledge and absorption levels. Sometimes
we felt that reviewing materials presented was essential
as some could not take notes and we could not always
rely on memory. On such occasions, a few women who
could read and write felt restless and bored.
There were also times when we felt that the subject
matter to be presented was conceptually difficult to grasp,
but were surprised at the ease with which this actually
occurred. One such example was a session on what
the heart and lungs look like and how they work. As
most of the women had seen these organs in sheep
and goats, understanding the human anatomy was no
problem at all I Further, knowing about lung and heart
structure, made understanding their functioning quite
simple.
Similarly, when we learned about diarrheal diseases,
we only briefly touched on bacteria, vimses and unicellular
organisms (protozoa). But all present were interested to
learn about these and their role in spreading infection.
An impromptu microbiology session was then arranged,
and thus, women who had never been to school began
d
d protozoa.
.
Th learned
,
dd,
F
discussing
viruses and
They
the English
terms but had difficulty remembering ameobas. giardia
and so on. So ameobas became "the protozoa with holes"
and giardia "the protozoa with a tail", and similarly for
different types of bacteria.
cl
There were also times when women had a lot
of difficulty understanding some sessions which we
thought would be quite simple. Our training on food
groups, and the different use of these by the body
was one such example. Perhaps they were less interested
in this issue thaft we anticipated.
Some of the training sessions that evoked the most
interest were those on our reproductive system. Women
who had eight or ten children were amazed to learn
how their bodies actually worked. We had long discussions
on our gynaecological problems. Our various deliveries
and their complications, and even on our sexuality.
28
While we felt that our sexuality and oppression
as women in this aspect of our lives had to be addressed,
we did not quite know how to initiate discussion on
this, or how we would feel raising this in a group setting.
One of the older women in our group settled the issue
by launching into an account of her personal experiences.
Some giggled nervously but it paved the way for serious
and important discussion. The younger, unmarried women
were shy but also most intrigued. And we all felt a
new closeness and warmth at the end of it. Among
the methods we explored during our training were field
visits to assess the prevalence of a particular disease,
visits to hospitals and local dispensaries and use of
facilities and equipment of various institutions. At the
Community Science Centre (CSC) in Ahmedabad. for
example, we peered into microscopes and, saw how
protozoa, bacteria, adult mosquitoes and larvae actually
looked.
We also used life-size models of the human body
at the CSC for our anatomy sessions. We were able
to detach various vital organs from their positions on
the model, examine their size and stmcture and see
their location relative to other organs. This "learning
by seeing and doing" was very important.
In addition to this. Our “dawakhana" began to be
and still is an important training ground. The SEWA
Health Team’s doctor initially examined, diagnosed and
treated all patients, while we observed and learnt from
her. Slowly, we began to examine people, take case
histories and even diagnose and treat some of the
problems with which we were familiar. Thus our "practical
training" greatly augmented our class-room training.
Apart from models, field visits and the “dawakhana"
we used charts, slides and even video programmes that
we made ourselves at SEWA. Often we or our families
featured in the audio-visual presentations speaking on
our own experiences and understanding. We liked these
a lot.
Regular evaluation of what we were learning was also
considered important from the very first training on
measles. We tried to ensure that our understanding of
a particular health problem was sound and solid. Although
we did not want to have formal tests, we did try
to prepare and review before hand. After all. we wanted
to be competent health workers.
But our evaluation sessions were not just restricted
to testing our knowledge of diseases. We also discussed
the trainings themselves, how we felt about them, what
worked and what did not. We also tried to plan how
we should proceed what our priorities were, and where
we were in terms of our ideas, beliefs and goals.
Where We Are Now
We began our health trainings a year and a half
ago. Since then, our health family has grown considerably.
Seven women from three villages of Sanand taluk.
Ahmedabad district, and twelve women from six villages
of Anand taluk. Kheda district are now village health
workers. There are also seven of us now on the SEW A
Health Team and some new CHETNA friends. That brings
us to thirty-five in all. In both areas, the health training
and "dawakhana" follow the Shankarbhuvan pattern, with
a few modifications. Almost all the Sanand health workers
are illiterate and also were initially less confident than
their urban and more worldly-wise sisters from
Shankarbhuvan. Some of our discussions, training materials
ana methods had to be altered to suit the village setting.
We have one dispensary for the three villages Where
our work started. It also serves as a means of practical
training for the health workers.
I
In Kheda. our health work was a response to the
repeated requests of tobacco workers who are SEW A
members. Here too. we found women more withdrawn
and less confident as compared to their city counterparts.
We soon learned why. When they participated in health
trainings, the tobacco growers, in whose fields they work
tried to isolate them as potential trouble-makers. In
fact, the health workers were very courageous to be
participating in the training. They risked their daily wages
for this and so sometimes during the training were
anxious.
In the six villages of Kheda. we have two
dispensaries-one each for three villages. Here too the
health workers have begun to examine, diagnose and
treat village people.
The Shankarbhuvan group of health workers have
almost completed their initial training. It has been at
times a gradual process and other times faster than we
all anticipated. The women now run their "dawakhana"
every day. by their own choice. They examine people
and take histories, diagnose and treat some primary
problems if they know how. At the same time, they
are open about saying that they are unsure about a
29
i
diagnosis, and so would prefer to refer the person for
further care. They have devised a system whereby one
literate and one illiterate woman work as a team. One
asks questions and the other notes the responses. They
also have regular health education meetings in their
community, to share what they have learned. Not
surprisingly, they are now increasingly involved in other
community issues such as savings for women, loans and
so on. They plan to work on the issue of proper water
supply next year.
Perhaps the most exciting development of the health
training is that some of the women of Shankarbhuvan
have become trainers ! They have been conducting some
of the sessions for the newer health workers at Sanand
and Kheda. In addition, they are called upon to discuss
the health aspects of women's lives during SEWA's
unionizing efforts. They share what they have learned,
their fears, hopes and vision for a just and healthy future.
Finally, some local voluntary organizations are seeking
their help in training health workers in different parts
of Ahmedabad. Women's groups are also inviting them
to share their ideas.
Recently when on a study tour as part of health
30
training, we all decided to march silently with women •
from Rajasthan and other parts of India, in protest against
the "Sati" that occurred not far from Jaipur. As Radhaben
from Shankarbhuvan put it : "If we cannot speak out
for justice and truth, what good are we as health workers ?"
Kunvarba of Kodariya village in Sanand added. "If women
are going to be killed like this, how can we sit still?
Our presence in Jaipur is very much a part of our
work and our training".
And so our work and ideas have changed and grown
Some of us who never believed we could learn something
new and could change our outlook have done so. Others
of us have derived a lot of strength, confidence and
inspiration from our training, our health work and from
each other. We now see ourselves not just as health
workers providing a needed service, but also as community
healers' in a broader sense. Our vision for the future
is still evolving, but we will be not only free of disease
but also of the chronic exploitation and poverty we face.
We continue to face opposition at home and in
the community. All those trainings have made you too
bold, we are told. But we feel we have made a beginning
and have a long way to go together.
TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR
BUILDING WOMEN’S CADRE
%
D. Susheela, RISE
our work. Few key women consulted us and invited
us to assist them in the formation of women’s association
in their villages. But our strategy was clear; we would
not go to ithe villages to organize women. We felt that
a trained and experienced cadre of women’s association
should go into the neighouring villages and help them
in organising the women as well as strengthen networking
among the various associations in several villages.
Particularly in Gasikapalli. and Sathu. women had been
interacting with Kothapeta. Pakampalli and Bendana
Kuppam Women's Associations.
Background
RISE is a small action group working with others
groups which are involved with tribals, landless-labourers,
untouchables, small farmers and women in remote areas
of Andhra Pradesh.
Besides their ongoing field work, they have been
involved in holding training programmes and workshops
in an effort to build the capacities of several field activists
in the region. They have also been involved in
documentation and preparation of learning materials.
Context
In the beginning our field team was working with
14 villages in Andhra Pradesh, which were selected for
During the International Women’s Day celebration.
Sathu and Gasikapalli women were very keen and strongly
motivated to form an organisation to promote women’s
status in the existing socio-political economic situation,
particularly highlighting violence and atrocities on women.
The women's cadre was involved in these issues and
mobilized the women on these. On another occasion
at a peace march, the women's cadre was questioned
so much by government officials that it strengthened
their enthusiasm to acquire knowledge, skills and
awareness to organise theiir own women’s association.
At the same time as this, women were being ill-treated
and disappointed by their own men as well who would
not allow them to speak, with others or allow them
any exposure to the outside world.
1
33
I
I
Objectives Of The Training
—
To identify and analyse the various social
problems of women;
—
To plan for collective action to increase women’s
status-,
To increase women’s participation in terms of
utilising Government resources.
To promote their knowledge about mother and
child health care.
Trainees
As we mentioned earlier, this course w.as meant for
cadre building, therefore we selected only cadres of
women’s associations. In each women’s association each
member is responsible for one unit consisting of four
to five families. General criteria for identifying cadre
is as follows:
having an orientation and motivation towards
social services;
time and capability' for transferring knowledge
and skills-,
34
All the women are agricultural labourers and belong
to the Harijan Community; one woman was from the
Reddy Community who is a stone cutter in the Sathu
village. They were illiterate women and after forming
the women’s association, they had started simple literacy
classes.
Trainers
Two women trainers from RISE conducted the
programme. Both have been involved in organizing grass
roots training programmes for women.
Learning Needs
Learning needs had been assessed during the pre
course period through informal dialogue with the cadre
and in the Sangam meetings. Meanwhile, at the beginning
of the course the participants discussed their learning
needs in small groups in which a broad frame-work
of the training was already provided.
After having intensive discussions in the small groups
they presented their expectations of the training
programme. Those needs were classified into three areas
like concepts, skills and personality.
acceptance of her leadership in title community-,
Programme Introduction
Day 1
possessing basic skills like problem-solving and
organising skills in the field.
The participants formed dyads to get to know each
other. They had to choose a partner from different villages.
This provided them opportunity to talk and open up.
Group Building Exercises
In an effort to build up the learning environment
and interaction in the group, we did two exercises "sip
sap" and "advocator".
Present Status of Women
We initiated dialogue with participants about
women’s status in the family and community. After that
we divided participants into small groups to identify
women’s problem in the family and community in terms
of various systems. In this session the focus was on
culture, values, decision-making and health. We used
charts made by ‘CROSS' which related to the social and
economical situation of women.
Sangam Strategy
Sangam is a strategy for organizing women in order
to struggle for justice. At the same time this is a major
tool for collective experiential learning. This situation
has the potential to organize the masses and encounter
the exploited and existing the value system.
Problem Solving
We spent some more time on problem solving
methods by understanding and analyzing various issues
facing women. During this time we also discussed
utilisation of local available resources for conflict
resolution. A Sangam meeting was demonstrated by
Gasikapalli Sangam members. It was organised in a
systematic manner, and at the end we had a reflection
session on this demonstration. Particularly we focused
on the meeting agenda preparation, facilitation styles,
decision-making methods and minutes writing, which
were discussed in detail.
i
Day 2
Training Resources
Cooperative
Societies
Banks
/
Community ’'
Resources
Government
Voluntary
Organisations
By and large we can find various resources for
development, but these resources are in the hands of
a minority. To capture these resource there is a great
need for people's organisation to form pressure groups. Besides
the lack of information people are not aware of those
35
resources. So knowledge is a power. Few key persons from
the Pakampalli women’s association shared their experiences
regarding the formation and preparation of work plans and
implementation of the economic programmes. They gave
much emphasis on struggling with men. for revitalizing poor
men’s association and pressuring local government to give
housing pattas.
were enthusiastic to ’go and share their experiences with
the other members in the women’s associations. And
a few cadres felt the need to systematize their
programmes, particularly on health and social issues. A
few other participants decided to give support to neglected
women by pressuring husbands and protesting on illtreatment.
Participants visited Dunkumakulappali women’s
association and had closer interaction with them. Here
the major discussion was on the issue of atrocities on
women. The women, struggled with husbands, and yet
minimized the ill-treatment meted out by men. They
also had discussions with widows and neglected women
about the rationale for them to acquire new skills like
mat weaving, tailoring, scented sticks making and Beedi
making which would help them to be self-reliant.
Monitoring And Evaluation
Health
The role of women’s association in mother and
child care, and particularly the need for immunization
and ante-natal care was discussed. Food habits, hygienic
condition and nutritive value of foods etc., were also
discussed. During these discussion a number of
superstitions and beliefs related to health problems were
also highlighted and explained.
Re-Entry Plan
At the end of the training programme participants
36
We used various methods to monitor the course.
These were as follows:
—
Informal dialogue
—
Reflections (programme end and day end)
Since it was only two days, we did an oral evaluation
at end of the programme. Major areas for evaluation
were :
Accomplishment of training needs.
Training methods.
Major highlights
Accommodation and food.
Training Impact
During last year’s Panchayat elections Gasikapalli
women’s association members convinced Venkatamma to
contest for ward membership against the outcast women.
All the sangam people made a big noise during the
elections. Even though the outcast people also voted
in favour of Venkatamma. but with a few votes of
majority, an outcast woman won. But still Gasikapalli
women’s association had played a role in shaking the
existing power structure. At the same time this women’s
association convinced Sankaramma’s husband to make
amends to her. Now Sankaramma is reconciled with
her husband and family. Thirdly, this is the first time
that the women visited the mandal office to submit
their requisition for protected water programmes and put
pressure on them. Finally they succeeded in getting
drinking water for handpumps. During that time they
provided food and other facilities to the drilling unit
team. Previously they used to collect rice and pulses
from the Harijan community and give to outcast people
for cooking and offering to guests. But this time they
offered food and other facilities without any inferiority
complex, and that team received them with pleasure.
Meanwhile in Sathu village they are organizing poor men’s
association by motivating them constantly.
37
Appendix
TRAINING PROCESS
Day 1
Time
Content
11.45 to 12.10
12.10 to 1.30
Introduction
Pairs
Group building
games
- Sip - Sap
- Advocator
Exercises
Training aims
and needs
assessment
Lunch
Present status of
Dialogue and
women
Chart Presentation
Identification of Group Discussion
Women’s
problems
Analysis of the
existing problems Plenary session
1.30 to 2.00
2.00 to 2.30
2.30 to 3.00
3.00 to 4.00
4.00 to 4.30
38
Method
Time
Content
4.30 to 4.45
Committees
formation
Break
Sangam Strategy
to overcome
problems faced
by women
Problem solving
strategies
Dinner
Organising
Sangam meetings
Cultural
Programmes
4.45 to 5.00
5.00 to 6.30
6.30 to 8.00
8.00 to 8.30
8.30 to 8.45
8.45 to 9.30
Method
Lecture
Lecture and
Dialogue
Demonstration
Day 2
Time
Content
6.30 to 8.45
8.45 to 9.30
Review session
Input session of
Govt. Schemes
and departments
Sharing of
activities and
experiences of
Pakampalli
Women’s
Association
Field visit
Dunkumana Palli
9.30 to 11.00
11.00 to 12.00
Method
Time
Content
Method
Dialogue
(Lecture)
12.30 to 1.00
Lunch
1.00 to 1.30
Lecture and
Charts
Lecture and
Dialogue
Preventive care
for mother and
child
1.30 to 3.00
Existing health
problems among
women and
preventive steps
Re entry plan
and evaluation
Lecture Role Play
3.00 to 4.00
Individual work
39
TRAINING RURAL WOMEN
Ranjani Krishnamurthy, MYRADA
MISSION STATEMENT OF
MYRADA
“To foster a process of ongoing change in favour
of the rural poor in a way in which this process
can be sustained by them through:
— assisting the rural poor in building local level
institutions with appropriate and innovative
management systems
- influencing public policies in favour of the
poor."
Introduction
MYRADA’s focus is on organising and building
appropriate local institutions of the poor-, institutions which
are trying to evolve and implement appropriate systems
for managing their resources viz. credit, land, livestock,
water, social infrastructure and human resources. As credit
is an important and immediate need of the poor, and
at the same time it is a means for getting out of the
clutches of exploitative money-lenders, most of the
institutions start off by evolving appropriate systems for
managing credit but slowly move over to managing other
resources. Irrespective of the resource which is being
managed, these institutions are trying to:
(a)
Bring to the surface and re-introduce traditional
(b)
(c)
values which were operational in the past-, values
which fostered effective management of the
resource. Mutual support, honesty, self- reliance,
self-restraint, care for family welfare, concern
for the village are a few examples of such
values.
Use these traditional values to bring about
appropriate changes in the behaviour pattern
of its members. Promoting thrift, personal and
village hygiene, punctuality and discouraging
smoking and alcoholism are a few examples
of such changes.
Nurture new. but egalitarian values, like equality
based on gender, caste, religion etc.
MYRADA feels that to be effective these institutions
have to be socially viable. The members need to be
able to work together as a group-, they should be able
to function in a way where the collective efforts of
its members towards the goal of the institutions are
more than the sum of the individual efforts of its
members. Further, the members of the group while
mobilising at least part of their resources from themselves,
must plan, manage and monitor all programmes and
resources of the institution. Lastly, it is felt that the
members should share the rights and responsibilities in
a manner which promotes equal development of the
resources, values, skills and capabilities of each and every
i
43
member.
To be socially functional it is perceived by MYRADA
that these institutions need to be:
(a)
(b)
Homogeneous in composition j.e. ,they should
comprise people with common interests.
(c)
Fully Participative where decisions are not
delegated to representatives but where all the
members come together to arrive at every
decision.
Voluntary where rules and regulations of the
group are evolved, observed and changed by
the members themselves. This encourages the
emergence of values, mles and regulations which
are appropriate to the activities of the group,
which help to establish better living systems
for its members and enables members to cope
with the continuously changing demands of the
environment.
Non-political where decisions are taken by the
members on the merits and demerits of the
issues and not due to the influence of outside
politics.
(d)
(e)
44
Small in size: an ideal of 15-20 members and
a maximum of 30 members. A group larger
than 30 members finds it difficult to function.
Whenever necessary, the groups get together to meet
common needs. Thus if drinking water is a problem
in a village, all the groups in that village get together
to evolve strategies for solving the problem.
Why A Group Approach ?
Through our experiences of the last 20 years,
MYRADA has realised that providing inputs to an
individual family is not sufficient to raise the family
economically above the poverty line and to keep it there.
We have also realised that by working with individual
families it is not possible to bring about the social
development of the poor. The social values of the people
are largely shaped by the values of the people with
whom they live and interact. Hence it is not possible
to re-introduce appropriate traditional values and use them
to bring about appropriate changes in the behaviour of
the people in an individual approach. We have realised
that the group approach effectively meets the shortcomings
of the individual approach.
Over the last 4 years the 17 Projects of MYRADA.
spread over the States of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh
and Tamil Nadu, have organised over 800 such groupsall involved in managing credit and some in addition
manage watersheds, livestock, wastelands, rural enterprises
and service centers. Around 300 of these are exclusively
women’s groups. Fifty have both men and women
members and the rest are men’s groups. The membership
in all the groups is restricted to people who are poor.
Why Have We Organised ?
MYRADA feels that most of the poor women not
only lack access to adequate options to choose from,
but unlike the poor men. women do not even have
the opportunity to exercise their choice within the
available options. Thus we believe that among the poor,
women are the poorest. MYRADA perceives that their
low status, is the result of their low self-image and
self-confidence and also due to the attitudes and values
of men towards women which the women themselves
have internalized, much to their disadvantage. We believe
that organising poor women into groups will not only
expand the options available to them for their
development but, more importantly, it will provide them
with opportunities to develop the confidence and skills
required to exercise their choices and simultaneously bring
about a change in the attitude of men towards women.
Further. MYRAD A feels that poor women have an
important role to play in the development of their family
and village. Firstly, they are involved in running the
house, collecting fuel, fetching water, working and bringing
up children. Secondly the poor women play an important
role economically. They manage livestock and earn income
for the family through agricultural labour. If their family
has land they are involved in the production process
too. Lastly and most importantly, many of their values
and attitudes are an asset for any development effort.
Their concern for their strong sense of what is right
and wrong, their low need to compete with each other,
their interest to know new things and a strong pride
in their achievements are a few examples of such values
and attitudes. Thus, we feel that organising appropriate
women’s groups will not only facilitate their development
but also the development of their family and village.
This study is an attempt to document the experiences
of Holalkere Project of MYRADA in designing and
implementing training programmes for members of
women’s groups. Holalkere Taluk forms part of Chitradurga
District of Karnataka. MYRADA has been working in
45 villages of three hoblis of this taluk since 1981. Till
around May. 1986 the Project was working with individual
poor families trying to influence the delivery systems
of the government commercial banks and co-operatives
so that they are more responsive to the needs of the
poor. The project organised around 500 women into a
cooperative in 1984. However, this cooperative, like other
cooperatives, was not really a people’s institution. It was
large, non-homogeneous. not participative and political.
The mles and regulations of the cooperative were framed
by the government, and not by the members. The
cooperative therefore did not provide opportunities for
I
45
i
the poor people to expand their options and exercise
their choices, did not provide the poor people with
opportunities to develop their skills, capabilities, knowledge
and awareness. The experience lead to a change in the
approach of the project; a shift towards organising and
building up socially functional groups, groups which are
small, homogeneous, fully participative, voluntary and
non-political.
This shift in thinking started taking place in 1986.
Since then the project has helped around 1300 poor
people, including around 750 women, to organise
themselves into 63 groups with the. features described
earlier. Of these 63 groups. 33 are exclusively women's
groups. 24 are men's groups and nine have both men
and women members. The Project, for managerial
purposes, has been divided into three clusters of around
15 villages each. This study restricts itself too the
experiences of the project staff, especially Ms. Lata Mala,
the person incharge of one of the three clusters, in
providing opportunities to members of 16 women's groups
to increase their skills, knowledge and awareness so that
they are able to foster their group’s development.
46
The 16 groups are in different stages of development.
Members of four groups, all around one and a half
to two years old, have developed a good understanding
of their duties and responsibilities and the role of the
group and MYRAD A To a large extent they can manage
the activities of their group without the support of
MYRADA. Their activities extend beyond economic issues
into social problems, most of the members participate
effectively in team meetings and have evolved and
observed appropriate rules and regulations, they have
reflected on and resolved structural issues effectively,
all the four groups are small and homogeneous, they
have developed strategies for coping with conflicts arising
within the group and also with men who interfere with
the groups.
On the other hand four other groups, all less than
six months old. are still in the initial stages of
development. Some of the members of these groups
are yet to get over their experiences with the co-operatives,
they do not have a clear understanding of what the
group can do for them; what is their role and MYRADA's
role in the development of the group. The members
are yet to resolve' issues like membership, group size,
decision-making processes. Thus the groups are relatively
larger. Decisions in these groups are taken by a few
members and not by all the members, mles and
regulations are yet to be evolved. Effective mechanisms
have not been evolved to cope with conflicts. Men
interfere and dominate the meetings-, the members of
these groups are yet to learn how to cope with such
problems.
The other eight groups are between these two extremes.
The Project staff feel that each group starts off
from the initial stages of its development described above
and. given the right environment, gradually develops as
a socially functional group. In the process some groups
may undergo a lot of stmctural changes. The time required
for such a transition varies from group to group-, depending
on the composition of the members, relationship between
members, non-members' attitudes towards members,the
role of MYRADA staff etc. However, opportunities
provided by the Project staff to members individually
and as a group to enhance their awareness, knowledge
and skills have facilitated such translations. Sometimes
the Project staff even had to spend their time and effort
with the women members' husbands, fathers and sons
and the village leaders. The issues and themes for
reflection, the area in which members required
opportunities to enhance their skills and knowledge varied
with the stage of development of the group.
What learning opportunities were, and continue to
be, provided to the members of a group to facilitate
their own and the group’s development? What were the
important values, attitudes and principles underlying the
Project staff’s efforts to facilitate learning of the members
of the group ?
The learning opportunities provided by the Project
staff and. more importantly, by the group itself to its
members can be divided into four categories.
Meetings of the group
Meetings with members and their families
individually.
(c) Non-formal education in the NFE centers
(d) Formal training programmes
Before elaborating on each it may be appropriate
to share the values, attitudes and convictions which
formed the basis of the staff’s efforts to facilitate learning
which ultimately led to group development
(a) Respect of the staff for the members’
experiences in coping with life and the
awareness. knowledge and skills developed
through the1 same.
(b) Belief that the best‘way to promote learning
of the members is to encourage them to start
from what they are aware of. what they know
and what they can do and develop upon these
through systematic reflection on the same and
by seeking and analysing new information.
A strong conviction that if the members are
to develop the knowledge, attitudes and skills
required to work effectively as a member of
a group, it is imperative that learning should
take place through collective and systematic
reflection and action on their knowledge, skills
and awareness and on the new information
available to them.
(a)
(b)
47
i
Group Meetings
Venue And Schedule
Normally members of a group come together every
week to discuss issues which are of concern to them
and to save whatever money they can with the group.
The issues which come up in these meetings and the
participative processes adopted for seeking and analysing
information and making decisions provides opportunities
to the members of the women’s groups to enhance
their knowledge, awareness and skills in areas which
are relevant to the development of their group.
Appropriate changes in the negative attitudes and values
of the women are fostered through these informal
meetings-, positive attitudes and values of women are
nurtured. However, this process of learning takes a
lot of time; depending on the size, composition and
dynamics between group members.
These meetings are held in the village itself in a place
where it is convenient for all the members to meet and talk
without being unduly disturbed. Availability of space for
sitting in a circle, which the staff perceive as essential for
participation, is another consideration while choosing the
venue of these meetings. As the women are busy in the
mornings with the house-hold work and in the afternoons
with earning a wage, the meetings are normally held around
7.30 p.m. - 8.00 p.m. after they have finished cooking for the
night and at times even eaten their dinner. The meeting
normally last for 1-2 hours-, beyond that the members with
children and those who have not given their family their
dinner start getting restless. Some of the male relatives of the
women members start coming to the meetings to call them
home when it gets around 9-30 - 10.00 p.m. The women
Issues For Discussions
48
The issues for discussion in a imeeting emerge from
the members of the group themselves. MYRADA staff,
if they attend the meetings, do not interfere in this
process. This approach is adopted as our staff have realised
that the members participate and learn in the meetings
when issues for discussions emerge from themselves.
However, the staff of MYRADA encourage the members
to record and implement the decisions taken in the
meetings.
3
m
participate and learn faster when men are not around,
including the male staff of the Project, till they get used to
them. These realizations have helped the Project staff to
modify their approach and strategy for working with women.
Individual Meetings
In every women’s group there are a few members
who do not participate effectively in the decision-making
process in the initial stages of its development. These
women normally have a very low opinion of themselves
or have major personal problems with which they are
pre-occupied most of the time. Though efforts are made
in the group meetings to draw them out. these sometimes
do not yield much result. To provide opportunities to
such weaker members to develop confidence in themselves
and cope with their peers from the group, the Project
staff visit them individually in their family setting or
at any other suitable place. During these visits the staff
and peers try to assist these members to understand
the reason for their low opinion about themselves and
personalise the problems. This helps them to slowly
develop confidence in themselves and learn to cope with
problems which arise in their lives. However, in case
of major personal problems, for example, an alcoholic
husband, the staff and peers spend a lot of time
counselling not only the member but others who are
directly concerned with her problem.
The project staff feel that the extent to which these
efforts yield results depends on many factors. Importantly
the problem of the woman. her interest to develop herself,
their own and her peers’ capabilities. The time required
for such efforts therefore varies from case to case.
s
Non-formal Education (NFE)
The weaker members are in addition, given special
attention by the animators of the non-formal education
centers, which are run by the groups with the support
of MYRADA These centers are run with the objective
of providing opportunities to :
(a)
(b)
The members to develop their ability to
recognise, by heart and write numbers and do
simple and relevant mathematical calculations;
and later on to read and write in the local
language.
Weaker members to enhance their knowledge,
skills and capabilities and thereby develop their
confidence in themselves. The NFE centers also
provide a forum for the weaker members to
share their personal problems with others and
jointly seek solutions.
At present the stress of the NFE centers continues
to be on numeracy. The animators of these centers start
off from traditional systems of counting and calculating,
which the members are familiar with, and use them
49
as the basis to develop the numeracy skills of women.
' Further the centers restrict their sessions to areas which
are of interest and relevance to the members. For example,
the sessions on numeracy are limited to helping the
members to recognise, memorize and write numbers and
do simple mathematical calculations. The members who
have picked up these skills feel that it has helped them
to improve their ability to cope with transactions of
the group and develop a better understanding of the
books of accounts of the group.
The groups evaluate the NFE centers every month;
the number of sessions held, attendance, improvement
in numeracy and literacy skills, and recommend to
MYRADA whether to pay the salary of the animator
or not. Recognising that around 60 percentage of the
centers are not functioning effectively, the Project now
plans to organise a workshop on how to make NFE
centers interesting and useful. Some of the Project staff,
animators of strong and weak centers, and members
participating in the sessions at their centers will be the
participants in the workshop
Formal Training Programmes
50
As explained earlier regular meetings of the group
provide the group members with opportunities to build
upon their existing knowledge, skills and awareness.
However, the Project staff felt that the informal learning
environment provided by the regular group meetings had
a few limitations. These are listed below
(a)
The regular village meetings do not provide
adequate opportunities to its members to share,
reflect and learn from the experiences of
members of other groups. It was felt that such
interactions would be extremely useful for
members of weaker groups.
(b)
As the poor women play the dual role of
earning income for the family and running the
house, they find it difficult to attend meetings
of more than two hours regularly. However,
reflection and discussions on some issues and
themes demand more time from the members,
which is not possible during regular meetings.
(c)
Learning is fostered in group meetings through
the process of making decisions on issues which
emerge. However, at times, the members tend
to bring in their personal biases in the process
of decision-making. This may hamper the
learning process.
It was felt that these shortcomings could be met
effectively through formal training programmes if designed
and implemented properly.
Objectives And Content
The first series of training programmes in the form
of workshops was organised by the staff of H.D. Pura
cluster in December, 1987 with the objective of providing
opportunities to the members of groups in the cluster
to develop a better understanding of :
(a)
The role of groups, MYRADA and themselves
in the development process.
(b)
The structural features which are necessary for
a group to be socially functional.
(c)
The activities of groups involved in managing
credit and systems which are appropriate for
management of credit.
To meet these objectives 9 one-day workshops were
organised in December, 1987. in a centrally located village.
Each workshop was attended by members of 2-3 groups.
The workshop normally commenced at 10.00 a.m. and
got over around 6.30 p.m. with breaks in between for
lunch, tea and coffee. Over the period of around seven
hours the following questions were raised in each
workshop (with a few variations between workshops):
(a)
What is the need for groups ? What role can
groups play in their development ?
(b)
What are the goals of MYRADA? What is the
role of MYRADA in the development of groups?
(C)
What should be the stmctural features of groups
if they are to be socially functional? Specifically,
what is the appropriate group size, composition
and decision-making styles ?
(d) What should be the activities of a group
managing credit? What rules and regulations
facilitate effective management of these
operations?
(e)
How can credit management groups work
towards evolving appropriate systems for
managing other resources ?
Selection Of Objectives And Themes
The staff had informal discussions with members
of the group in the areas in which they felt inadequate.
This was followed by a discussion among the cluster
staff members on the immediate training needs of the
members. The outcome of discussions with the members
and the staff’s perceptions on the areas on which the
members required to reflect immediately formed the basis
of discussions in the staff meeting. The objectives and
themes for reflection emerged out of the above process.
However, before starting each workshop a group discussion
was initiated to finalize and clarify the objectives of
the training programme and to list out the themes for
reflection. The discussion was initiated by raising the
following questions:
'Tf/i-xro
1'3 (
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05613
51
Why are we here?
What shall we do today?
What is the role of MYRADA staff in the
training programme?
Methods Adopted
The members were encouraged to share and analyse
their collective perceptions and experiences through group
discussions. Thus the stress was on experiential learning.
To promote effective participation in these discussions,
the facilitator
—
52
asked provocative questions usually through
telling stories or sharing real experiences.
Sometimes the facilitator deliberately provoked
the members to speak by saying the wrong
things;
—
tried to be humorous whenever possible-.
—
used simple language;
—
whenever the issue was not understood or the
analysis was inadequate, the facilitator clarified
with the help of day-to-day examples from
their personal lives;
—
tried to draw.out the non-participative members
in the workshop by addressing questions to
them, asking them to summarize the discussions.
etc.;
tried not to answer questions which were
addressed to them by members (especially
members of weaker groups) but rather asked
other members (especially members of stronger
groups) to respond;
encouraged the members to summarize different
view points on a theme so that a consensus
could be reached;
encouraged the members to periodically
summarize the discussions till then.
It was felt that the above methodology, though
fmitful could be improved upon by encouraging discussions
in small groups, role plays, simulations, games etc.
However, such a process requires a lot of time. It was
felt by the members of groups and staff that the training
programme should ideally be for two days, and preferably
not for more than three days at a stretch. The members
of the groups felt that it was not possible for them
to leave their household work and come for more than
2-3 days. Further, they shared that they could not afford
to miss their wages for more than three days at a stretch.
It was therefore felt by the staff that the duration of
future workshops on the same theme may be extended
by one more (day and the training methodology could
be modified as suggested earlier.
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Size And Composition
As mentioned earlier members of 2-3 groups
participated in each workshop. Though on an average
there were around twenty members in each group, a
few members could not attend the training programme
because of personal problems including problems arising
out of their husband’s negative attitude towards the
programme. The Project staff and other members of the
group spent time with the members of the family of
such women before the training programme commenced,
to explain to them about the purpose of the training
programme and put them generally at ease. However,
such efforts were not always successful.
On an average, between 40 and 45 members
participated in each workshop. The participants in three
workshops were only members of women’s groups-, w’hile
the other six workshops consisted of members of both
men and women’s groups. Each workshop consisted of
members of groups at different stages of development.
Reflecting on the size and composition of participants
in the workshop, the staff felt that :
(a)
The number of participants in each workshop
was too large; a group size of around 25 persons
would have given better opportunities to the
participants to share, reflect and learn from each
others experience.
(b)
The process of getting members from groups
at different stages of development helped the
members of weaker groups to learn from the
experience of members of groups which were
working effectively. It was felt that this system
therefore needs to continue.
B
However, the opinion of the staff on whether
women learn better in a group consisting of only women
was divided. The women staff when asked this question
said a definite Yes. They felt that women share and
open up more if all the participants are women. They
also added that women learn differently from men.
On the other hand, the male staff felt that the
composition did not matter and in fact felt that a mixed
group of men and women helped the women to leam
to assert themselves in the presence of men and gain
confidence. Though the male staff agreed that women
leam different from men they felt that an effective
trainer irrespective of gender could cope with different
learning styles.
Different Learning Styles
Reflecting on their experiences the staff felt that
women leam by thinking and feeling their way through
the discussions. The emotional dimension of their learning,
unlike men. takes a high priority. Women like to
go deeper into issues and take more responsibility for
53
Appendix
Areas in which opportunities are provided to the members to learn and develop through
village meetings, and the role of MYRADA staff in facilitating such processes are given below:
Areas in which regular meetings with
group provide opportunities to the
members to learn & develop
Skill Development
The regular meetings provide
opportunities to the members to
enhance their ability to :— Express their views clearly
- Cope with rebellious & dominating
members and make the non-participative
members talk
- Work together as a group
- Cope with dominating men (including
their own husbands) in the village who
interfere during group meetings
- Identify the real problem and cause of
the problem in a given situation
— Make decisions collectively and
implement and monitor the same
— To manage finance
Role of MYRADA in the learning
process
To foster such participatory processes
MYRADA staff try to :-
(a) Make sure that all the members
understand the issue which is being
discussed.
(b) Make the non-participants express their
opinion. Further the staff encourage the
groups to nominate non-participants to
chair meetings.
(c) Encourage the members to share and
reflect on their experience, knowledge
and skill with regard to the issue which
is being discussed.
(d) Encourage the members to listen to each
other and seek clarifications.
— To evolve and observe appropriate
rules and regulations
Knowledge Building
The group meetings provide
opportunities to the members to
enhance their knowledge on
— subject matter areas: agriculture, animal
husbandry, sericulture, bee keeping,
health
— government programmes and the
procedure for availing of the same.
56
Same as above. However, MYRADA
staff in addition share their own
knowledge on the subject being
discussed and encourage the members to
reflect on and analyse the same.
Areas in which regular meetings with
group provide opportunities to the
members to learn & develop
Development of appropriate
attitudes/values
The group meetings provide
opportunities to members
— to develop confidence in themselves and
thereby develop an identity of their
own. This in turn fosters a change in the
attitude of the men towards women to
develop a healthy attitude towards
women and to others from lower castes
— to strengthen traditional values
— values like concern for the family and
each other, the village, a sense of what
is right and wrong, mutual trust, etc.
Development Of
Positive Behavioural Patterns
Group meetings reinforce behaviour pattern
such as punctuality, attentiveness, accountability
and an instinctive concern for fellow
members during times of distress. The
members build up a system of exerting
pressure in order to discourage what they
consider to be inappropriate behaviour
and encourage what they consider to be
appropriate behaviour.
57
Role of MYRADA in the learning
process
MYRADA staff not only tries to provide
opportunities for women to take
responsibilities and prove that they can
do the job but also make these proofs
the subject of future group meetings to
reinforce their confidence and positive
self-concept.
In ways similar to what has been
described above.
OPENING DOORS
Training As A Medium In The Process Of Social Change
A Case Study Of A Women's Awareness Camp
1
- Anita Mathur and Ginny Shrivastava , ASTHA
4
thinks that the discussion must be related to food,
childcare etc. Until only these things are discussed, people
do not get alarmed but the moment discussions are
shifted on to issues like environment, awareness among
women, knowledge of different laws, analysis of the
society, development of organising skills among women
their role in the process of social change etc. In a training
programme, it is generally asked why should women be told
these things. Training programmes for women in the midst
of such kind of thinking becomes a challenge in itself.
c
Context
Today many governmental and non-govemmental
organizations are striving to bring about social change
which is only possible when people at large join in
this process of change, and begin to seriously think about
the socio-political, economical and cultural conditions
prevailing in the society. Economic or social change cannot
take place without empowering the people. It is in this
context that we believe training plays an important role.
When we talk about the involvement of women
in the process of social change, then the role of training
becomes even more important, as has been our experience.
In the present context, whenever there is any talk about
the development of rural women, the common man
i
ASTHA is a voluntary organisation working in
Southern Rajasthan. It believes in people's awareness,
cooperation and collectivisation of efforts. It organized
a training programme in a Panchayat Samiti where
the majority (86 percent) of the people belong to
Scheduled Tribes in an effort to develop the organising
skills and awareness among the women of that block.
Field Background
There are three hundred and one villages in Kotra Block
of District Udaipur. Eightysix percent of the population
is tribal {Bhils and Garasias) Some of the key problems
of this area are destruction of forests, family feuds and
high illiteracy among women (98.62 percent).
Women of this area are unable to join the
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mainstream of development due to several historical and
social reasons. As far as programmes are concerned only
child development programmes for the development
of women and children are being conducted and even in
these programmes, the participation of the community
and women is very marginal. The so-called customs
which are supposed to provide social independence to
them are in fact marginalizing these tribal women. Their
role in the Panchayat is almost negligible. These women
are strong but due to lack of proper direction, and
lack of opportunities to participate actively, they have
not been able to take any initiatives. In a situation like
this, efforts are being made to generate awareness
among them, make them aware of their resources and
to develop organising skills among them through
training programmes.
an awareness of their own role, they also
acquired knowledge of some methods through
which they could react to problems of
immediate concern in the field, gain people's
confidence, and thereby, build their self
confidence. Thus ‘vaccination of children’ and
‘making of ORT' programmes were conducted
with the help of local nurses so that by doing
new activities in their villages they can come
to the forefront and gain self-confidence. Due
to women's dual responsibilities, it is difficult
for them to come out of their houses everyday
to attend programmes regularly. So residential
programmes were conducted in order to enable
them to get a few days interval from their
routine concerns. The residential training thus
generated self-confidence among them and they
became very close to each other during the
programme.
Principles In Designing The Training
*
*
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As the women participants were mostly illiterate,
it was thought that they can understand better
by doing things themselves instead of listening
or observing. So demonstrations, exercises and
role play methods were used during the
programme.
Apart from gaining an understanding of the
general situation, a knowledge of resources and
*
The women participants were coming out of
their homes for the first time to have a new
kind of experience. As they had no experience
of sitting and listening to anything for a long
period of time, the main points were repeated
two to three times to facilitate the process
of learning and the sessions were arranged
accordingly.
>
*
programmes but the discussions in the new
context was considered necessary as the field
was new.
We understand and leam more easily from
people similar to us. Keeping this in view, other
rural women of the area who were involved
in the process of development were invited
for the discussion with these women, as resource
persons.
i
Participants' Involvement
In Designing The Programme Outline
It was not easy to break the myth that an educated
outsider knows everything and illiterate women don t
know anything.
1.
Women from five Gram Panchayats were taking
part in the training programme. Women who
had been attending the meetings regularly and
had potential to develop organising skills,
were chosen for the training programme.
2.
A discussion was held with these women in
order to know their knowledge about the
development programmes, resources available in
the area, their experiences and also to know
what information they wanted to leam about
and considered important.
3.
Women were also involved in deciding the
period of the training programme. Although the
organizers had previous experiences of training
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Pre-preparation
After the selection of the women belonging to five
Gram Panchayats of Panchayat Samiti. Kotra. a general
discussion was held with them. These were those
panchayats where ASTHA had been doing intensive
work, so that follow-up could be done after the training
programme was over.
Keeping in view the socio-cultural background of
the area, men were also taken into confidence so that
confusion was not created and they may not to prevent
women from attending the programme. Both written and
oral information were sent to probable participants.
Due to the vast field area, it was not easy to
choose a trouble-free convenient venue. Therefore
transportation for women was arranged for their
convenience to travel from their homes to the training site
and back.
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Two to four men from each panchayat were also
invited to the training programme so that they could
discuss the training with other men in the villages and
cooperate in the process of women's development.
Generally, people allow women to go out of their
homes if the men of their own villages are
accompanying them. And especially as ASTHA was new
to the area, and most of its activists are men. this
strategy proved to be of great help.
During the training programme it was made clear
to the community that two to three organisers would
stay with participants. Subsequently, this was
communicated to the people in the respective areas.
Thus people did not hesitate to send their women to
the training programme.
At The Organisers' Level
Two months prior to the training, a discussion was
held in the field with women so that they could
mentally prepare themselves for the training
programme. The necessary learning environment, reading
materials and stationery etc. weie provided during the
training programme. People from governmental and non
governmental organisations were invited to provide
inputs in the training programme. Keeping in view that
children would also come with the women, toys,
different instruments, medicine and other necessities
were also arranged. An appropriate venue, food,
residential and transportation facilities were also arranged
for the training programme. All the necessary information
was sent to CSWB (Central Social Welfare Board), which
was the funding source for this training programme.
Objectives, Subject Matter, Process
And Period
Keeping in mind the needs expressed by women.
the objectives of the training programme were
formulated to develop organising skills and create
awareness among them. The subject matter and the
design of the training programme was made accordingly.
At least 8 days were required for this but it was not
possible for them to leave their families, fields and their
work for such a long time. Therefore, it was decided
to conduct the training in two phases:
♦
*
First phase — five days.
Second phase — three days (after one month
with the same participants).
Central Theme Of The Training Programme
Both the phases of the training programme
highlighted various aspects of awareness-raising,
knowledge-building and skill-building
In the first phase, the emphasis was on building
knowledge and awareness among women. Therefore the
women were involved in the whole process of analysis
of society in understanding of women’s problems,
imparting of information related to governmental
planning. Not only did the women get an understanding
of the above things, but also they got an opportunity
to discuss them. It was also kept in mind that the
capacity to impart the information to other women in
the area should also be created among the participants.
To develop communication skills, problem solving skills.
and planning skills, role play and exercise methods were
applied.
i
The second phase was organised after one month.
During this period, each women's group had done some
work, and so. during that phase, emphasis was on
solving the problems which came up while doing this
work. Development of organizing skills was another
objective.
It is very essential to create inbuilt capacities i.e.
keeping records during meetings; writing applications,
letters, making proposals, etc. in women's organizations.
If these capacities are taken care of from the initial
stages, the problems during the meetings do not arise.
Bags containing plan paper, carbon paper, a stamp pad.
a file, a pen were given to one woman from each
group to facilitate writing/recording.
Action Plans
Related local officers were present at the time
of reporting of plans made and also during meetings
in the area, which served as a motivation to women.
Most of the activists working for women's
development in ASTHA are men. although women are
on the field team. They have been trained and have
been working in this field very efficiently for several
years. Efforts were made that both men and women
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organisers stay with the participants in both the phases,
so that during the process of training, they can have
informal discussions, come close to each other, develop
mutual understanding, and work as a team. The training
programme also helped the organisers to have a better
understanding of the problems faced by women in the
area so that they could extend their cooperation
afterwards. This residential strategy proved to be helpful
situations. Some of the women formed saving societies
in the villages and slowly membership started increasing.
In some villages the women successfully cured
children suffering from diarrhoea by making ORT solution.
They also advised the people to strain the water for
drinking purposes before use. In three to four villages
they made use of available governmental resources for
immunisation.
Other actions were :
1.
2.
3.
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Women forced the Gram Panchayat to punish
a person when in a dmnken state if he molested
a woman of the village.
In the process of police cases t1ne rift with
the other party used to become permanent
resulting into regular clashes.
At one place under one Gram Panchayat less
than halfz of minimum wage was paid for daily
wage work. During the training programme.
4.
women participants were told about the laws
of minimum wages. After becoming aware about
this and inspite of non-cooperation from men.
women participants organised women and
initiated a fight through a demonstration before
the office bearers of the Gram Panchayat. They
called them to the work place and made them
see the exploitation themselves. Through this,
they were able to force the employers to pay
more wages. In the process, men also benefited
and from then on. they started encouraging
their wives, mothers and sisters to attend the
meetings.
In some Gram Panchayats these women not
only encouraged other women, but also men,
to come forward and attend the meetings. They
also encouraged them to attend training
programmes. In fact the people's confidence in
ASTHA is a result of the efforts made by these
women.
The importance of the training programme can be
understood by the fact that all of the 50 women
participants who were present in the first phase also
attended the second phase with full enthusiasm and
also encouraged other women to take part in the
programme.
In the end it can be said that the importance of
<
these kinds of training programmes lies in the fact that
they turn the devdopment process into a movement.
These training programmes provide an opportunity to
create a learning environment, and develop an
understanding of available government resources, to co
relate the process of problem solving with development
problems through their analysis.
Action plans made during the training programme
as this was the first training programme for women
in the area.
whatever they learnt in the programme. Evaluation was
also done about the process, the needs of the learners
and the training programme itself, so that the
programme could be improved accordingly in the future.
Assessment was also made in terms of the team work
of the trainers, the level of organising skills of the
women participating in the programme, so that their
needs for support could be identified and efforts could
be directed accordingly.
i
The whole evaluation Was conducted on the basis
individual
feedback.
of
Evaluation
Both mid-term and post-training evaluation were
done after both the phases. These evaluations were
made on two levels, one at the level of participants
and the other at the level of the trainers.
Feedback was received from the participants
regarding what they learnt, which processes they liked,
whether they felt it would help them in their work
in the area, in terms of organising for development,
and also what they felt about ASTHA’s trainers’ roles.
The evaluation sessions were conducted in small groups
in which participants expressed their feelings.
Efforts were made to know to what extent the
programme proved to be usefuL and whether the
participants would be able to implement in practice
Glimpses Of Work Done By The Participants
After The Training Programme
A conceptualization process about organising people
had started in the minds of women participants. These
women went to all the small hamlets at the Gram
Panchayat level and discussed with both men and
women about the things which they had learned 'during
the training programme, and motivated them to organise
in order to deal with the problems faced by them.
As a result, participation of women increased in all
the meetings, and many new women's groups emerged
in many other villages.
Women participants prepared other women to come
forward and understand their responsibilities to deal with
©
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their own problems and to get over their fear about
attending meetings.
and helped them to action achievements in a very short
time.
Methods to form a “saving and loan society" out
of small savings were discussed in the training programme.
Such societies can provide economic help in emergency
helped in systematizing the group’s organising activity
Leadership strength at local level is the need of
the moment. This strength can only escalate the process
of change and development, and training programmes
have an important role to play in this.
Future Planning
Efforts will be made to develop leadership qualities
among the same women participants through training
programmes so that they can play their role even more
efficiently. New women’s group leaders will also go
through a similar training programme.
The training programmes will also be used as
means to generate knowledge, awareness and efficiency
so that the women can become confident and work
even more successfully.
Our previous experience has shown that training
is a very important means in the process of change
and development. Thus, if practical training programmes
are designed, keeping in mind the work objectives, then,
it can help in speeding up the whole process to a great
extent.
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The capability of imparting information to other
women in the area should also be developed among
the participants.
Conclusion
The success of this training was due to a strong
and united training team, and to a clear "learning
readiness" on the part of the women. This Awareness
Training Camp was like a key unlocking a flood-gate
initiative. energy, ideas, analysis, courage, strength all
rushed out. As trainers, we will have to prepare and
work hard to keep up with them - already, they have
taught us many things.
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Appendix
First Phase
Objectives
Subject Matter
Process
1.
Introduction of
participations &
objectives.
Mutual introduction
Explaining training
objectives and their
relevance. Explaining
the aims and
objectives of ASTHA.
Introduction of
participants, lecture
discussion.
2.
Identifying and analysing
the problems being
faced in the field.
Analysis of society &
consolidation of the
problems being faced
by women.
Symbolic games i.e.
Goats and Tigers and
film show. Group
discussion.
3
Providing infonnation
regarding organising
strong groups. Suggestion/
way of problem solving.
Role of women in
problem solving.
Case studies of other
fields narrated by
rural women.
Field Discussion.
4.
Providing information
regarding health,
cleanliness, the
environment.
Discussion on women
and children health
care: making ORT &
explaining its sources.
Briefing by local
nurse, demonstration
and exercises.
5.
Providing information
regarding laws which
affect women in
particular.
Problems related to
activities of labour
department and wages
for women.
Session by District
Labour Officer.
(Second Phase Continued)
Objectives
Subject Matter
Process
6.
To learn about the
Panchayat System.
Discussion on work,
organisation future
plans and related
problems of
Panchayat and
Panchayat Samiti.
Input session by
Development Officer
and Sarpanch.
7.
To learn programme
planning and problem
solving.
Programme planning,
problem solving for
women.
Pictures, role play
and discussion.
8.
Providing information
regarding ongoing
programmes of the
Govt. Explaining the
relationship between
the Government’s
programmes and the
Panchayat. Panchayat
Samiti and Dist. Level
officers and offices.
Development
programmes for
scheduled tribes
the role of women.
Lecture by Deputy
Commissioner of the
Tribal Development
Department. Film
show and discussion.
9.
Strengthening the
potential leadership of
women and women’s
activities in the area.
Action planning for
the next 3 months.
Exercise for planning
for village groups.
Second Phase
Objectives
Subject Matter
Process
1.
To acquire expertise in
solving problems arising
out of the original
workplan.
Alteration in the
original workplan of
first phase keeping in
view the problems
faced.
Discussion in small
groups and reporting
in larger group.
2.
To understand the basic
principles of planning
in order to deal with
the problem.
Understanding the
basic principles of
planning and problem
solving through
examples.
Discussing various
points in larger group
and then planning to
deal with the
problems in small
groups.
3.
To have an
understanding of
different aspects of
credit policies and
procedure in prevention
societies.
Benefits of a
cooperative society
and various ‘rules and
regulations governing.
Lecture by resource
person and discussion.
4.
To make the
participants aware of
environmental, child
health, agricultural and
cattle farming issues.
Symptoms of child
diseases and ways of
prevention. Information
on agricultural and
cattle farming
resources and
implements available
and their devlopment
Information on
environment issues.
Lectures by resource
persons.
TRAINING FIELD LEVEL
WOMEN ACTIVISTS
- Preeti 'Oza, PRAYAS
- Sushrnita Banerjee
Welfare Board, and were supposed to mobilize women’s
groups in their areas and conduct awareness camps on
the problems faced by the women.
i
The case study has been written almost entirely
the way in which the report of the training was made
- to make it readable for the participants and any other
field workers working for women.
Details of discussions, small group reports and analysis
were recorded on charts mainly in written words, and
at times in pictures for one participant was totally illiterate.
Introduction
The following case study is of a training of field
level activists, mostly women, who work with voluntary
agencies doing rural development work. These agencies
are also working, or are about to begin work with,
women.
Of the 13 participants who attended the training
programme, there were mainly women (11). and 2 were
men who came because the agency they belonged to
did not have any women workers. They all came from
different educational backgrounds.
The participants came from two states. Rajasthan
and Himachal Pradesh, to be trained as organisers for
the Awareness Generation Programme of the Central Social
The tone of the Organisers’ Training for Women’s
Development was set by making the women participants
take a joint decision of whether they would like to
include the two male participants who came in spite
of the trainers insisting that women organisers from the
agencies should attend. The participants discussed the
advantages and disadvantages of the situation and decided
to include the two male members.
Training Begins
Day 1:
To begin with, we introduced ourselves to a co
participant of our choice whom we did not know, through
conversation (interview). The question we asked each
other was: “Who am I and what do I do ?”
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One of the conditions which was laid down for
the conversation was that a person should reply to only
what was asked of her by the other one. You start
talking separately in groups of two. You then introduce
your partner in a bigger group. There were certain
inhibitions when talking to the male participants present.
It also happened that some people asked more questions
and some less, some felt shy and some hesitant. It
also seemed that some did not put their questions clearly
and adequately
As a result of this, the question then arose as
to how does one go about collecting information from
strangers, keeping in mind, the specific objectives?
Knowing about this is important because on entering
a village, it becomes necessary to collect information
from the people there. During this discussion some
aspects of an interview were understood.
The participants were divided into three small groups
and a list of the things they wanted to learn in the
camp was made, which was arranged and tallied with
the pre-designed model. It was thus made clear as to
what we were going to leam in the next ten days.
The design of the training programme and the schedule
was made on the basis of the things the group wanted
to leam.
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Timings for the various sessions were also fixed
unanimously after discussions.
Day 2:
“Women are like a pair of sandals”. “Money (jewels),
land and wives lead to fights between men”.
We all know of such sayings in our regions. One
has been hearing them since ages.
- “What kind of images of women do these
sayings, poems, stories etc. reflect? “
These sayings were meant to reflect women’s nature
in a particular light. In some, women's lack of intellectual
abilities, in others their inability to be financially
independent and in still others their low social status
is shown. Is this true ?
- “Do these values represent the real 'common
woman ?“
To answer this we recollected and wrote true stories
about the life of the women in our homes and villages.
These women have been frightened of these values
(of breaking the myths) by stmggling in their day-to-day
life. One of our brothers pointed out that he had not
come across any woman who has won by her own
struggle. Perhaps he does not feel that common women’s
struggle is anything out of the ordinary. In spite of
the inhibitions we all came before the big group and
related our stories. Many things came out from these
stories.
"Which are the elements that help a woman in
her stmggle and victory, and which are the elements
that hinder the same?"
Very carefully, we made a list of these. We all
noted that some of these elements were true for
women’s development work also. After dinner we
divided into four small groups and made posters showing
the various elements which helps or hinders women’s
development. In the light of our inexperience in making
posters most of us were doubtful as to whether we
would be able to make them or not.
- "How to make posters and why?"
Three groups were able to make posters-, one group
disintegrated because of lack of confidence. The following
question arose:
—
"How is work done in small groups?"
After we explained our posters, a discussion about
this medium was held.
Day 3:
—
"What did we feel and remember of the last
two days?"
Listening to the answers to this question given on
the previous night encouraged us to learn further. Today
we were to know about women and law. Why do
women not get the rights given to men ? An article
titled "Aspects of Slavery" and a booklet "Trapped in
the Four Walls" was read in three groups. During the
heated discussions on these, one of the participants said
that "After all. the Thanedar£the government) will behave
in the same way because he too is a part of society".
More heated discussions were held on this. After that
it became clear that the violation of women’s basic rights
was done in the family structure which is supported
by the male community, government system (judiciary)
and the contractors of religion and caste.
i
After this we trainers thought among ourselves that
perhaps every woman at some juncture of her life must
have experienced the denial of her basic rights. We then
decided to ask:
—
"How are women’s basic rights violated in
their own homes?"
When this topic came up in the big group, silence
spread. Perhaps we were thinking of new relations with
our own families. Some of us then narrated incidents
from our own life. Some of us were stopped from
studying, some married at an early age. But it was not
easy to talk about things we experienced ourselves. Our
hearts were hesitating to see our reality. Thus, attention
was lost in the discussion. And also some chaos occurred
due to children crying and moving around in the room.
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It was felt that even a sister's tragic story was
not heard properly. We trainers felt that one of the
reasons for the hesitation was perhaps the presence of
the male friends in the groups. Expressing her worry
on that matter. Preeti said.“It would be useless to proceed
further if we did not intend to speak or listen. If the
presence of men is one reason then there should be
no hesitation in saying clearly that till now we are
not able to say many things unhesitatingly in front of
men. that we are brought up in this way
Participants
were to decide among themselves and tell the trainers
if they wanted to proceed further, and whether they
wanted the men to be present. Saying this we trainers
left the group.
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Understanding the situation, our male friends went
out themselves. The conversation picked up. The women
sat near to each other. They narrated many incidents
that had happened to them. It was felt that irrespective
of where they came from, being women - our stmggle
in our personal experiences was the same. We were
bound together. Observing this feeling we trainers made
clear that apart from our traditional relations (family,
relatives), there is a special bond between us from which
we can continuously derive support and strength. There
is a definite need for expanding the sisterhood,
and it is possible to do so. That evening we were
heavy with these emotions. We lightened ourselves by
singing songs and dancing. The way in which we were
bound by sorrows, we got bound in pleasure too.
Day 4:
According to the designed programme, another sister
Nirmala joined us. She was to talk about women and
health. We were already friendly with her as she had been
with us since the previous day. This way it became
easier to talk to her. As it was decided earlier, our
male friends kept away from this session also. In the
morning Nirmala made a list of health problems of
women on the basis of her experiences and started a
discussion. The list had many things related to our
reproductive ability and physiological processes. When
discussion was started on this, we realized that we were
ignorant about our own bodies and we held, some
misconceptions about it. For example: “Dirty blood
comes out during menstmation". “Menstruation is impure"
etc. Then the following question arose:
—
“Why don’t we know about our bodies and
its processes? And why are there so many
misconceptions about it?"
Nirmala gave us new information in a very simple
manner on these questions. Why and how does
menstmation takes place ? This was made clear with
the help of a diagram. Some possible solutions were
given to other problems of women which they generally
hesitate to discuss. It became clear that one reason
why we were not able to control our own bodies
was due to lack of information.
The same evening a simple booklet on women and
health was given for reading, in which information
especially about methods of contraception was given.
After this a decision to stage skits in two groups on
some of the subjects mentioned in the booklet was
taken and a lot of skit related animation started within
the groups.
Our male friends were asked to devote the whole
'Health' session time on reading two articles "Who
Controls Women’s Health? " in the book "Aspects of
Women’s Development" (Mahila Vikas Ke Ayam) , and
"The Story of Rakku". They were asked to understand
the matter and analyse it in the light of some questions.
They had to report this to the group the next day.
After dinner we all saw the skits with profound
interest. In one role-play we saw the behavior of
government doctors with the patients in the village health
centres. The way the village woman health worker treats
her patients in the village was also enacted. In the
other role-play a woman health worker explained few
methods of family planning to the village women. Both
the role-plays were entertaining and lively and
spontaneously a discussion started on these topics. Things
like - our health services do not actually reach the poor
village women, most of the doctors and chemists get
together for their personal gains and sell medicines which
are not required etc, came up. The question that then
arose was:
-
"Why are such health services mn in our country
which do not help and reach the poor ?"
We were also pleasantly surprised by our potential
to do role plays and thought about:
—
"How can we use this medium of ‘role-plays'
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for the process of learning and teaching in
villages ?’’
Day 5:
The previous day’s questioning about the health
services was still to be understood. Both our male friends
presented their ideas at first on the gist of the articles
and then on women and health. Satyendra said that
women themselves were the reason for their poor health
for generally women eat less, only to survive, or give
birth to children even in a weak state; or consider the
home their only domain for which they are happy to
keep working hard.
We women got quite disturbed at these explanations
and started the discussions with angry questions. We
all got together and forced Satyendra to have a look
at the situation in his own family, "What would you
say if your sister leaves all the work for you and goes
out to enjoy ?”
We observed from this discussion that the state
of women’s health was related to certain social conditions.
—
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"Which are the social conditions that affect
women’s health and how ?”
The other male friend while giving the gist of "the
story of Rakku" raised some points about the structure
of the government health system on which a very
fruitful discussion was held which helped us in
understanding certain aspects of it and gave us some
surprises too :
—
The government is a puppet in the hands of
industriahsts and the capitalists and manufactures
more equipments and does more research on
the ailments which affect the rich.
—
Medical colleges have courses and studies which
have no relation to reality.
—
Those medicines are. promoted and distributed
which are made in the factories of the rich
(capitalists).
—
Doctors and other health workers hesitate in
going to the villages, because their only aim
is to treat the rich from the cities and make
money.
—
Government’s health system is made for the
convenience of the doctors and not the patients.
This discussion made us realize that women cannot
attain good health in such a social system with this
health set up. Then what is the alternative?
"What kind of stmggle do women have to wage
for staying healthy and in what alternative system
can they remain really healthy ?”
We then threw some light on the state of women’s
health by discussing it in three small groups. Some
alternatives were also suggested. After meals, Nirmala
gave statistics while explaining the state of women’s
health, and made their relation with the existing social
conditions clearer.
Right from birth, girls became victims of adverse
social attitude towards them. Participants said that in
their villages, in most of the cases girls are given very
late medical treatment on falling sick, whereas boys got
immediate attention. The diet of girls is also controlled.
Stating some awful observations made by a study done
in Punjab, Nirmala made clear that there was inequality
in the behavior towards boys and girls, irrespective of
the family being rich or poor.
Girls were the main victims of illnesses and death.
The government’s policies and its promises of "we want
the health services to reach the poor" were proved hollow
by showing very simple figures.
After four days of discussions and other things which
made us think anew, our attention was drawn towards
our own regions. After all it was necessary for us to
do something about the problems of our regions.
—
"How to identify and understand these problems ?
What are the specific problems of our region
and on which of the problems do we want
suggestions from others T’
With the intention of giving an opportunity to learn
and understand the region and work of each other, we
trainers started the process of exchanging information
between friends from Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh,
dividing participants into small groups.
—
"How can you gather information about specific
problems
With great interest and intensity we shared and
understood other’s problems and became clearer about
our own.
After dinner we all got the pleasant opportunity
to go out of the training centre. We went together
to watch a folk play put up by a voluntary organisation
in Kaya village. The sad story of the situation of women
in poor tribal community was shown in the local ‘Gavari'
(Folk Dance Drama) style, in which women were sold
many times over. The play was impressive in spite of
some difficulties of language.
Day 6;
In the morning we met the play artists, many of
whom were tribal villagers themselves, and we learned
about their ideas on how they use theatre, and its effects
for social change. The leader of the group talked about
the uses of theatre with authority but till now they
81
were not used to discussions after the plays nor were
they able to associate women with theatre. A friendly
bond was created with those artists.
The problems of our regions which we had arrived
at the previous day became more clear to everybody
after some discussion. A separate list was made of the
specific problems of each region oh which we wanted
suggestions from each other. But mainly the general
problems from each of the states were listed.
In the afternoon we got the opportunity of discussing
with Bansilal Garg and Sunita, who was with us in
the training also, their special experiences in women's
development.
-
82
"Can a male worker do the work of women's
development? Can he work together with a
woman worker?"
Four members took the responsibility of getting
information from them through an organised interview.
Besides getting information on the basis of the experiences
of Shri Bansilalji and his interesting style of talking,
we got inspiration and guidance on how to do concrete
work in our areas. Sunita helped him in this. Shri Bansilalji
told us how he developed faith in women's development
when in various struggles, he saw the commitment and
strength in women. Men can also do the work of
women's development if they have faith in women’s
strength. It would come through if they have simple
and friendly attitudes towards women. Male workers
can also hold special discussions with the men folk
and make them understand the need for women's
development. It is possible to become associated with women
by raising their specific problems. The most important
thing about working with a woman worker is to assure
and create faith both in the people and in the fellow
worker about your reliability and straight character,
according to Bansilal. Actually it is necessary to .exhibit
such a behavior based on equality with the other worker,
both in work and relationship. Bansilal like some other
male workers have seen many changes in his own life
by working for women’s development. Now he
understands the women in his own home better and
helps them in their work.
Listening to Shri Bansilalji was so interesting that
time just flew and soon it was evening.
After dinner we saw a new programme. In 10 days
time it was not possible for us to meet the village
women directly. Therefore a video film was shown about
the poor and backward village conditions, and the story
of a united stmggle of a women’s organisation to improve
their financial situation. One was a real story and the
other a feature film. In both we got the real glimpse
of the problems of the poor for the want of economicdevelopment. This highlighted two fundamental questions:
—
“How to organise poor, illiterate women for
development?’’ -
—
“What sort of schemes would be appropriate
for the economic development (to increase
income) of poor women?" -
Day 7:
Six problems specific to certain regions that were
listed out in the previous day’s discussion were :
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Problems of corruption
How to eradicate polygamy
Alcoholism
Feast following death
How to oppose atrocities (physical) on women
Dowry menace and how to deal with it
We were asked to understand and solve three of
these problems in small groups. First the trainers took
the problem of the feast following death and through
discussion explained the process of its possible solution.
Later in three groups we held discussions and came
up with some alternatives to tackle the problems of
alcoholism, dowry and atrocities on women. But this
process remained a little complicated. Majority of the
new workers could not satisfactorily understand the
regional problems concretely and think about their
solutions.
After lunch we talked with Ginny Shrivastava, from
a voluntary organisation of Udaipur, about her expenences
in organising tribal women for economic development.
Last night we had already seen the role of the economic
struggle of the sisters from “Brahmanon Ka Varda". Ginnyji
explained in a very interesting manner the background
to this work and the problems faced by the workers
supporting these women. Important aspects of economic
development of women which are often overlooked
also came to light. We got concrete tips on organising
women by forming small groups.
i
The main issues which emerged from discussions
with Ginnyji were - women not having access to
information to fight against government’s distrust of
women, and the lack of resources with poor women
that restricts them from carrying out any programme
successfully for their own development.
Talking to Shri Bansilalji and Ginnyji further clarified
those aspects that promote women’s development,
especially those related to the role of the worker. After
dinner it was necessary to put all these points in a
properly organised manner. Together we enlisted the
important points about any programme of economic
development of women and Preeti made a systematic
summary, of them. We ended the night session early that
day as we all were tired.
83
i
Day 8:
In the process of understanding the subject of women
and law. we all expressed the necessity of knowing
the laws related to the special situation of women through
a lawyer. A message had already been sent to the lawyer
in Udaipur (nearby city) but no reply had come so far.
We trainers were very worried about this but in the
same centre the lawyer had come for another law training
and finally the programme to meet the participants this
morning was fixed up.
It was good that on the previous night the
participants had made a list ot
of the laws that we
considered necessary to understand. One of us had enlisted
these by asking the following question:
"Which laws related to women and their processes
do you want to know?"
We got information from the lawyer in simple words.
Before our meeting with the lawyer ended. Shri
Gupta, an officer of the Tribal Development Department
came.
"What are the governmental schemes for poor tribals ?”
It took a lot of time even in giving information
about the thirty three schemes.
84
Our friends from Rajasthan raised some questions
about the processes and usefulness of some of the
schemes. We trainers had also decided to ask a few
questions highlighting the attitude of the government,
like if the use of a scheme is based on some specific
resource (wells, etc.), then actually how many poor tribals
can benefit from such programmes ? Mr. Gupta got a
little exasperated with these questions. He avoided
answering them and put all the blame for the lack
of upliftment of the poor on the greedy nature of man
which he considered natural and unchangeable. He put
the main responsibility of creating awareness in people
and organising them to secure their rights solely on
the voluntary organisations!
Because women do not own land or property, they
themselves are not directly benefited by any schemes.
This Guptaji believed was according to our cultural
traditions, but he had no problems in benefiting women
if they were able to become heads of their families.
After Shri Gupta, the Additional Collector. District Rural
Development Agency. Shri Srivastava, was to talk to us but
he did not come.
After this talk we were a little upset having heard
about the indifferent attitude of the government. We
were asked to write on this:
"Seeing the attitude of the government towards
women, in general how does one get support from
the government
As we sat in the winter sun and were trying to resolve
this complicated situation, two engineers from the DRDA
arrived on behalf of the Additional Collector. We were a little
doubtful about how much they would be able to tell us about
development schemes.
Anyway ’
Most of the programmes of the
government officials are unpredictable! At least the
Additional Collector had sent his assistants. A discussion
on the information which the engineers could give was
arranged after lunch.
"What are the National Rural Development
Programmes and Rural Landless Employment
Guarantee Programmes ?"
Discussions revolved around local political effects,
the mle of fixing the wages on the basis of work
measurement, because of which labourers do not receive
minimum wages and other such issues which affect these
schemes . In the beginning one engineer tried to justify
such exploitative rules.
It is a statutory mle that minimum wages should
be given either on eight hours work or wage must
be fixed piece rate. ie.. a certain wages for a fixed
work output. By mixing up these two conditions and
also the work load being heavy, minimum wages are
not procured.
After continuous deliberations the government
engineers came to the conclusions that workers should
be organised to fight for their right of minimum wages,
and voluntary organisations should take a lead in this
work. After the discussion with the engineers, we added
some more points on the issue of coordinating with
the government. We also added some guidelines on how
to get support from the government for women's
development in the present context. Jhamku gave the
gist of the whole issue in one sentence saying. "Neither
salty nor sweet !”
We were on the verge of finishing this discussion
when two sisters, Sathins', Sundari Bai and Dadham
Bai of the Women’s Development Programme came along.
On entering the room'they hugged every woman sitting
there with a natural and touching warmth-as if our
hearts met ! Jhamku, who was taking the training with
us and who also works as a Sathin in Jodhpur got
especially delighted. Together, the three of them explained
to us. with examples, in a very interesting way their
role in inspiring the women in their villages and organising
them around the problems they faced. Sundari had
managed to secure the wages of women taking some
government sponsored training in village Karauli. Dadham
Bai had succeeded in acquiring for all homes equal
opportunities to work on famine work sites by putting
pressure on the concerned authorities through the women’s
B
85
I
group. And gradually the extraordinary work of ordinary
women was abundantly exhibited before us. The Sathins
soon became part of our intimate group as if they were
always a part.
Before finishing this session we decided to do a
cultural programme in the evening. We trainers made
groups on the basis of states and each group had to
present at least one new play 1 and song. And
enthusiastically we started the preparations. The two male
friends also took part in the cultural programme. Each of us
danced a variety of dances. We had suddenly let go off our
inhibitions and hesitations. We sang the songs written by us
with inspiring verve.
—
"What was your attitude during the various
phases and activities of the training ? Why
Day 9:
Through seventeen questions, which you had to
answer anew each day, the trainers helped the participants
to make a sketch of their behaviour. "Do you always
hesitate in talking in big and small groups ?’’* "Or do
you always make your opinion according to the opinion
of others ?” It highlights an important aspect of our
nature if we have never started a discussion. This
especially affects our day-to-day life and our work in
our area. If we always hesitate in starting anything then
perhaps we will have difficulties in starting work in
new areas. If we hesitate in giving our own opinions
then we may not be able to act and think independently
or have an independent identity.
The next day we started the session at nine in the
morning, as we had enjoyed till late in the night the
previous day. We made a brief review of the things
learned till date, and checklisted the things remained
to be understood. Earlier during the listing of the things
to be learnt, some of the women had expressed the
The group wanted to know in general about the
questions listed so we trainers explained it. It was made
clear from the beginning that filling up the list of
questions was everybody’s own voluntary decision. It
is imperative for each adult to take up one’s own
responsibility of self-understanding and self-development.
"Come sisters, let us be united. Let us get the
rights which we have been deprived of.’’ Satya who
was most shy and used to say ‘no’ to every attempt
to make her participate, also did a lively dance. We
all got bound together in a spirit of enjoyment.
86
desire of learning certain things for their own
development. On one of the days we trainers had put
up a list of questions on the wall and explained their
importance to the group;
Other’s can only support and guide in one’s development.
Nobody else can ‘do’ our development. Once filled up
this list was like a mirror. Analysing our mirror was
also left to us and it was decided that whoever wanted
the trainers’ support would be given time in the sessions
to come. After this discussion the time had come to
think about some fundamental questions related to
women which had come up during the last seven days
and which we had continuously enlisted on a chart.
We were divided into three small groups to discuss on
these-.
"How did the biased beliefs about women come
to be and popularized? Whose personal interest was
hidden in it? What can be done to do away with
these beliefs ?”
In each of the groups interesting discussions were,
held. We all thought about these issues in depth. The
discussions held in the smaller groups were presented
on charts in the big group. This question was analyzed
in several ways. Some started from explaining the situation
of primitive man. tried to understand the situation of
women in the society in various stages of history. Perhaps
in the primitive age. women also moved around and
hunted. Gradually due to the responsibility of giving
birth to children and bringing them up. their movement
became limited. With the advent of agriculture she got
bound by private property, permanent settlement and
caring for the fields. In this way the economic situation
produced some social structures such as family, private
property etc. and hence women were tied to the home
even more. One group made clear the analysis of the
present reality in which in order to continue to enjoy
unlimited independence, it was necessary for men to
control women’s bodies, strength and labour. The
discussion was beautifully handled by Sushmita.
I
In the meanwhile some members of a women’s
organisation of Kucchi Harijan Basti from Udaipur city
came with three workers of a voluntary organisation
to meet all of us. After lunch there was an informal
talk with them about their problems and the functioning
of their organisations. They informed us about the various
atrocities committed by men such as alcoholism,
goondaism. selling off women and the unprecedented
courage shown by the women of the Harijan Basti in
their stmggle on these issues. These women, who were
working in the Sanitation Department of the Municipal
Council of Udaipur and who were financially independent,
also had to continuingly face the repression in this male
dominated society. These women workers, much as they
wanted to. could not spend much time with us as they
had to go back early. A bhajan of Meera Bai sung by
them gave a fitting end to this discussion.
In the last three four days we all had met many
such persons and groups and had tiled to know about
87
their ideas and work on women’s development. The
time had come to understand the process of women’s
organisation on the basis of all these ideas and
experiences.
—
"How to form women’s organisations ?’’
We all sat separately and wrote down our ideas
on the basis • of these on the three aspects of organising
women - i.e.. starting to form an organisation or a group,
the process of consolidating it and trying to give it
continuity. Together all of us put them up systematically.
It seemed that the gist of many experiences had
come before us. In the evening that day we got
familiarized with another enjoyable way of learning.
—
"How to talk to people through puppets ?”
We trainers were feeling disappointed when we learnt
that the artists invited for the puppet show were not
coming. But Susmita did not loose heart and on the
basis of her past experiences explained the main rules
and ways of doing a puppet show in a very simple
manner. In spite of this being the group's first experience
with puppets, they presented two beautiful puppet plays.
Day 10:
Today was the tenth day of our training. During
the last nine days we had taken up various subjects
and activities together, and the continued process of
teaching and learning went along. The main aim of the
training was to understand how to inspire village women
and to strengthen their groups and organisations by
organising awareness camps.
—
88
"How to
women
organise
awareness
camps
for
While preparing ror the training, we trainers had
accepted the fact that methods used and environment
created during the ten days of training will be an example
in itself to show how to work with women and how
to organise awareness camps with them. The best method
was to enable you to identify those aspects of the
activities of the training which are important for a
successful awareness camp. The trainers believed that
if the group understands the objectives of the various
processes they will be able to organise the camp
independently. That is why the understanding of the
last nine days’ programme was put for discussion by
dividing into three groups over a period of three days
each. Before sitting in the group the trainers talked about
the main aspects of training design and methodology:
"What were the various methods of learning
(different subjects) adopted in the camp? Why ?”
As we were going through our notebooks to recollect
some activities and processes, the field activists (Prachetas)
of the Rajasthan's Women Development Programme
whose Sathins we had already met. came to meet all
of us. They were scheduled to come along with the
Sathins but due to transport mi smanagement could not
reach on that day ! During our tailk with them.the trainers
came to know that they had organised a long training
for women. They had brought with them charts made
on different subjects by the Sathins and pictorial
representations of the things learnt by the latter during
their trainings . It was a pleasant coincidence that they
had come to talk to us at a time when we were
understanding the methods of training.
I
When we finished our work in the small groups,
we gathered together, to talk to the activists:
I
“Which methods are mainly appropriate in the
training of illiterate village women?"
In a simple manner, activists Madhu and Sushma
made dear the main points of their work and the methods
of trainiing through the charts that they had brought.
They also put forward some important aspects of
women's devel opment and made clear the relation
between the importance of training and their work. In
order to form women’s groups it is very effective to
organise? village level meetings and public programmes
and to invite men in them. This way the activities of
women's organisations/groups get recognition also. It is
natural and convenient to call meetings at places where
generally women want to sit together. There is a lot
of pre ssure i.f too many issues are taken up at a time,
thereft ore only one issue should be taken up at one
time nn a systematic manner which should have a proper
follow up. An important contribution of the women's
groups is the mutual sisterhood between the members
of these spread in the villages.
89
After an inspiring discussion with the women activists
we came back to the work done in the smaller groups.
A summary of the activities of the last nine days emerged
through small group discussions which was consolidated
up in the big group.
After lunch when we came back to the big group
it was the beginning of the end of this training. Here
we had learnt many things but how would you use
them on going back to your homes and work ?
—
“How will we work for women’s development
and organise awareness camps in our respective
regions ?"
At this session Preeti explained about the Awareness
Generation Programme of the Central Social Welfare Board.
This training of camp organisers was taking place under
this scheme and more details were shared with the
group. On returning to our organisations, women’s
development work and awareness camps had to be
organised under this scheme.
90
After this the group very enthusiastically worked
in order to design a six months programme on raising
awareness in women in their work areas through their
respective organisations. The women did find it (difficult
to apply the points learnt in this training to concrete
realities. Instead of evolving a concrete programme, the
objectives and activities required in women’s development
were being referred to, for example “understanding the
religious, economic and political condition-of women"
and “organising women and making them aware of their
rights".
We then guided them to think about specific and
concrete programmes taking into consideration the work
they were involved in and the programmes of their
organisation. Gradually, all of us prepared simple and
concrete programmes for ourselves.
After dinner we shared our plans before the larger
group to maintain the learning process. Some of us decided
to work specifically on the fuel wood problem of women,
in the Himalayan region. Some had planned to try to
make a federation of different groups, and still others
decided to start by meeting the women and understanding
their problems.
But our work at the training had not yet finished.
Someone’s story had to be finished, someone else’s song
was to be completed. Besides, addresses had to be
exchanged. Some administrative work also had to be
completed. Gradually the training started winding up by
tying up some loose last strings.
Day 11:
Today was the day of departure, but we did not
feel like leaving as we had been so involved in the
the training and with each other. Right from the morning
there was a little sadness in the air. After completing
some administrative work, we all evaluated the training.
"How appropriate were the topics covered and
methods practised to the needs enlisted for the
training ? How effective were these ?"
Each group member had to do a written evaluation
of the training as well as about oneself and others.
The trainers gave a subject list for this. But how could
Jhamku Bai. who could not read, express herself ? She
was asked to do it by way of pictures for which she
was given colours and chart.
Some participants wanted to know about the
evaluation related to their self-development on the basis
of the list they had filled up. The trainers talked to
them individually about this. We exchanged our views
through evaluation in the larger group. The trainers also
evaluated the training and themselves.
We were happy that we all had developed our
potentials in this training, contributed towards each other’s
learning and learnt a lot.
There was a definite enthusiasm even as we were
carrying with us the joy of light and sorrow of separation.
To lessen the sorrow of separation we played a
game in the end.
"How can. little games be used in training ?"
On a paper stuck to each one’s back, every body
else showed what image they had of that person in
the form of a symbol from life and nature. Somebody
was a moon, somebody the sun. some one else was
an ant and still other was a bird. Someone thought
of another as a mountain, and someone else a lock.
These figures were our mirrors which we took along
with us with the thought of looking at them sometime
or the other.
Conclusion
Participatory training is the process of learning together
which enthused a constant excitement for learning and
the way it went about in this training can be summarized
thus:
Knowledge is power and the germinated seed of
this power is present in each. This plant of knowledge
flourishes when it gets the necessary fertilizer and water
and a proper environment. We had tried to give such
an atmosphere and material in the ten days’ women’s
development training for activists of voluntary organisations
which we had organised. It can be said that there were
five main aspects in the training:
1) Common Place
It was always believed that ordinary people
91
like you and me can also work for women’s
development. The women in our village who
have a very ordinary daily life also lead very
brave lives. Their strength can be used in the
difficult task of women’s development. The
participants’ stories about the courageous women
of their villages, the organised struggle of the
ordinary women ‘sathins’ working at the village
level under the Women’s Development
Programme and of the Harijan women of Kucchi
Basti in Udaipur against their alcoholic husbands,
the self-managed wasteland development of
the tribal sisters of Brahmanon Ka Varda are
tales of ordinary women.
2) Simplification
92
Complex concepts can easily be understood by
common women, The training design and
analysis were based on our experiences and
discussions. All this knowledge was understood
in simple words. Men's control in society is
the cause for women’s situation. In social
sciences this is given the difficult definition
of ‘patriarchy’. Similarly we understood the
relation of poor vs rich without giving the
definition of the capitalist set up. We also
understood the relations between pharmaceutical
companies, industrialists, and research on
ailments through a play without difficult words.
During the course of training ‘ordinary efficiency’
and ‘specialization’ were not necessarily
differentiated. Together with the trainers, the
trainees also at times gave their opinions for
organising different activities. Skills such as
puppet playing, poster-making and staging plays
no longer remained special professions but
became a medium for common people to use
in their life and work.
3) Togetherness
Participants from two states together took part
in this training. People with different educational
backgrounds sat together and exchanged ideas.
On the one hand there was Santosh who was
a post-graduate and on the other hand there
was Jhamku Bai. an illiterate. Our viewpoints
were also different. In the beginning Satyendra
believed that women themselves were the cause
of their weak health. At this juncture the
women participants stood firm on their
viewpoint and made Satyendra change his
opinion Another speciality of this training was
that men and women together took part in
it. In such an atmosphere of diversity it is
necessary that each person gets an opportunity
to develop his/her own thinking. Therefore
flexibility is essential for such a training, and
it was amply built in.
4) Comfortable Environment
The training atmosphere was always simple and
tension free. We held discussions on many issues
and went through many processes. We came
to know of the contradictions in our beliefs.
We understood the exploitation in our families.
Rivalry in the training was: to the minimum
and co-existence and <cooperation was
maintained.
5) Creation
In the entire process of the training traditional
ideas and concepts kept being destroyed and
alongside new alternatives were being thought
of. In the place of old sayings and songs, new
slogans and songs were created. In the place
of the old health set up. a new concept and
system of health was visualized. On the one
hand protest was expressed by raising questions
on the family structure, male domination and
rule by the rich. While on the other, new forms
of support and cooperation in the form of
women’s organisations was also suggested. This
process continued throughout.
During the training pre-thinking was done, necessary
information was added on the basis of which new points
of views were made. Cultural awareness was inculcated
through self-made posters, role-plays, folk plays, video
film, puppet show, cultural programme and local games.
In this way. the learning process became self-reliant
and gained strength from its own momentum and will
hopefully be continuously regenerated.
93
TRAINING OF TRAINERS
A Training Programme With Women From U.P. And Bihar
- Abha Bhaiya and Sheba Chbachi, JAGORI
- Gauri Choudhury and Runu Chakravarty, ACTION INDIA
a chronological account of each and every day. The process
and content overlapped constantly, and it would be unfair
to the workshop to see them separately. The report
hopefully will - give a feel of what we tried to attempt
- exploring the possibility of understanding one self and
one’s place in society, and gaining the courage and strength
to change what is unjust around us.
LOJ
Introducing Ourselves
Communication is a process integral to life, intrinsic
to every act, every relationship. Without it we can neither
recognise our own desires / intention nor can we
communicate them.
How well we are able to
communicate, with clarity and confidence, depends on
how much we have understood our own selves.
Introduction
Thirty five women came together for 8 days, all
of us women involved in working for other women
in some way. Some of us came looking for new
information, some to learn new skills, some to hear
about other work experiences - what we all found and
explored together went into all this. Yes. but most
importantly, opened up a whole new area - of knowing
ourselves and each otijer. as women.
What we are sharing here is a process rather than
the details of the content. Therefore, the report is not
If I want to be heard, if my words or what I
wish to say is to be received I will have to look into
myself, understand myself and share this insight, honestly,
with whoever I wish to communicate with so that she
too can begin to open up, look at her own self and
thus begin the possibility of deeper relationships.
But, the tragedy is that we rarely get the opportunity
to connect with others in this way. External values,
identities, social norms - are heaped upon us and we
become the mere carriers of these - mere beasts of
burden. Whatever path we may choose, whatever context.
97
after a time we begin to experience our own hollowness.
*
Our workshop was an attempt to create the
possibility of knowing oneself differently - to move away
from traditionally defined methods, to step aside from
the way society has defined us: this was our fundamental
premise - and the different methods, processes and ways
of working we used, all stemmed from that.
The process began with an attempt to break
hesitations and shyness. How to introduce ourselves to
each other ? We could, of course, have simply said
our names - but we chose to play a game. We sat
in a circle - a ball of wool is in one woman’s hand,
She throws it to another woman. ‘saying ’her name at
the top of her voice. The woman who catches the ball
must then throw it to another in the circle, shouting
out her own__ name,
------- and
—1 so on. Once all of us have
said our names, the game changes: when the ball comes
back to someone who has already said her name, she
must throw it and say the name of the woman she
is sending the ball to. If you don’t remember, you can ask.
Somehow the game itself makes you attentive,
without feeling that you are being forced to listen in just 15 minutes we all knew each other's name and
a little of the hesitation had dissolved, an ease had
begun to be established. For each one of us had
concentrated on each other, focused our attention.
After having introduced oneself, the need is to know
more about the other. We divided into pairs. Each of
us had to try and get to know something about our
companion, and share this with the whole group. We
chose some basis for this knowing questions which
would give this process of introduction a new dimension,
which could try to know these areas which are a part
of each of our lives but which usually remain unspoken.
a)
b)
c)
d)
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e)
Which was the happiest occasion of your life ?
What did you want to become in your
childhood ?
Is there any incident in your life that makes
you very unhappy ?
Being a woman, what is your opinion about
Mrs. Gandhi ?
Any incident in your life that thrills you. fills
4
f)
you with excitement ?
How do you feel as
descending ?
the evening starts
The answers were varied as well as common - most
women talked about their childhood as the happiest
time of their lives; of women friends, and the sense
of freedom that they felt as children. Many of them
desired to be economically independent and dreamt of
becoming a teacher, nurse, social worker - fairly well
defined and socially acceptable professions. The concept
of unhappiness was directly linked to illness, death, fear
of sexual assault. Some talked about poverty, exploitation
and injustice. For some, memories of their first few
years in 'sasural' were very painful where they experienced
humiliation, sarcasm and rejection.
For most participants Indira Gandhi stood for courage
and sacrifice for the nation. She was an ideal woman
for many. Only one participant felt that she was no
different from a man and was not committed to the
poor. Evening, for some participants, meant fear, loneliness
and sense of futility of their lives. For a majority, and
especially for married women, evenings brought tiredness
and they looked forward to rest and sleep.
But talking about oneself or asking another questions
does not completely remove one’s hesitation. ‘There are
other ways of getting to know each other, other areas
of hesitation - when we touch another’s body, and when
another touches us. a different area of shyness dissolves.
Once again, we sat in a. large circle. One of us had
her eyes tied tight. She was then left in the middle
of the circle. Nearing another woman, she has to touch
her and remember the special elements of her features
that she can feel, so that when she is back in her
place, and her eyes are opened, she can recognise the
other through very different means, a different sensitivity
to the other person.
Another game which helped us to get more
comfortable and free with our bodies was the fish. All
of us. with our eyes closed, lay down in a circle. Keeping
our eyes closed, and without lifting the body from the
ground we had to move towards the centre of the circle.
If, while moving or rather dragging yourself on your
stomach you came across an arm or a leg or the torso
of another fish you had to simply clamber over it, keeping
your eyes closed. We ended up, a pile of fishes in
the centre of the room - opened our eyes and saw
that we were all on top of each other. Someone’s elbow
in someone’s face, someone’s knee on someone's stomach!
Some bruises, a lot of laughter - some of our childhood
had returned to us.
The suffocating traditions and practices of society
have alienated us as women from our own bodies, hearts
and minds. Particularly as we grow from girlhood to
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womanhood, we are forced to control and restrict normal,
free movements. We learn to constrict our bodies - head
bent, eyes down, the weight of the pillow on our heads,
bent backs, slow hesitant feet - the visible proof of
our enslavement. As we leave our childhood behind,
we leave behind the use of our bodies. We are clothed
in shame, fear, hesitation - this becomes our claim to
respect.
The games and exercises we used help to break
some of these shackles. On the first day, the participants
seemed weighed down with the concern of keeping their
bodies covered, hidden, respectable. But as through the
exercises we began to remember and re-enjoy the use
of our bodies, this external behaviour began to change.
Sunita, who sat barely able to speak her name out,
began to laugh a. free open laugh. Her dupatta lay in
the comer forgotten - it was no longer something she
had to constantly think about. Shivrani, whose face was
shadowed with self - denial, became, as the days went
by, a woman whose whole being seemed to flower,
who used her whole body to express what she was
saying - the 'chaddar' of elderliness which she had
wrapped herself in had flown away somewhere.
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Each one of us reclaimed the body which had
seemed not to belong to us. A part of learning to
understand ourselves, express our feelings and relate to
each other.
How do we become more sensitive to each other?
Let us become pairs. I am your mirror - whatever action,
movement you initiate I must follow - simultaneously.
My eyes concentrated on yours, my whole attention
turned to you, becoming part of you. so that my body
moves in perfect coordination with yours, never for a
moment letting my eyes, my attention waver. Now. you
are my mirror - I move, you mirror me - we learn
to watch with concentration, to understand what the
other wants to do. wishes to say - we learn to respond
to each other.
Through these exercises with our bodies, an
atmosphere of ease, of trust and of openness developed.
Each day we spent an hour in the morning working
with our voices and our bodies, getting to understand
them better. Those of us who had learnt not to speak
above a whisper rediscovered the pleasure of shouting,
the power in one’s own voice. We then began to see
how we could use these parts of ourselves to express
things. For example, taking a word and trying to say
it with different feelings and tones, or showing an
emotion using only sound and gesture without words.
How can we use our bodies to both experience and
express different feelings? Everyone has to imagine she
is tied up inside a body and use her imagination . to
create in herself and the one watching her that experience.
Another exercise - make yourself as small as possible.
pull every part of your body in till you occupy the
smallest possible space. Then, begin to expand and push
and stretch to the limits of your body.
To feel one’s identity shrinking, becoming smaller
as the body shrinks - to feel the power, the strength
in oneself as the body expands.
The time had now come to look back at our feelings,
our attitudes and experiences. To probe that part of
our mind over which layers of duty, beliefs and social
norms were encrusted.
Often, we as women, and as activists working for
social change, find ourselves fulfilling roles which have
been externally defined. While believing- that we are
working at the grassroots, our way of working has tended
to become mechanical. Are 'we really linking as one
human being to another ? Are we relating on the basis
of our own experience and values ? Is this not the
reason why we begin to feel an emptiness, a
meaninglessness in our attempts to bring about change
in society ? For us as women, who are trying to explore
different ways of living and working, it becomes crucial
that we look at our own selves - see where we are
in society - understand the specialness, and yet the
similarities of our individual experiences. Explore the
meanings that our own and other women’s lives can
give us.
Woman-Family-Society
“I never did observe purdah but I feel a ‘bandhan',
a restriction around me all the time as if I am locked
up within four walls.”
"The ‘Bahu’ that belongs to the inner courtyard
of the house, cannot cross over the threshold.”
“When I share equally in happiness and pain of
life with him, why am I unequal ?”
“Woman is looking for protection for herself. Fear
of rape has created circumstances for her to get tied
to one relationship."
This session was devoted to understanding woman’s
place within the family and society - primarily to
understand how patriarchy and patriarchal values are
constituted. Every participant was asked to say what
she thinks a family gives to its members. It was clear
from their description that the family was the basic
unit that gave its different members - men and women
different sets of values. While it gave rights to its male
members, it defined duties for women. This social
institution also imparted the notion of morality, religious
practices, caste feelings, etc. On the other hand was
what we hoped for from the family - love, caring,
protection, belonging. Somewhere perhaps we accepted
the strictures of the family because of these needs which,
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however, were never actually fulfilled. The promise of
these needs being met often covered up the terrible
inequalities we actually face and see around us.
Thus, for us ft is important to see inequalities that
exist not only in society - but also within the’ family,
which is the basic building block of society and reflects
its ^hierarchies and power structure.
Some pertinent questions were raised -. Who made
this society ? If everyone contributed equally in building
this society, why do some groups (based on class, gender
or caste) face hardship and discrimination? When and
how did discrimination arise between men and women?
Participants shared their own experiences of
discrimination against the female child in the family
in the area of food, socialization, access to education,
marriage, share in the property, freedom, religious practices,
decision-making processes, etc. Participants also felt that
most decisions in the family are taken by elders and men.
It was at this stage difficult to go into the origin
of this discrimination but everyone seemed to feel that
the existing stmcture of family and society do not give
women their rights. Yet nobody wants to break the
family - what perhaps is needed is to change the stmcture
and built-in inequalities within that.
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Some of us shared how we had in our own lives
tried to change the balance of power in our own homes
and the problems as well as successes we had had.
There was a heated’ discussion over some of these
attempts - hearing another woman's experience helped
us to confront our own attitudes, and the situation in
our own lives.
In this workshop, we have tried to link our work
and our life. How our experience of being women
connects us with others, creates our reality and how
do we change this reality. Therefore, our questions and
discussion on the family, the individual and society were
at two levels - in our own lives and as an analysis
at a conceptual level.
Women And Health
The session on health was conducted by a bustee
level health worker of Sabla Sangh from Seemapuri, Delhi
She began the session with a game where every
participant was a doctor who had to choose whether
she wanted to go to a rural area or urban centre and
also give reasons for the same. This itself generated
lot of debate and participants themselves came to some
conclusion regarding the commitment of professionals
such as doctors to poor people.
The next question was regarding the basic needs
of poor people in urban and mral areas. The participants
mentioned the following as minimum needs for a human
life to live with dignity.
— Right to livelihood
— Clean water and air
— Roti, Kapada aur Makan
- Health care and special facilities for women
and children
- Education and access to information
— Transportation and electricity
— Entertainment
Then each participant was asked to share whether
she had all this in their respective villages and it became
clear to the whole group that basic needs in most of
the villages are missing.
The next question was: Why is it so ? Again
participants delineated the reasons for this -.
—
—
—
—
-
Lack of means of production;
Poor are oppressed;
Not united;
Not organised;
Lack of education-,'
Wrong government policies-,
Migration of educated people to cities;
The debate continued:
Who owns land, raw material and resources, capital?
Even in this, whether there is equal control by men
and women ? What do the poor own ?
From our own situations, we gave examples of
exploitation of the poor and women. How even among
the poor, women are poorer and own nothing.
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When we came to the issue of women and health
participants talked first of the reasons why women have
very specific health problems. Due to purdah, fear,
hesitation, her very low self image, she being the last
on the family’s priority list, her health needs get neglected
and are attended to only when it becomes a crisis. Where
do we begin when we realise that among the participants
themselves there are experiences of stomach ailments
and constipation because of lack of toilet facilities, how
she has to control herself till it gets dark to go to
the field even to pass urine.
Women and children are the main victims of lack
of food and nutrition. How patriarchal values have gone
so deep in her own consciousness that she is the one
who feeds her husband better than herself, even if she
has to starve. Women narrated how a man never asks
whether there is enough food to go around for everyone.
Even when a woman wants to give little extra to her
daughters the elders in the family immediately remark
"Why milk for her ? Is she going to plough the land ?”
Participants talked of other factors that affect
women’s health adversely:
1. Her low status in society
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2.
3.
4.
Child marriage and early and frequent child birth
Burden of family responsibility and worry
Purdah and lack of freedom
conflicts and
suffocation inside the family
5. Double burden of work
6. Lack of confidence due to humiliation which
affects her health
7. Innumerable restrictions affecting natural growth
.of woman’s body
8. Lack of sleep and rest
9. Problems of cleanliness and other problems
during menstruation
10. Lack of nutrition and care during pregnancy
and child birth
11. Lack of sanitation and water facilities
We discussed in the group the reasons for all this.
Some participants again came up with their own analysis
- a woman accepts the superiority of man and inflicts
all this on herself:
—
—
—
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Woman is woman's enemy
Inequality between men and women
Social pressure and tradition
Economic inequality
Lack of education, etc.
There was a long discussion on all these issues.
Women shared all that they suffer due to existing taboos.
practices and beliefs and how they themselves have little
understanding of their own body functions. The whole
concept of purity and impurity affects women and their
health immensely. She is treated as dirty and therefore,
untouchable physically and socially during menstruation,
childbirth, etc.
The other issue that was discussed and debated
was family planning. We with a socialist feminist
perspective sharedour own view on this. Participants
talked of general lack of choice to control their fertility
and lack of information on contraceptives/ How increase
in poverty and unemployment affects the issue of birth
control. One woman said. "When it’s a question of
buying food, clothing, education, etc., then I feel I should
have only two or three children but when we work
on the field. I feel if I had many grown up children,
we would have earned better".
The afternoon session began with the presentation
of Phad (a traditional form of story - telling through
unrolling of a long cloth with different panels on it)
which was part of an exhibition prepared by slum level
health activists of a health programme where many of
us are 'working. It was presented in a docu-drama form.
The theme of the exhibition was "Birth of a Female
Child". Participants responded very positively to this form
of communication and felt that they could use this
effectively in their own area. There was also a discussion
on the content of the Phad. Participants shared different
practices that are still prevalent whereby a female child
is killed by either filling salt in her mouth or tobacco,
etc. It is common experience that the female child is
discriminated against from birth.
In the evening till late night, the group sat together
discussing natural birth control methods by which women
themselves can control their fertility. A majority of the
participants did not know anything about the fertile and
unfertile days of the menstrual cycle and in an intimate
session, we tried to understand our own bodies. It was
clear that many of us needed more information on
different aspects of our physiology and changes that our
body goes through. We also shared information on NETEN (an injectable contraceptive under trial in India)
campaign that some women’s groups have launched at
the national level.
Women And Work
In this session, we wanted to understand women’s
own perception of their work through eliciting their
contribution to the family and the production system.
Our aim was to build some socio-economic concepts
which would substantiate our understanding of the
subordinate status of the woman at all levels in our
caste and class divided society.
—
Domestic work has no value.
—
—
Women’s work is invisible, unseen.
Women’s work is not included in the G.N.P.
We started with a short impromptu skit - "My
wife does not work", in which the husband clearly did
not consider his wife’s endless drudgery within the house
from dawn to late in the night, as "work".
On the 24-hour clock we began the mral woman's
day at 4 a.m., and hour by hour moved round the
clock cooking, cleaning, collecting fuel, and water, toiling
in the field, tending animals and gathering fodder, care
of husband, children and other family members .. "Aural
ki bhi kabhi chootti hoti hai" ? The woman who stepped
out to earn a living carried a triple burden in fulfilling
her role and responsibilities as a producer and reproducer
in production and reproduction.
To illustrate the value of each of these tasks we
calculated how much each of these, services ’ cost when
acquired outside the home. If this unseen task force
of domestic slaves (work without wages) went on strike
would life come to a standstill ?
Having made the distinction between paid and unpaid
labour, we gathered the perceptions which clearly indicated
that acceptance of the woman’s role in the domestic
sphere had been deeply ingrained in her concept of herself
vis a vis her family. Her self image, her self worth,
was measured in terms of being a good wife, a good
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mother which meant giving selfless service with love.
This value system was further extended to the nurturing
services in the occupations that were respectable and
open to women - teacher, anganwadi worker, nurse,
secretary, etc. In the poster-making session one of the
participants graphically depicted her desire to be a good
social worker and gain the respect and high regard of
her husband and his family, and become an active and
useful member of her community by helping other less
fortunate women. However, the women were well aware'
of the triple burden they carried, they had articulated
it on the first day. in their answer to the question
- what/how do you feel when the sun goes down and
the day is coming to an end ? Fatigue, and the anticipation
of sleep was the unanimous response with the exception
of a few women. Though the women did riot calculate
the "value" of their labour in terms of money, they saw
it as a form of exchange. They got shelter, food, clothing
and social security in return for their services, they also
saw it being conditional to their fulfilling their role,
and not as a right of being a woman.
What do we want as a role model ? What kind
of life and work do we want for- the new women ?
What kind of life do we want for our daughters ?
The workshop was an exercise in thinking the impossible,
a time and space for dreams and desires in our vision
of the future.
Man’s Work, Woman’s Work
The division of labour between the woman and
the man in the domestic sphere defines their role and
status in our society, by the “value" attached to the
kind of work done by men and women. These "values"
and norms had evolved and in the process of socialization
and have become a part of our psyche as "man’s hature",
and "women’s nature". Specific skills and abilities are
attributed. Men are strong, brave, superior in mind and
body to women who are weak, helpless, gentle and
loving, long-suffering and submissive. Not just different,
but unequal. Why should child -bearing and rearing not
be seen as work? Or have less value? How is giving
birth less strong, less brave than going hunting, or going
to war ?
And why should the bearing and rearing of children
be the woman’s responsibility primarily, when preservation
and propagation of the species was being ensured in
the continuity of the family in the father’s name ? Our
conclusion was inevitable - this was a man-made world,
made by men for men. and women and their labour,
and the fruits of women’s labour was owned and
controlled by men. obviously in their own interest. We
are talking about and recognizing patriarchy.
Paid Work, Employment, Wage Work,
Piece Rate Work, Family Labour
We moved on to the area of paid work. First we
listed all the occupations that the participants knew of.
particular to their own regions in which women were
involved. These ranged from piece rate work like beedi
making, to agricultural work, to services, to blue collar
jobs.
After a brief tea-break, the participants were asked
to write one sentence about the "farmer’’. Each one
read aloud her sentence. Without exception everyone
had written about the farmer as a man. although we
ourselves had just listed women’s contribution to
agriculture!
Discussion followed. What kind of wages did women
get in agricultural labour ? Did women earn less because
they did different tasks ? Were women paid less than
men for the same tasks ? Where women’s wages had
increased had they organised to demand higher wages ?
In our culture why were women not allowed to
use the plough ? In certain parts of Africa women did
the ploughing of the fields, and owned the land they
cultivated. In paddy transplantation’ it was almost always
women who did the back bending job standing in ankle
deep water. We identified the woman’s tasks in
agriculture, and the man’s tasks. We compared the wages
of male and female workers, we found variations in
wages from region to region. In some areas the
remuneration was still made in grain, usually cheap grain.
In some areas money was paid, plus the morning and
the mid-day meal. On an average men were paid
Rs. 10/- to Rs. 12/-. while women got Rs. 5/- to Rs. 7/- only.
Family Labour
The woman prepared the potters clay, the man
created the vessels. The women spun the yam. the men
did the weaving. In the cottage industry sector, men
and women took on specific roles, the women usually
doing the less skilled and often the more laborious work.
And. in the final stage, the sale of the produce,
it was the man who sold the produce in the market
and thereby controlled the money. The woman’s labour
is not costed separately, and remains unseen. Her
contribution to the economy is not just undervalued.
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but until recently, almost non-existent.
The struggle of the women's movement is to gain
recognition and equal value for women’s work - EQUAL
WAGES FOR EQUAL WORK.
Questioning The Concept
Men and women did not get paid equal wages.
Women and children were cheap labour. Their earnings
were considered supplementary to the household income,
why ?
Discussion : The man was the head of the household,
the bread earner. Though the man was looked upon
as the main bread earner, in practice men spent a
considerable portion of their income on drinking, smoking,
gambling and other extravagances. Often the man did
not contribute to the household expenses, leaving the
woman to fend for herself and her children, and
sometimes even the husband. The women said that a
woman did- not consider her earnings as her own. She
gave the money to her husband or her mother-in-law.
One participant said she had not been allowed to keep
even half her salary, and the fact that she had asked
for it had led to a lot of bitterness. She was called
selfish and not respectful of her elders.
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Often the woman's entire earnings go into the
household, for basic and essential needs. So we know
that the concept of the supplementary wage is a way
of providing cheap female labour to this production
system.
Women-Headed Households
Statistics show that 12 percent to 30 percent of
households are single parent, women headed households,
both among the mral population and migrants to the
urban area. Yet our society, and the government does
not recognize the woman as a worker, a producer, a
breadeamer.
Cheap Labour
Multinationals come to the Third World to exploit
the cheap labour of women. Industry "puts out" work
to the women outside the factory to avoid employment
benefits, especially maternity and child care facilities to
cut down labour costs, and increase their profits. The
government gives men and women equal wages, because
our Constitution guarantees it. but women inevitably work
at the lowest rung of the ladder.
In the construction industry women do not do the
skilled jobs. Masonry, carpentry, electrical work are skilled
jobs reserved for men. Women remain in the large army
of the unskilled labour force, the load earners,
stone-breakers.
The purpose of our discussion was to get an overview
of the situation of women at work. How employers
look upon women’s labour, how her own family look
upon her labour, how the society looks upon her labour.
In the context of what had been discussed in. the
morning's session, a framework had been attempted within
the parameters of which we wanted to look at the
income generation projects undertaken by the groups
present.
Eliciting the details from each group took the entire
afternoon.
In discussing and commenting on the schemes, their
rationale, problems in implementation, etc., several of
our own attitudes to work which we had unconsciously
absorbed from society came to the front. For example,
that men are better at work that is more physically
demanding, sewing machines are an appropriate tool for
women’s economic self-sufficiency, etc. Would we, having
understood better the issue of women and work, look
at our own schemes differently ?
It was not easy to assess how much of the concepts
was grasped by the participants, or would be applied
to their real life situation. We can only say that we
tried to use a deductive method in drawing from their
lives and their own reality, from a concrete situation
in developing an abstract theory or building a concept.
We have, in seeking the material basis for women’s
subordination, been looking at women’s work in a way
that is concerned about women.
Communication/Poster-Making
Every now and again my mind returns to the
Sevapuri workshop All of us - each one of us: each
special, each different. It seems as if in that short space
of time I had got to know at least a little, to understand
so many women - not just their names or what work
they did. but a little of what they were as women.
Not the same stereotyped images that we all present
to strangers but some of the pain, the fears, the
contradictions each of us lives with.
Perhaps that is what was so special about Sevapuri
- that there were no "readymades” - whether in terms
of ourselves, the issues we were working with, the skills
we wanted to leam. Looking at the photographs. I
remember talking about the hesitation I had felt when
learning to use a camera, the hesitation I sometimes
still feel - how I had to’ fight the tendency in myself
to say "I can't do it - let someone else” (more skilled,
more confident, usually a man) do it. and how each
one of us had said that while they had used posters,
exhibitions in their work, they themselves did not know
how to make them, could not draw, could not paint
- that someone else, some talented person in the
organisation, some artist had always made the posters.
Madhuri’s hand - a few centimeters above the clean
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white sheet, making small circular movements in the
air. “How to put the point of the pencil on that clean
sheet. I will spoil the paper, I won’t be able to make
anything, I don't knpw how to draw a straight line
- she won’t even let us use a ruler" - who knows
how many years of fear lay in the gap between the
point of the pencil and the paper. And then later that
very day in the evening - this poster !
But I am going ahead too quickly. How did we
begin thinking about, talking about communication ? In
a sense, although we spent 2 1/2 days specifically talking
about communication and exploring our own poster
making skills, communication was a thread which wove
through from the' very first day of the workshop to
the very end. The “games" and exercises, the songs,
the sharing of experiences - but let me come back to
the session. We began that day by talking about our
own experiences with using different communication forms
- what kinds of media, who had developed them and
in what contexts we had used them.
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Almost all of us had used theatre, songs and posters
in our work. Whether a play made by school children
on alcoholism, a 'Nukkad Natak' on problems of caste,
superstition, or on the need for organisation, we had
all explored this medium ourselves. While some of us
had been more involved in working with a group of
children or women to develop a play and had not actually
taken part ourselves, others had acted in plays. There
was an interesting use of theatre. Priyamvada told us
about where in the middle of a mela, a large pit was
dug into which she went - asking for help to come
out as a play on the need for cooperation.
Mahila Melas, Shibirs, meetings and especially
interestingly, traditional festivals such as Kartik Pumima
were usually where we had performed plays, sang songs
and put up posters. Although one or two women came
from groups which had printed and distributed posters,
most of us used hand made posters usually to aid
discussion in a shibir, or as an exhibition. Who made
these posters ? Almost unanimously each one of US
said that we could not/did not know how to make
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posters and that either another activist from the group
(often male) who was specially gifted, or an ‘artist’ would
make the posters.
Very different was Shiva Kashyap - a Madhubani
painter who lived by her art and had worked on themes
such as pollution, environment, as well as images of
women from mythology such as Draupadi, Sita and Durga.
Parvati from Delhi had leamt to make her own posters
and worked with a scroll like from - Phad - which used
a mixture of song, theatre and drama, to communicate.
Only two of us had used audio-visual material, i.e.. slides
and films. Some of us also talked about forms such
as speeches, padyatras and parchis.
Having talked about the media we ourselves use.
we went on to talk about the media around us - the
different ways in which we received information in
society. Having listed the different media, we went
through each form asking three questions
—
—
—
Who owns it ?
Who controls it ?
How does this influence the messages or
information we receive ?
As we collectively, answered these three questions
in relation to each of the media, it became clear that
by and large all these forms of communication were
owned/controlled either directly or indirectly by the
government or industrialists/capitalists i.e.. those with
money, and that these were most often male, upper
caste and upper class. Even forms like meetings and
baithaks which do not seem to be ‘owned’ by anybody
could easily be controlled by the same dominating forces.
I
This control over media had a major influence on
the content of the messages we receive. The controlling
interest presents only the information which suits them,
their own views and perspective on reality. The voices
of the poor and the oppressed, the voice of women
could not be heard. Although there were enlightened
or progressive journalists who attempted to bring out
certain issues, they too were constrained by the vested
interest which controlled their newspapers. Even when
issues of concern to the poor or women were taken
up. the entire situation or actuality was never presented.
This analysis emerged from each one of us saying what
we felt and discussing with each other our different
perceptions. We then listed the different images of women
presented in the media by going round the circle, with
each woman adding to the growing list on the chart.
Woman as defined only by her body - woman as
dependent on men. having no importance or intelligence
of her own. woman as a sacrificing mother, housewife,
woman as anti-other women, etc. Having listed these
images, we began to connect these with images that
exist in society about women - especially images projected
111
by the family and religion which we as women had
internalized.
We began to make another- list, this time
summarizing essential attributes that we as women were
supposed to have and discussed how we ourselves felt
in relation to these images. As we looked at the list
we had made, we felt that we did identify, and positively,
with some of the images there - for example, the image
of the Devi, the image of the mother and maternal
love - but that there were contradictions between the
images we were expected to relate to - that we were
somehow caught in trying to satisfy multiple images
- of woman as having special power, strength and
creativity but simultaneously being subservient, dependent
and defined only through her body and her relationships
with men (wife, daughter, mother).
What were the aspects of our life and experience
that did not find any representation in these images?
What elements of these existing images did we identify
with and wanted to appropriate in a positive way ?
What would constitute an image which we could call
our own - how do we create alternative images ?
112
-These questions went beyond objectively analysing
the mass media - they took us once again back to
ourselves, to our own definition of our identities, to
who we are as women and from that to a desire to
try and create our own images - to step out of the
silence in which we have remained and begin to explore
ways of expressing ourselves, of saying what the dominant
media cannot and will not say.
We divided into smaller groups of approximately
6-7 women each. First, we talked with each other as
to what we wanted to say through our poster - what
issue concerned us. Having reached some shared
understanding of this, each one of the group drew on
a small sheet of paper as to how she would like to
present the idea.
The first • step towards using pencil and paper towards thinking in visual terms.
“Oh. in our group you are the only one who can
draw - we will give the ideas, you draw”
“No - sorry - not allowed”. I became a school teacher
- the rules were clear. Every woman had to make her
own sketch - however poor or foolish she may think
it to be.
“But. how ?“
“I don’t know ■ you do - let's think it out together
- let’s try - it’s only paper - there is more if this one
gets spoilt". Cajoling, sometimes scolding, te.asing,
discussing, laughing at ourselves we all made the initial
sketch.
"Now, let’s look at these sketches - I don’t know
the issue you have in your mind - I can only tell you
what I see in front of me - What does an activist
do when you take away her words - when she is
confronted by a new language which has its own logic,
own grammar, own method. Slowly, slowly, by looking
at our own drawing, at posters put up on the walls,
thinking about what we wanted to say, we began to
get involved in this new language."
“I want to show that this man oppresses his wife
by beating her - well, of course I should draw him
larger than her - otherwise she looks stronger - I want
to share my vision of the future - of a time when
men and women are equal - I will use a weighing
scale as a symbol."
Now the larger sheet - full poster size papers colour - questions of visibility, detail, the meanings of
colour, the boldness of an image - the immediacy of
communication - all the tools of the graphic designer.
It’s 6 0’ clock, it’s 7 0’ dock, it’s time for dinner,
it’s after dinner, it’s the next morning the session must
start - "Just a minute. I am still finishing the hand
- it’s too small, I am making it bigger" Suddenly the
room is transformed. On two clotheslines 15 ft. each,
we have one by one hung the posters we have made.
So many ! But each group was to make only one or
two finally - but then we made more - "I made the
group one and then made one in my own - see - what
does it say to you?" The excitement, the pleasure,
the pride - and the sheer delight in being able to say
"I did it - I drew. I coloured. I thought it out"
i
We then, sat together and presented each poster
to the whole group - reactions, comments, a lot of
laughter, embanassment. But, as we went on, we realized
how good really each of our posters was. How each
communicated clearly - irrespective of how "well drawn"
or not it was,. We then began to think about the different
ways in which our posters communicated. There seemed
to be broadly three kinds - one kind which made a
statement, one which was like a prop or a tool for
telling a story, one which provoked questions and
discussion.
In what situations, for what purposes would we
use which kind of poster ? What kind of relationship
do we wish to establish with the women we were
communicating with ? If we were interested in changing
consciousness, would not the most relevant communication
be one which led to dialogue, to discussion, to question
ing ? In looking at our own work, analysing it as
well as analysing other posters around us, we developed
an understanding of how our communication needed
to be different from the one-way communication of
the mass media which we had criticized, and how
113
often we ourselves, because of the way we perceive
our role and our relationship with those we are
working with, can establish different kinds of situations
- how we needed to consciously work towards a more
participatory, dialogic kind of communication.
But then that perennial question - would these
posters work in our villages ? Would non-literate women
understand them ? And the only genuine answer - that
it depends on what kind of relationship you create with
them, how you use the poster, how you involve the
women. That it is not a problem of techniques, that
there are no packaged solutions to what will work and
what will not. All that can guide you is the unwavering
belief that if you speak from the heart, if your own
experience informs your communication, then only can
you enter the experience of another and begin a genuine
exchange. Whatever medium you use. whatever your
level of skill
communication is about creating
relationships and true communication is an exchange
riot a delivering of messages.
Women And Law
114
We started the session by presenting the case of
Sudha Goel (who was murdered for dowry) without
disclosing the judgements of the different courts of the
case. The group then was divided into two and one
woman was made the Judge. We did a mock trial of
the case and listened to the arguments of the boy’s
side and the girl’s side. An interesting scene developed
where the girl’s side argued on behalf of the girl, citing
examples of harassment and injustices done to her;
referring to her social reality and silences that get built
around her; how she finds no space in the family or
society for expression or articulation of her rights and
needs and is forced to live under the most inhuman
circumstances. After this exercise, we shared the actual
judgements of all the three courts in this case which
were different at every level.
For us the case was just a starting point to
understand some basic questions - what is the legal
structure? What is the basis of our legal system, what
role does the legal system play in maintaining the present
economic and political system? What we tried to do
together was to explore our perception and understanding
of the legal system as it operates in our country.
With different examples of alienation of tribal lands
and forests from people, appropriation of land for mining,
dams, etc., we tried to understand the whole concept
of what is just and unjust. How systematic introduction
of various legislation has deprived people of their means
of production but it is not considered a crime. When
we defined what is theft, we also tried to see why
a contractor/landlord who does not pay minimum wages
is not considered a thief, while in reality he is stealing
from people their share of hard earned wages.
Similarly, we tried to see what is legal and illegal.
At the time of the nationalization of mines, many mines
were closed down and workers were retrenched but again
depriving people of their livelihood is not considered
a crime either. It slowly started becoming clear that
the law primarily protects people who own means of
production. Labourers, tribals, Dalits and women, i.e..
the larger section of the population seldom benefit by
laws and different legal provisions.
But then, we do have the Minimum Wages Act,
the Bonded Labour Act, Rape Bill. etc. But by investigating
history, we realise that these Acts have come into
existence after long struggle by workers/women and other
oppressed groups not only in this country but in other
countries. However, even these provide minimum
protection. People had to struggle to get even the right
to drinking water. The inmates of a home for destitute
women had to go to the Supreme Court - the highest
court of the country - to get a piece of two yards
of cloth for use during menstruation.
Through this process, it became clear to us that
the law primarily protects the interest of the rich. Our
experiences of the poor fighting for their rights were
full of endless, tiring legal trials taking us nowhere.
Even if the laws existed, it is an impossible task to
see them implemented. In none of the areas where
participants worked, agricultural labourers were paid
minimum wages and nowhere were women paid equal
wages.
When we came to probe into the whole issue of
women and their legal rights, we divided them into
two section: Laws within the family, and Laws outside
the family.
Laws Within The Family
Inside the family, the right to personal liberty is
violated by very "private" people, i.e., parents, husbands,
in-laws. While the Constitution guarantees every citizen
the fundamental right of freedom of speech and
movement, a woman most often cannot exercise these
rights. Participants substantiated this by narrating how
women are kept in Purdah and are not allowed to move
around freely. Women talked in detail about various
ailments they suffer from because after day break they
can’t go into the open to defecate. Different instances
of dowry harassment, wife beating, desertion, sexual
assault were narrated by participants. The questions that
ultimately confronted us was - how far we can use
legal systems to fight for our rights? Basically there are
very few laws to protect women. The basis of our family
laws are the religious scriptures which believe in
subordination of a woman and reinforces her secondary
115
position in the family and society.
Laws Outside The Family
We discussed at length as to ht)w only fighting
legal cases will not/cannot take us too far. Legal battles
can be just part of our attempt to change the overall
stmcture and injustices built in the system. Certain issues,
e.g.. a dowry case in the case of Sevapuri Women’s
group, helped them to articulate the .issue of violence
against women in the family and also built lot of support
among women in the villages around. Even women in
Purdah could identify with the issue. Thus, legal battles
can strengthen the ongoing work and be a forum of
public activity. Fighting a case therefore is not an end
in itself but a means for raising consciousness and
therefore has a demonstrative value.
116
Participants narrated at length cases of sexual assault,
desertion, domestic violence, etc., in their respective areas.
In many cases it was not possible to start a legal fight
due to lack of control over her own life, lack of evidence,
or willingness on the part of women to fight; the
expenses involved; and not the least, the lack of
knowledge and information on the legal aspects of -the
problems. Women also face the problem of finding
sympathetic lawyers in rural areas. At this point, we
discussed at length the repercussions of fighting legal
cases for women. The question that was posed was
simple - what will we do when a woman comes for
help ? Supporting a woman in a crisis means giving
a lot of oneself. We shared our experiences of working
in a crisis centre. In the context of rural areas, where
there is a stronghold of social norms and practices and
there is no infrastructure, women’s groups have to be
very clear and strong.
We also discussed the issue of demystification of
law and the need for us to get more and more acquainted
with the various sections and bills affecting agricultural
workers. Dalits, women and other oppressed groups.
Participants were keen to have this kind of information
and understand this for their work. This meant going
into the details of each and every relevant section. In
response to this, we have sent all the participants copies
of simplified pamphlets on laws related to Minimum
Wages. Release of Bonded Labour. Rape Bill. We also
hope to be able to hold short workshops on some of
the issues arising out of this workshop. It demands a
different kind of preparedness and commitment.
Theatre Work
When we began the theatre work, some basic work
with voice, meanings of expression and use of the body
had already been done. The sharing, discussing, questioning
we had done collectively, and individually, had prepared
us in a different way.
Now the time had come to probe deeper into our
own psyche, to work with the inner mind. For this,
a true feeling of trust and togetherness is essential. Our
minds needed to be jointly focussed and all the physical
energy of the body needed to be used up. so that
the mind can become quiet, concentrate and begin to
make associations.
t
c
In the morning we had played a vigorous game.
Then we began the session by exercising our voices.
Eyes closed.' all of us making a simple sound. If one
changed the pitch, all of us followed suit - if another
dropped to a hum. all hummed. Then for quite a long
time we concentrated on making a continuous sound
through our noses in a lying down position which then
slowly faded. The room was darkened, we felt very
closely connected to each other and quiet and receptive.
When each person's attention was centred, we began
the exercise we call the ‘Poem’. One person begins to
speak, recite, weave words together to create images,
associations which helps one to get in touch with one’s
feelings: As the voice continues, you are free to do
anything with your body. Move your body in any way
as long as it is silent. Or you can choose to lie completely
still. The associations, the images began to open.
Memories, dreams, our broken forgotten hopes, our joys,
our sorrows begin to tumble out without fear or hesitation
- in this lies relief, in this lies creativity. Each one of
us went deep into ourselves - there was no space for
superficiality - each word, each pause, each silence seemed
to physically touch.
Slowly, slowly the voice faded away, and after a
time we began to get up - some withdrawn, some crying
- some still completely absorbed.
And we talked about what we had felt - shared
our experience of the exercise.
All this prepared the ground for us to begin work
on developing the plays. Alongwith exploring ourselves,
we had been getting familiar with and practicing different
skills essential for theatre. Learning to express ourselves
through voice, gestures, emotions. This gave us a sense
of confidence and empowerment - a sense of freedom
amongst us and a desire to communicate. We did another
exercise - as women what are we afraid of. Each had
to write it on a piece of paper, without her name.
rold it and put it in a box. We divided the different
ears that came into the box into three kinds
Fear of Society and Family
Fear of Men
Fear of Loneliness
We then formed groups of 6-7 women around each
of these issues. Each group then made a small play
oh the theme - one group made a song. Each group
chose and developed its own way of presenting their
117
i
issue. Some used more abstract means, using very few
words and gestures and body movements, some were
more narrative in nature. Each had the intensity of a
felt experience rather than the rhetoric of an 'issue’.
In our discussion after presenting our plays to each
other, several basic points emerged. The need to be
clear about :
1
Who you are making a play for before actually
developing it - for ourselves, for society, for
women only, etc.
2.
Where you will perform - in the city, the village,
on the street or inside an angan (courtyard).
These decisions depend on our objective—if
we wish to initiate a discussion among women,
something created for the angan would be more
appropriate. If we wish to raise an issue at
a general level, do propaganda, then street comer
skits are most appropriate.
We also talked about theatre as having very special
qualities as a form of communication. That it requires
118
nothing except your own self body, voice and mind,
that it can create a very direct way of communication
and relationship. We all shared how this small experience
of making and presenting our own play had given us
the confidence that we could work with theatre in our
own situations. Each one of us had realised that working
with any medium is not a question only of skills,
techniques or talent. We all had understood that if we
ourselves believe in and have explored through our own
consciousness the issue we ■ wish to rriake a play on
- whether for raising discussion or spreading awareness
- we would be able to do it.
For. only after having entered our own minds with
all the pain and vulnerability that it entails, could we
enter into another, and thereby communicate. There can
be no conclusion to the beginning of a process which
will continue, for each one of us, in our own lives,
in our own work situation. As Kalpana said, "All of
you have opened the book of my life from the reverse
side—I didn’t even know that these pages existed”.
>
Appendix
Day 1
Introducing Ourselves and Getting to
Know Each Other
Introducing ourselves, exploring
ourselves and each other, connecting
with each other as women through
a series of games and exercises,
using talking, voice, body and play.
Day 2
Women, Family & Society
Where do we as women belong
in family - in society ? Who
defines our role ? What is the
relationship between Individual,
Family & Society.
Day 3
Women and Health
Common needs of the poor in mral
and urban areas. How far facilities and
services exist ? Special health
problems of women. Our perspective
on birth control.
Showing of Phad ( a health
exhibition)
t
Day 4
Women and Work
Double burden. Range of work and
women’s participation in production
process. Work and wages. Action
and strategies for .income generation
by different groups
Day 5
Communication/Poster - Making
What forms of communication
groups have been using ? What is
Communication ? Different media
forms. Control of media - in whose
hands ? Dominant images of women.
Images that we could create.
Developing themes for poster making
and poster making in small groups.
119
Day 6
Looking at and critiquing our posters.
Different forms and the kind of
communication relationship that we
establish with people.
Afternoon
Women and Law
Law for whom? What is legal system ?
Who makes laws ? How law
works in reality ?
Definition of right and wrong.
Justice and injustice.
Laws within the family
Laws outside the family
Laws and people’s action.
Theatre Work
Sound work and exercises. Creating
memory lane individually and
collectively. Group formation and
identification of themes for preparing
skits.
Preparation of 3 plays and one
song.
Day 8
Evaluation
Mornings
Body exercises, voice training and
learning cycling.
Evenings
Showing slide shows, films, plays,
shows, etc. Display of material
brought by groups.
Daily:
120
Day 7
I
ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDIES
Q,9p
C^t)
f
Several new insights have been drawn out from
the case-study presentations. Though each training effort
has been unique and distinct in its approach, yet there
is a common thread which has emerged - one of the
most significant questions which was raised during the
analysis was. “How do poor women who have never
been through any formal system of learning learn to
learn”? It is also evident that a major attempt made
by the groups has been to break out of the established
patriarchal norms, empower women to individually and
collectively address their realities and develop an
alternative vision based on women’s first-hand experiences.
The collation of experiences of the women trainers
revolved around four major aspects-.
3)
What are the learning processes of poor women?
b)
How should the realities and specific concerns
of women be reflected in the design, content
planning, choice of methods, strategy and follow
up of every training ?
C)
What are the various issues that trainers should
be sensitive to and the roles they should play
in the process of training women’s groups ?
d)
What are the structural support systems that
need to be built into a training programme
with women ?
I
In discussions on the above, key principles were
crystallized, a number of questions were raised, some
of which we were able to answer, others we reflected
upon, while still others remained .for self-examination
and further critical reflection.
The following is a brief summary of the discussions,
along with highlights from the different case studies
to elaborate upon some of the key concepts that have
emerged.
A. Learning Processes Of Women
Starting with the premise that women leam
differently from men, since women’s reality is quite
different, considerable time was spent in understanding
123
what are some of those unique learning processes which
characterize women’s learning, what are some of the
anxieties that impede women’s learning, what would
be an ideal pace of learning for women, does a model
of learning emerge from our discussions and analysis,
et al.
In light of the above, it also needs to be seen
then what are the implications on the role, skills and
the person of a trainer, in this context. What mechanisms
should the trainer adopt such that would best facilitate
the learning of women ?
124
“What will these women learn ?” is a common
refrain from the men in the villages.
They have anxieties about coming into an.
unfamiliar situation ...“What will be the end
result of this training ?“
Poor women when attending any 'training'
situation would naturally bring with them
tremendous anxieties. They have anxieties
related to their homes, family, children; they
have to leave behind their major responsibilities
for a period of time when they attend any
training programme. “Who will look after my
children, have they had food ? Have the goats
been taken care of ?” etc.
Thus women come to any new learning situation
with layers of anxieties. This affects their
involvement, concentration, attention-span,
personal hopes and desires. At times these
anxieties manifest themselves by women
becoming withdrawn, upset, tense, hyperactive,
listless etc. during the training. It must, however, be
mentioned that, these anxieties that women face
are an integral part of their daily lives and therefore,
prior to any formal structured learning process,
every trainer should address herself/himself to
the personal issues of every woman learner.
They bring anxieties related to the ridicule and
contempt that their husbands and other
influential members of the family and
community have put them through. “My two
Every participant observed in the workshop that
women begin to open up by talking about their
personal problems - an event, a crisis, a child’s
sickness, etc.
These are some of the dimensions highlighted in the
Case studies:
1.
divorced daughters have brought enough shame
to the family; I don’t want them wandering
here and there attending the training”, said one
father in a slum settlement.
9
♦
4
Providing space, time and a relaxed, supportive
atmosphere for the women learners becomes
very essential during any training programme.
Listening to them, reassuring, accepting,
acknowledging them, helps them to relax and
loosen up. During the sharing process, women
realize that they are not alone in their sufferings,
others too have similar experiences. At times
trainers have also shared some of their personal
problems as women with the group members.
This helps bring the group closer to each other,
learn from each other, and provides a sense
of collectivity. Women gradually learn to
emotionally distance themselves from their own
problems and become involved in the larger
groups' problems and issues. Use of songs, dance,
drama helps them to loosen -up and make them
feel relaxed.
an atmosphere that values women, values their
labour which to the larger world is invisible,
respects them, allows them to discover their
potentials without fear of being rejected or
ridiculed or evaluated. This exploration leads
to women building up alternative images of
themselves and slowly developing a sense of
confidence. This can be done through songs,
dance and drama. The JAGORI case study amply
illustrates how they have helped women explore
their 'real' selves through discussions, role plays,
docu-drama etc. The PRAYAS case study too has
highlighted how the existing images of women
were juxtaposed with the real images of women
and how the group validated their own
understanding of women's images in society
and rejected the existing stereotyped ones.
Also, at the outset itself, many women learners
are unsure and anxious about their own ability
to learn - this is based on their own low selfesteem and the messages that the world has
been constantly thrusting onto them - stupid,
dumb, ignorant, powerless, etc. “What can I learn
now? I am stupid and ignorant; I have never
been to school”.
This process of exploring and reflecting upon
the self helps in a personal search of identity,
helps women move towards developing
self-directed and self-supportive learning
systems.
It becomes important to build into the training
However, it must be emphasized here that a
Training programmes can provide opportunities
for women learners to move from feelings of
worthlessness to self-defined feelings of worth.
125
sharing process demands a lot from the trainers
and resource persons. If they were to look at
the sharing process as a waste of time, or 'it’s
the women’s problems alone’, it will definitely
impinge upon women's learning and involvement
in the process. It demands from the trainer
a greater investment in the lives of the women
learners - at times they may have to pay home
visits or find some alternative support systems,
whatever the case may be.
Besides, such a process has implications on
specified content coverage for the day. There
may be times when the planned session may
have to be left aside and dealt with on another
day.
126
at the outset of any training programme.
2.
It was observed by some participants that poor
women also tend to exhibit a diffused focus
of learning in semi-stmctured environments.
During sessions, it was observed that women
tend to be cyclical in their thinking and go around
('gol-gol) the issue being discussed by punctuating
it with personal concerns, experiences, stories,
ansedotes and other seemingly unrelated issue.
One of the participants from SPARC recalled how
a woman learner had retorted during a learning
programme:
Moreover, the sharing process should not outlive
the objectives of learning and end up with
no learning having taken place ultimately in
the group.
“How can I think straight when my life is
not straight. Even as I sit here in a training,
at the back of my mind I worry about my
husband, the children, whether the food is being
cooked, the water collected, and so on - my
life is one big circle and that’s how I think “gol-gol''.
Such a process illustrates the personal dimension
of learning of women starting from the self,
and validating the self for women learners. It
was also discussed that this sharing process is
quite different for a group of male learners,
since men do not feel free or comfortable to
talk about their personal problems in a group
In other words, what it reflects is that these
are but simulations of the multi-dimensional and
complex reality of women, and they have
difficulties in maintaining a linear boundary for
discussions. As trainers we need to recognize
this aspect of women’s learning. We need to
emotionally relate to women, and be able to
♦
manage the spread-out agenda by extricating
and systematizing women’s experiences in the
process helping them articulate and conceptualize
beyond their emotional reactions and bringing
them back again to the learning focus. It was
also mentioned that women tend to
communicate indirectly at times, they mumble-,
they whisper to their neighbours - since they
are used to talking indirectly with their husbands
and in-laws etc. As trainers we need to cue
in to their communications process and bring
it into the focus of the discussions. Experience
of the participants said that women learners
appreciated being brought ‘back to track’, when
a diversion takes place in their learning process.
It was emphatically mentioned that the above
does not imply that poor women cannot think
straight. Within their multi-dimensional approach
to life, there exists a very clear and concrete
system of thinking and action. And it is to
this thinking as trainers that we should tune
ourselves to.
However, it was also felt that after women
do get exposed to a series of training situations
the diffused focus may diminish, but it will
always be there.
3.
It is also appropriate to highlight at this stage
the affective dimension of women’s learning.
Women's emotional needs are strong, they are
very caring, nurturing and are able to get into
an experience and out of it rather quickly.
Participants at the workshop used phrases like,
“women operate better at the feelings level";
‘gut-level’ learning; intuitive learning et al. to
describe this aspect. On the other hand, men
cannot cope with emotional content as openly
or legitimately as women.
4.
Another important facet of women's learning
process is that women like to perceive every
issue in a holistic, concrete framework - ‘a micro
macro context’. They prefer to talk about
concrete issues that are related to their daily
lives; children’s health; survival economy etc.
They ask questions, they try to see and forge
links. How is health related to poverty ? How
is alcoholism responsible for growing misery?
Why do men want to control us ?
i
Every case study vibrantly highlights this aspect.
The discussions on health in the ‘Training FieldLevel Women Activists by PRAYAS, looked at
the exploitative structure of the government
health services and linked it to the kind of
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their consciousness to move beyond the self
to the larger collective in order to make the
connections that would effect a universal social
change. Thus their perspective encompasses the
holistic nature of their lives.
5.
struggle that women have to wage for staying
healthy and developing an alternative health
system. They then looked at the socialization
processes of young girls and how they became
victims of adverse social attitudes.
Likewise with other trainings, ultimately the
discussion boils down to the genesis and nature
of oppression of women and helps them
discover and analyse the reality of this
oppression.
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Women play a critical role in every sphere of
social and economic life, as members of society,
as workers, as mothers, as daughters, as
educators, and it is this process that has enabled
As all adults, women also possess a vast
untapped body of experiential knowledge.
Historically, women’s popular knowledge has
been given very little or no recognition in the
larger society. Over centuries, the popular
knowledge of the oppressed groups has been
denied and unrecognised by the producers and
disseminators of the dominant knowledge
system. Dominant knowledge has . been
institutionalised by the control over means and
forms of production of knowledge, as in the
academic institutes of higher learning, and has
been considered the domain of the elite. Thus
over a period of time, the poor and the
oppressed have lost a sense of value and faith
in their own knowledge systems and life
experiences, and have succumbed to the
dominant control which tells them that they
know nothing.
Thus the popular education movement and
Participatory Research seeks to help the poor
and the oppressed groups to articulate knowledge
from their own perspective and experience and
use what is relevant to their daily lives and
living.
In the Housing Training of SPARC, women used
traditional forms of measurements by using their
sarees and mangalsutras to arrive at length
and breadth of a room for building their houses.
However, oral forms of knowledge which are
generally vested with the male members of the
family get disseminated at their social and
legitimate fomms (meetings, chatting-sessions,
socialization of young boys. etc.).
In the JAGOR1 case study too. women recalled
old folk lores and tales related to women and
then analysed them.
In this process, women’s oral knowledge and
perspective has been even more denied and
peripheralised. It is this articulation of women’s
reality and experiences within their social
contexts and demystification of women’s perspec
tives of themselves and society, that needs to get
its due place and recognition in the larger body of
traditional, popular and experiential knowledge of
the poor and oppressed groups.
Training programmes can effectively tap and
generate women’s traditional knowledge and
help them articulate reality from their perspective
analysis. Several illustrations abound in the case
studies. The CHETNA Health Team found that
a discussion on measles could best be initiated
when women’s traditional knowledge was
incorporated into it.
6.
i
Not being used to structured learning situations,
women learners find it difficult to sit in sessions
for long stretches of time. They begin to feel
restless, get bored and lose interest in the topic
of discussion. Wcmen have had no opportunity
in participating in structured reflection - action
programmes, and since their mind is initially
always involved with their families and their
work, it will take them time to enter into
focussed and systematic reflection processes.
“Men during training programmes take beedi
breaks - what about the women”, asked one
participant. “They take chat-breaks, talk to one
another laugh etc.’’, said another. It must be
recognised that these breaks are valid, considering
that women never get breaks, and they can
use it to discuss, share, have some fun and
get back into the subject and foci of learning.
-Gradually as they become convinced about their
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women do not feel competitive towards their
co-leamers nor the need to outdo each other,
this thus facilitates collective learning. Women
value these changes once they realize the power
of it. For example, a common phrase used by
Bihari women in Bombay is "Dimag khul gaya
hay” (our minds have opened up).
learning and intensely involved about issues
related to their lives, the pace of learning is
not a problem at all. Basically women are serious
learners, attentive and good listeners and build
up their concentration well. By role definition
they have always been good receivers of
information
7.
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It was discovered that women very much value
their learning opportunities. They get very few
such opportunities in their own lives and hence
they invest highly into their learning, make
it purposive and use it to bring about changes
in their own lives.
They get into an inclusive mode of learning
by involving themselves completely and they
also explore possibilities of collaborative learning
with other women. It was also discussed that
Learning avenues for women inevitably results
in some sort of change in them as women.
As discussed earlier a sense of confidence and
self-worth builds up in them. They also now
acquire a new status in their community ( as
village health worker, trainer, etc.) and gradually
become recognized as leaders of the community.
Obviously, the changes that take place in
women’s lives do not go unnoticed in the
8.
community. The community at times does react
negatively and with hostility. Women have to
learn to deal with these reactions. For example,
the SEWA health workers were labelled as
‘bold’ women. We felt that negative remarks
are an indication of the changing perception
of the community about the women. It is
therefore important that women analyse and
understand these remarks and develop new
equations in the community.
— From simple to complex, dealing with
simplistic concepts and moving onto more
complex ones.
The information they have acquired puts them
in a powerful position and support needs to
be provided to them to mobilize community
support and initiate new actions.
— Learning should be a fun process. It should
allow women to paint their dreams,
fantasize, stimulate and be creative. Such
a process unleashes the latent creative
potential in women.
The participants at the workshop tried to
establish a model of learning for women. This
indeed was a difficult task. It was clear that
women do not follow a linear mode of thinking
and learning. Then what is the model - cyclical?
Ultimately, certain principles of the learning
model were identified
— Learning process should build into it
constant inputs, information, feedback,
reflection, action. This help women monitor
their learning and plan for the future.
- Starting from self and personal issues and
moving towards family and the society and
other issues (micro to macro model).
— Concrete experiences are used to derive
abstract principles.
I
— Starting from known, familiar issues and
then going on to unknown, newer forms
of knowledge.
— Learning should be related to their daily
lives and be useful to their daily lives and
existence.
— Learning by doing is considered very vital.
Women create new forms, give expression
to their ideas as well as practice their skills
in the process.
— Women also disseminate their knowledge to
a larger group and influence the learning
of other women.
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B. Pre-Training Elements
In all the case studies and in the discussions during
the workshop, what emerged was that participatory
training programmes entail a considerable amount of pre
training preparation. This is true for both the residential
and non-residential training programmes. This preparation
takes various forms and often involves a number of
people. It was felt that in the case of women's training
the woman herself, her. family members particularly the
male members (husbands, fathers etc.) and the community
all need to be involved in the pre-training process. Pre
training preparation helps establish the learning framework
and sets up the learning environment.
1. The Woman Learner
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As mentioned earlier, pre-preparation of participants
is essential because women often feel that they cannot
learn or are afraid of the learning process. Much
encouragement, support and inspiration is needed and
this may be undertaken individually or even in small
groups. Exposure to other women or groups from the
participants' village or slum, who have experienced and
enjoyed the process earlier, is very strengthening. By
meeting women like themselves, who once shared the
same anxieties about learning, prospective participants
feel both inspired and more at ease. The CHETNA and
SEWA Health Team for example, involved older and
more experienced health workers in the preparation of
the new workers before training and also as trainers
later. In the case of Astha, discussions were held with
the women in a group prior to the training and certain
inputs also given. This helped women get a flavour
of what a training programme would be like, creating
a defined focus of learning, besides helping them enter
into a learning context and building a learning
environment.
2.,The Family
The entire family - husband, children, in-laws, parents
and others - are often involved in pre-training preparation.
This includes building support with key members in
the family by discussing the training, conducting several
meetings and even inviting some of them to attend
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VI /I
the training sessions. By involving families in this way,
cordiality is established and doubts, suspicions and fears
can be allayed to quite an extent. In the workshop,
several women involved in training shared their experience
of working with the participants' families before and
after the training and felt that this contributed greatly
to women feeling at ease and more able to participate
fully in training programmes.
3. The Community
Involving the community, whether in a village, slum
or pavement settlement is an important element of pre
training preparation. In both case studies and discussions
at the workshop, it was felt that communicating and
sharing the contents and sometimes even the process
of training programmes is essential. Several groups like
SPARC spent considerable time on area meetings involving
various members of the community. Diffusing mmors
and gossip which would affect the women learners deeply,
and undermine their confidence and inhibit their learning
during training is also an important part of the process
of dialogue with the community.
In addition, what emerges is that trainers have to
be sensitive to the community dynamics which have
evolved over a long period of time. Apart from curiosity,
suspicion, doubts and even scorn, about involving women
in training, the community may have a negative view
of certain individuals or groups of prospective participants.
Sometimes it is important not to ignore community
resistance as this may have some real basis. The resistance
should be dealt with.
i
Finally just the fact of involving women in training
leads to a change in their status vis-a-vis the community.
Women then have to deal with tension and open hostility
at times. There is often a feeling of jealousy because
the participants are viewed as having been singled out
for a special privilege - the training. Preparation of the
community, sharing of information and dialogue with
the community, are ways of dispelling some of these
tensions. Also when women are to go for residential
training programmes, it becomes important to gain the
trust of the family and the community that the women
will be safely looked after-, familiarity of the organizers
and trainers to the community and family also becomes
very essential.
4. Male Members
Within the family and the community at large, men
particularly view training programmes for women with
suspicion and distmst. This was an experience shared
by several groups who participated in the workshop.
Men often feel they should be in the fore-front and
in fact that they should be involved in the training
because they are smarter, have more education and
133
i 'exposure and can take decision related to the community.
. If men are invited to join or observe the training they
often dominate and inhibit the women, and yet.
understanding the reasons for their aggressive behavior
and diffusing any tensions that may arise is very
important. Meetings of men. particularly husbands,
becomes a very important element of the pre-training
preparation. Men need the emotional support to cope
with women’s learning and empowerment. SPARC pre
training preparation, for example, involved talking to men
in the community assuring them that the training was
for the general good of the larger community. The trainers,
in the case of MYRADA. paid home-visits and tried
to spend time with family members and deal with
negative attitudes of the husbands. Gradually, even women
learners took responsibility for different clusters for inviting
and informing men about the nature of their training
and work. Thus, their cooperation was sought. Sometimes
W? 'J
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134
-
involving men can become a source of much-needed
support. For example, in the SEWA experience, an all
male mandal offered one of their rooms for the health
training. However, the emphasis that it is a women’s
training should be made very clear.
C. Training Methodology
1. Training Design
The group looked at some of the unique features
of a training design for women learners. The design
of a participatory training programme is based on the
needs of the learners and helps systematize the learning
processes of learners.
The design of a training programme for women
should respond to the personal and emotional needs
of women. As we discussed in the learning processes,
opportunities should be made in every training programme
(no matter what the content of the training) to help
women talk about their anxieties, open up. share and
develop confidence and a sense of self-worth in herself
and in the collective. The design should deal with
women’s blocks about learning and explode some of
the myths about women ( women can’t conceptualize.
they can’t plan, etc.)
The design of the training programme should also
provide space for women to articulate their learning needs
(t
gradually. It should reflect women's concerns and the
community's concerns which are central to their lives
and which bind them to the learning process (children,
shelter, economic activities, health etc.).
The design should help women reflect, analyse, give
and receive feedback and share with each other, and
plan for future actions. Methods used should provide
the tools for critical reflection and analysis.
It was also discussed that every design should
necessarily have a module on women and health, since
this is one of most neglected part of women's lives.
Training programmes need not be very structured
events. Based on women's time and involvement in the
programme, there, should certainly be possibilities for
unstructured events. In fact. SPARC’s experience of one
year of training with women was in an unstructured frame.
This, however, does not imply that strategy and planning
is short cut in the process.
The design needs to be dynamic and flexible - it
should address itself to any immediate crisis or concern
that may emerge in the women's lives in the community.
This would mean at times not keeping its schedule
or at other times not having the training at all ’
It was also mentioned that training should be
designed in phases, and should not be a one-shot process.
Once women get involved, they look for ways to pursue
their learning and hence the design should be based
on this consideration. Needless to say. women should
be involved in every stage of designing the training.
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It was also discussed by all. and is clearly highlighted
in every training programme, that learning by doing proved
to be a very valuable experience and process for women.
It helped women to apply their traditional knowledge
and skills and leam new ones in the process. It also
proved that women can do things with their hands
(breaking the widespread prevalent beliefs that only men
are skilled) and enhance their self-esteem. ASTHA held
meetings to involve women in designing their own. training
programmes and planning for them.
Every training design should also build into it
monitoring and evaluation systems. This helps women
take stock of their learning as a group, review their
learning needs and plan for the future. It also helps
keep the learning focus central to the process.The training
135
design is also reflective of the strategy of training that
is adopted by each group/organisation and the contents
of the training programme emerge out of this planned
strategy.
However, residential nature of training is dependent
on the support-system that can be developed for the
women for care of their children. etc.
3. Content Of Training
2. The Time Frame
This again has to take into account women’s reality-,
Should the training be residential or not, for how
long should a training be held ? There were diverse
experiences among the various trainers. It was strongly
felt that residential training have their own advantages
of involvement, continuous time to develop relationships,
to help women get in touch with their feelings and
shed their anxieties about themselves and their families.
However, it was not always feasible to have such trainings,
especially in urban areas where there is a tremendous
cmnch for space, and women are simply not able to
get away. Most trainings were preferably conducted over
a period of 2-3 days, at a stretch. MYRADA’s training
programmes were short-duration ones. However,
some groups such as JAGORI held an eight day training
programme at a stretch. The SPARC and SEWA trainings
were held in short phases over a period of one year.
136
It was agreed by everyone that it was most effective
to conduct the trainings in a phase-wise fashion and
in harmony with women’s own lives.
Starting with women’s own knowledge and
experience and building on that knowledge was the
common experience of all trainers in determining content
for the women learners. It was also shared that every
content area dealt with (whether it be measles, chicken
pox. water and fuel problems, educational programmes,
legal rights, credit societies, etc.) should necessarily be
evocative of women's, reality and oppression. It should
be linked to their disempowerment and collective action.
Critical reflection, thinking, analysis and systematization
of the group’s thinking should always follow in a session.
Women should be provoked to think and analyse beyond
the mundane, stereotype frameworks and come up with
alternatives that make meaning to them. Ample
illustrations are provided in all the case-studies where
the world-view of the issue, and its implications at large
have been discussed.
Several myths were also broken in the process of
dealing with complex content matter. A case in point
is that of the SEWA-CHETNA Training. The trainers had
anticipated that the session on anatomy would be complex
and difficult. They tried to simplify it. illustrate it and
%
discuss it with the women. But to their amazement,
these women were very familiar with anatomical
dimensions (due to their cultural practices of eating meat
and buying the torsos). The women were also interested
in learning the technical jargons of the diseases and
medicines. To them these ‘big words' were not to be
used by the professionals alone. They too can leam
it and it would give them status and recognition in
the community.
*
It should provoke women to think, feel, act1
and get in touch with themselves;
*
It should build women’s confidence
individuals and as a collective;
♦
It should help create an atmosphere of openness,
security, comfort and acceptance and promote
critical reflection-.
*
It should provide women an opportunity to
dream and fantasize and let go their
imaginations. This provides the much needed
stimulation for creativity and empowers women
in the process-,
*
It should allow opportunities to use women’s
traditional knowledge and concepts and forms
of expression;
*
It should challenge women’s thinking from the
stereotype and help them move ahead,
*
It should use humour and create an environment
of fun.
4. Use Of Different Training Methods
Considerable time was spent discussing the various
methods that can be used, which take into account
women's style of learning and build their knowledge,
create awareness and sharpen skills.
However, it was emphasized that the challenge in
the use of methods lay in them being able to address
women's reality - much has already been written about
this. The following are some of the considerations for
choice of methods.
*
It should be able to help women articulate
and cope with their multiple anxieties and
tensions;
*
It should help women relate their experiences
and perspectives and use it as a basis for further
learning;
i
as
It was also discussed that some of the existing
standard exercises and simulations that were designed
and were being used, in training were ineffective for
women. An example of ‘Star Power’ - a simulation which
highlights the inequalities and power structures in society
- was given. This simulation has certain rules set up
137
i
for competition and bargaining which does not take into
consideration women's thinking and psyche. The rules
of this game emphasize authority and highlight power
and exploitation of the strong over the weak. However,
women function as a collective, non-exploitative and
emotional. The scripts therefore do not take into account these
nuances of women's life.
the group collectively analyse a situation, e.g.
dowry, wife-beating etc., role-plays, skits, dramas,
docu-dramas have been effectively used. Through
participating in role plays women act out their
true feelings and are able to become aware
of some of the critical dynamics behind the
situation. The JAGORI group has used the ‘Phad
— which is a traditional docu-drama form-of
story-telling that is followed by discussions.
Story-telling has been another form used by
the groups. Either creating traditional stories or
using it 3.5 in a form of case study. This brings
to the fore several issues for discussion.
Some of the methods that have been used are as
follows:
a.
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b.
For opening up, relaxing women and enabling
them to enter the self and feel good about
themselves, songs and exercises were used. For
introducing themselves, some groups used
processes that help women define who they
are and what do they do in pairs. Starting
out with dyadic introductions reduces the anxiety
that a woman would face if she had to
introduce herself in the larger group. One group
set women thinking about themselves, their
happiness, their children, etc. In talking about
themselves, at times catharsis takes place which
lightens the burden off women. Women then
begin to break off some of their socio-cultural
barriers and explore into issues that have meaning
for them.
To help women express themselves and to help
c.
Group discussions were very often used in
combination with other methods or techniques
like a role-play or a puppet-play etc. Small group
discussions provides all women an opportunity
to share their thinking and also helps develop
their self-confidence and acceptance by other
members in the group.
d.
Ice-breakers and energizers in several forms were
used, at the start of the training, or in the
middle, or towards the end. For example songs,
small exercises, games etc. These helps 'break
the ice’ and activate the learners, lighten the
atmosphere, provide a sense of fun and joy,
give a break to the intensity of the learning
process and help bring back the attention of
the women to the learning focus.
e.
Several aids like puppets, posters, charts,
demonstrations, video etc. that portrayed
women’s lives and depicted their concerns were
also used in many of the trainings. Hence it
becomes easier for women to relate to them
and use them as a basis for further discussion
and analysis. The Chetna -SEWA training made
posters portraying the current problems the
community was facing - measles - and from
there on further discussions took place and
inputs were given. Video feedback has also been
effectively used by SEWA and SPARC. Women
reviewed their group functioning and were
subjects of their own learning.
f. As part of skill building and consequently
enhancing women’s self-esteem, several groups
have used creative techniques by which illiterate
women can express their ideas - drawings, line
drawings (ASTHA). making posters (JAGORI)
designing model houses (SPARC) etc. Women
also enjoy doing things with their hands.
g- Lectures have been extensively used to provide
relevant information and present concepts to
women. However, discussions and analysis
always followed every presentation. Principles
of simplification of content, relating content to
their lives, analyzing content from women’s
perspectives, repetition of main points need to
be kept in mind while giving a lecture.
I
D. Support Systems For Women Learners
During Training
Given their difficult lives, their responsibilities and
the numerous obstacles that they have to face before,
during and after training, organizing for support systems
during training is very important for women. There are
certain concerns - who will accompany the women to
the training, what about childcare, physical arrangements,
loss of wage labour, and community support that were
identified as being issues that have to be dealt with
in a sensitive, caring and non-threatening way. With some
of these concerns suitably taken care of. women feel
more relaxed and able to participate fully in training.
1. Men Accompanying Women
Groups participating in the workshop reported that
very often women cannot come unaccompanied to a
training programme. There are various reasons for this,
a major one being that their families are reluctant to
let them travel alone. This is especially true in rural
areas where distances are great and transport facilities
139
I
are poor. Generally men accompany the women to the
training, as in the case of ASTHA where men brought
women 90 kms. by bus. The men then stayed on at
the training site but were not included in the training.
This was also a strategic use of involving men to
cooperate in women’s training and look after the children.
Some men also escorted the women in the Central Social
Welfare Board training conducted by Prayas in Rajasthan.
It was collectively decided by the women that they
may sit in on the training, except for sessions focusing
on sensitive issues. Here too. learning being the focus,
men also discussed inequalities faced by women, shared
it with the women’s group and realized how theoretical
they were. Thus both groups learnt in the process. In
both these cases, the trainers responded to the reality
of women’s lives, realizing that the women would be
unable to come without male escorts. Thus space was
made for the men in the women’s training programmes
and strategically they were sensitized and involved in
the process.
2. Child Care
140
Very few poor women have infrastmctural or back
up support for childcare. It is. therefore, essential to
take this fact into account and plan ways to support
women in caring for their children as a part of the
training. In some training programmes, women bring their
children with them and feel comfortable about their
being with them. However, some groups at the workshop
said that in their experience children often made the
learning process difficult, because of the time and attention
participants had to give to them and the children
themselves having a distracting effect. Thus organizing
alternative childcare for children becomes important.
There were some examples of women bringing older
siblings to look after the younger ones, and the trainers
providing toys. Setting up creches or play centers were
other alternatives that groups had explored. Finally, there
were a few experiences of husbands looking after children
at home so that their wives could participate in the
training. This gave women a new sense of freedom.
However, others reported that as poor men often work
outside the home where childcare facilities do not exist,
it was not possible to explore this option often. However.
if the training programmes are held in the community
itself or nearby, other women in the community were
mobilized to take care of the children. However, trainers
should feel comfortable if women bring their children
and not become irritated or angry with them. Rejecting
children would tantamount to rejecting the women
learners.
3. Physical Arrangements
In many training programmes for women, board and
lodging is provided, thus freeing women from one of
their everyday chores - cooking. However, in the training
one group -ASTHA - set up work committees to look
after the cooking and water collection, and these tasks
were rotated. Sometimes women even brought food to
the training which was shared by everyone. All of this
created an atmosphere of sharing and strong bonds were
developed among the women and the trainers which
also helped in the training process.
4. Training Stipends
With regard to providing some kind of training
stipend or compensation for daily wages loss, there were
two different approaches based on differing situations
and perspectives. One approach was to provide some
training stipend, usually a meagre compensation for daily
wages lost because of the time taken by the training.
The experience of some groups revealed that poor women
were able to participate more fully knowing that there
would not be any loss of wages. Also, some women
asked for wage compensation as a part of the training
programme. In addition, the groups who took this
approach felt that since middle class resource persons
are paid, why should not poor women also receive some
remuneration, and why should they be expected to
sacrifice their meagre earnings ?
Other participants were not in favour of any kind
of remuneration or stipend for women learners. They
took the approach that in creating an alternative society,
efforts have to be made, and as women’s training was
to contribute to this, any kind of wage compensation
was not desirable. Further, there were examples of training
programmes where providing stipends to participants
destroyed the delicate dynamics within a community.
Tension arose as to why some women alone were selected
for the programme, and many women started attending
the programmes for the stipend alone. They would come
on the first day and not come on subsequent days.
In addition, it was felt that there were ways to prevent
loss of wages, ideas for which often came from the
women themselves. These included alternative work
arrangements and adjusting training schedules to the work
timings of women. For example, training for agricultural
labourers in the lean season rather than during sowing
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or harvesting time.
E. Trainer Roles
There was no consensus on this complex issue.
It was generally agreed upon that the decision to provide
training stipends or wage compensation depended on
various factors including the area involved, the kind of
training, the time period of'the training, the needs of
the participants and the perspectives and perceptions of
the trainers and the groups involved.
In the workshop, considerable time was spent on
understanding and discussing the multifarious roles of
the trainer who is involved in women's training - their
own learning needs,, trainer preparation, special skills
needed for trainers in women's training and their
relationship with learners. We also looked at roles and
responsibilities of a resource person involved in some
sessions in training.
5. Community Support
In the section on pre-training preparation, we
discussed the importance of involving the community.
During the training also such involvement and support
of the community is very’ important. If community
members are supportive, women's learning during training
is greatly enhanced. This may take various forms including
help with household chores like fetching water or
collecting fodder and even child care.
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On the other hand, as in the pre-training phase,
if women are ridiculed or face hostility, jealousy and
tension, the learning process is seriously inhibited or
may even have to stop. Thus at the workshop, several
groups felt -that continuous dialogue and sharing with
community members as ways of developing support during
learning were very important aspects of the training
process.
It was emphasized that trainers should value and
care for the learners and have an understanding of their
reality. They should be sensitive to women's needs and
issues and be able to value women’s rich and varied
life experiences. As women learners have few
opportunities to share their views and concerns, the trainer
should be able to listen and empathize with them, even
if at times the issues may not appear to be directly
related to the training. This flexibility and adapting to
the learners' needs and concerns was felt to be very
important.
Related to this is the ability to share emotions
with women. It was felt that women relate to feelings
and are comfortable with sharing these. The trainer,
therefore, should be able to empathize and get close
to women and share feelings whether of joy or anxiety.
In fact, trainers from several groups said that sharing
their own problems with the participants helped in
establishing a rapport and building close relationship with
others. Further, all of this sharing helps to build up
a warm, nurturing and non-threatening environment which
women respond to. thus enhancing the learning process
for all involved.
Next, trainers should be able to communicate a
sense of fun. of excitement and mutual discovery in
training. Women feel comfortable with various modes
of communication - songs, dance, plays - and the group
felt that trainers must respond to this. The spirit of
enjoyment was viewed as important and trainers should
be able to communicate this to the learners as well
as set up the environment for women to enjoy their
learning.
Further, it was felt that in their roles as facilitators
of the learning process, trainers should be sensitive to
how they interpret, analyse and reflect upon issues with
women. Trainers play a significant role in systematizing
the learning of women. Rather than imposing their own
interpretations or world view of issues on learners, the
trainers should stimulate a process of critical reflection
and analysis among the women learners. 'Dumping' one’s
own ideas and analysis, it was felt, was to be avoided
by the trainer.
However, some sort of a framework for critical
reflection which would be open and flexible is often
helpful for learners. Both the trainer and learners should
be able to interpret and analyse with the hope of
developing an alternative vision of society which would
necessarily be different from the existing one which
is male-centered. The trainer's role would be to stimulate,
provoke, make the analytical connections and even trigger
off creative analysis, leading to constructive and innovative
alternatives. They should help each woman to articulate
her aspirations and link it to the group issue. This keeps
the foci of learning and the involvement of the women.
Several groups shared their experiences of initiating this
process, describing it as exciting and very powerful.
Finally, it was felt that trainers should be open
to their own learning and personal growth. There were
numerous examples of trainers feeling anxious and
concerned about the training -. how to put forth a
particular concept, deal with a particular group? In addition.
143
many trainers felt that they questioned their own abilities
and skills. For example, the ability to deal with emotions
and the complexities of women’s realities which are
inevitably brought to the training situation.
In addition, many trainers felt that their own ideas
and concepts for training women are still evolving and
changing. Thus trainers have to grapple with numerous
conflicts and dilemmas. However, all the groups at the
workshop felt that they had learnt a tremendous amount
from training. Many said that they themselves had been
strengthened, supported and inspired by the process of
learning and, sharing in women's training. It was a
powerful experience and a unique learning opportunity
for the trainer.
1. Developing Special Skills
Given the complexities of women’s training and the
various roles ascribed to trainers, it was felt that special
attention needs to be paid to developing various skills
and to the growth of the trainer in general.
144
First, the trainer’s own understanding and sensitivity
to women’s reality needs to be finely developed. Trainers
have to develop the ability to question and break existing
myths about women in our society. They also have
to be sensitive to group dynamics and learn to draw
out women who may never have expressed their views
before.
Being in touch with one’s own feelings, including
anxieties, is also an important skill to develop as has
been discussed earlier. Developing one's emotional and
even physical stamina was seen as important since learning
process can demand a lot of energy. Women’s training
programmes are exciting but exhausting. Reviewing one’s
role constantly, checking one’s bias, reality testing skills
were also considered essential for the trainer.
Developing one’s ability to be flexible and creative
was also identified by the various groups at the workshop
as being very important. Trainers should also be able
to promote mutual support among the learners. In sum,
it was emphasized that the trainer should be open to
involving herself/himself in a continuous process of self
development and discovery, and at different stages in
the life of women’s group formation, and learning, there
are different levels of involvement of the trainer.
2. Male Trainers In Women’s Training
The issue of male trainers was discussed at length
in the workshop. In some groups, male trainers without
any female colleagues conducted women’s training. In
others, mixed teams were involved. The fundamental
question that was asked was why have male trainers
at all in women's training ? The reason given were
both practical and conceptual.
Groups like ASTHA and PRAYAS explained that in
Rajasthan it was very difficult to find women trainers.
The reality is that at present, there are many more
male trainers, and if a number of women’s trainings
are to be conducted, it becomes imperative to involve
male trainers.
Others felt that if we believe in involving all people
in the process of social change, of which training is
a part, then male trainers do have a role. As long as
the trainings were women-centered, the involvement of
male trainers did not pose a huge problem. Some groups
like the SEWA-CHETNA team did not include male trainers,
both for historical and ideological reasons. These groups
work exclusively with women and felt that an all-women
group in a training situation has its own set of very
powerful dynamics.
All the groups felt that if male trainers are involved,
then some orientation and sensitization to women’s
realities and feelings is essential. Male trainers should
be careful not to bring the existing pattern of male
domination in our society to the training situation. They
must be prepared to listen and watch and not project
their own thinking on the women participants. They
also should be prepared to leave training sessions on
certain issues (for example child birth), so that women
can share and learn with no inhibitions.
Also, male trainers need to recognize that women's
learning processes and styles are unique and different
from those of men. They should be sensitive to the
cues and nuances of women’s feelings and expressions.
A significant point that emerged was that though
some male trainers had developed skills to be effective
in work with women and were sensitive to participants
and their needs, however, they had not resolved issues
of unequal structures and power relations within their
own families. This contradiction often surfaces in subtle
ways, perhaps a stray comment or attitude, and needs
to be addressed further. The MYRADA case study felt
that male trainers had not resolved the gender issues
in their own lives and it became important to address it.
3. Resource Persons
In many training programmes, resource persons are
invited to the training for a short duration of time,
in order to give specific inputs. There was a divided
opinion about whether this was a positive step or not.
In cases where resource persons are oriented to the nature
of the work and training, and have a general knowledge
about the women and their concerns, they were found
to be very effective. The trainers have a very important
role to play in facilitating the discussions, helping build
links between the specific input and women’s reality,
and enabling a process of critical reflection-analysis, when
resource persons are taking sessions. Thus resource persons
145
i
vmay be of distinct advantage to the training.
However, some groups did feel very strongly that
the use of resource persons is almost akin to an intrusion,
since they are oblivious to the group dynamics and
processes. Hence, a lot of intense emotions may surface
among the women, and since the resource person tends
to depart after a session, these residual feelings are not
dealt with. It is unethical as well as stressful for the
women to be left off like that. Thus it was strongly
emphasized that resource persons should be invited only
if absolutely essential, they should be oriented to the
training framework, and the trainer should continue
playing the facilitator role.
F. Follow Up
146
Follow up of training was considered to be a crucial
investment and one that needed to be systematically
planned. It was unanimously agreed that enough time
ought to be spent on the follow up plans during the
training itself. Opportunities for women to make .these
plans themselves and work out their ideas systematically
is itself a learning process for the women, and it helps
them take stock of events. It is a chance for women
to apply what they have learned. This kind of planning
is a movement from the 'abstract' to the ‘concrete’; besides
this has a spin-off effect in that the family and the
community see a practical outcome.
However, it was cautioned that follow up should
be done slowly; women should not be pushed or rushed.
Any change must be brought about gradually, or else
it would alienate and threaten the women's existence
in their family and community.
Trainers must provide all the needed support for
women to plan out their future agendas. In’ the case
presentations, follow up has been planned in different
ways. Several case studies (RISE. MYRADA) have worked
out action programmes in depth, to follow up plans
made during the training. Field visit to other places;
meetings once a week. In some cases, follow up was
also done by meeting the family members regularly.
Follow up plans with women help build up an
alternative vision of things to come and provides the
much needed strength and power -as well as a high
collective morale.
W//1
iMir,
TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE VISION
when the going becomes difficult, a small spark of hope
is reviewed through small successes.
1
This effort, we feel, has major implications in
training, especially of heterogeneous groups. In areas where
it is almost impossible to work with women-only groups,
it is imperative that males be sensitized. What does
this mean ? What are the general principles related to
women’s training ? How are these derived ? We have
attempted to outline some of these in this compendium.
However, it will need a lot more experience and time
before these may be clearly distilled.
One of the most significant aspects of this collective
pooling of information is that it is an initial step in
evolving concepts based on first hand grassroots
experience. For many groups, especially those working
in the more remote areas, it was reassuring to share
their thoughts and to find others traversing similar paths !
Yes indeed, women’s training is breaking through new
frontiers, it is exciting, dynamic and challenging. Yet
it is one long struggle, since it means a re-questioning
of socialization processes and structures which have
emerged out of existing power relations. Yet, we know
that this is a struggle which cannot be given up. Often,
One of our efforts has been to define a clear model
of training for women. This has been a very ambitious
task. Certain characteristics of a model have been
identified. It is complex, since women’s lives are complex!
Perhaps there is no single model of training. Every group
present had unanimously accepted a participatory model
of training. An effort was made to explode the existing
myths and evolve strategies for training based on an
egalitarian world-view. However, this is one of the areas
for future thought and work.
For women trainers, especially, this can be an
extremely difficult proposition. On the one hand we
are working with poor women challenging existing norms
which are oppressive, on the other hand we are grappling
with our own reality - the anxieties, the anger and
pain which are caused by an oppressive environment,
149
i
the burdens at home, the contradictions in our lives,
and the sense of vulnerability faced especially by those
activists who are based in far-off areas. There may also
be a lack of sensitivity on the part of male trainers,
and some of us may not be in areas where other women
are supportive. Yet it is a belief, and a commitment
to social change which enables us to continue working.
Thus, such forms of sharing have major implications
in strengthening networks of women trainers.
However energizing and rejuvenating a training process
may be. it must not be forgotten that it is only one
small input towards a broader process of social change.
The women who have been through a training process
may have changed, but the structures in the real world
remain the same-, often once an awareness is created,
it may become all the more difficult to deal with the
same oppressions. Women trainees have had the
experience when they leave a training programme with
a burning desire to implement all that they have learned;
to their disappointment their community may not respond.
In some instances, they may even be confronted with
a negative reaction, thus making them wonder and
question their own position.
Hence we feel strongly that support systems need
to be developed and sustained. Not only among the
poor, but also among those working with the poor.
These serve a multiple purpose : to share strategies and
approaches with one another; to conceptualize from a
collective pool of information; to share in one another's
achievements; to help alleviate the pain; and most of
all to strengthen each other's work and carve out new
directions for the future.
r
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WORKSHOP LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
Ginny Shrivastava
ASTHA
109, Kharol Colony
Old Fatehpura
Udaipur-313 001
Rajasthan.
D. Susheela
RISE
Nayakanari Road
Via-Kota
Dist. Chittoor-517 424
Andhra Pradesh.
Anita Dighe
ADULT AND CONTINUING
EDUCATION UNIT
3rd Floor, Old Library Building
Jawahar Lal Nehru University
New Delhi-110 067.
Preeti Oza
PRAYAS
Deogarh (Devlia)
Via Pratapgarh
Dist. Chittorgarh-312 621
Rajasthan
Jyotsna Roy
Meera Chatterjee
CENTRE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
53 Lodi Estate
New Delhi-110 003.
Shashi Tyagi
SUCHETA KRIPLANI
SHIKSHA NIKETAN
P.O. Manklav
Via. Mathania
Dist. Jodhpur
Rajasthan.
Jacintha S.K.
SAKTI
1357, 9th Cross
First Phase J.P. Nagar
Bangalore-560 078
Karnataka.
Pallavi Naik
CHETNA
2nd Floor, Drive-in-Cinema Building
Thaltej Road
Ahmedabad-380 054
Gujarat
Mirai Chatterjee
SEWA
Sewa Reception Centre
Opp. Victoria Garden
Ahmedabad-380 001
Gujarat.
DEEPAYATAN
State Resource Centre for Adult Education
Buddha Colony
Patna-800 001.
Bihar
Mona Daswani
Prema Gopalan
SPARC
P.O. BOX 9389
Bombay-400 026.
Kiran Bhatia
Karen McGuiness
FORD FOUNDATION
55 Lodi Estate
New Delhi-110 003.
Rajesh Tandon
Suneeta Dhar
Atreyee Cordeiro
Nandini Narula
PRIA
45, Sainik Farm
Khanpur
New Delhi-110 062.
ADDITIONAL CASE
STUDY CONTRIBUTORS
Abha Bhaiya
JAGORI
B-5, Housing Coop. Society
N D S E Part-1
New Delhi-110 049.
Ranjani Krishnamurthy
MYRADA
2, Service Road
Domlur Layout
Bangalore-560 071
Karnataka.
<Sor^ H 32-o
05613
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ABOUT US
The Society for Participatory Research in Asia, New Delhi, is a non-profit voluntary organisation registered under the
Indian Society’s Act.
Participatory Research is an educational process which attempts to assist the deprived and the powerless to articulate
knowledge from their own point of view. It implies an effort on the part of ordinary people to understand the role of
knowledge as a significant instrument of power and control. Participatory Research gives value to individual and
collective experience and gives credit to existing popular knowledge of people. The components of Participatory
Research are to acquire the ability to appropriate knowledge produced by ojhers, to obtain the confidence and tools to
produce their own knowledge, and finally to use this knowledge to work in their common interests through collective
action. Thus Participatory Research challenges the monopoly over knowledge and its tools in the hands of the few.
PRIA is a support institution which works and collaborates with field-based activists, individuals, groups and
organisations in such a way that it strengthens their capacities in areas of research, training, evaluation and
organisation-building, and helps to their understanding of the issues they are working on.
We are involved with groups on issues of Access and Control over National Resources, Women and Development and
Occupational Health and Worker Education.
In the area of Participatory Training (PT), which aims at enhancing the competencies and internal training capabilities of
grassroots organisation as well as other training and research institutions, both in the non-governmental and
governmental sector, we are involved in a Training of Trainers programme, both at the national and regional levels. We
are also involved in efforts to promote the understanding and practice of PT philosophy and methodology in women’s
learning-training efforts, adult education, and in the developmental issues we work.
The text of this compendium has been written and edited by an Editorial Collective which comprised of Mona
Daswani of SPARC (Bombay), Mirai Chatterjee of SEWA (Ahmedabad), and Suneeta Dhar and Atreyee Cordeiro
of PRIA.
Feminist Logos: Source, International Women’s Tribune Centre, Yew York
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Society For
PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH IN ASIA
45, Sainik Farm, Khanpur, New Delhi-110062
I
AMAN PRINTERS, NEW DELHI
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