On
her very first day as a SEWA member, Chandababen had traveled
to Ahmedabad for a meeting. This was the first time she
had left her village. The women of her village were traditionally
forbidden to leave. And this was only the beginning of her
many travels. In addition to her frequent trips to the district
office and Ahmedabad, she has traveled to Mumbai, Chennai
and Delhi, to name but a few of the locations across the
country. SEWA tries to ensure that all Kutch Craft leaders
have an opportunity to attend craft exhibitions, so that
they may learn about marketing, quality and consumer preferences
first hand, and relate this knowledge to their craft groups
at home. Chandababen has learnt all about business, and
aspires to open a small grocery store or flour mill. She
has also traveled on several occasions to the National Institute
of Fashion Technology in Gandhinagar to receive training
on craft production.
As
mentioned previously, craftwork in Sonalnagar has been brought
under the auspices of the Jeevika Livelihood Security Project.
Chandababen is the president of the Village Development
Committee (VDC), which oversees the planning, implementation
and monitoring of the project in the village. But initiating
the project has been difficult so far, and the VDC has had
trouble with the village sarpanch, who is against implementing
Jeevika in the village. When the VDC attempted to set up
a childcare centre, for example, the sarpanch refused to
cooperate. The plan was to house the centre in the unused
rooms of the village school, but the he would not hand over
the keys to the rooms. Chandababen informed SEWA’s
Kutch coordinator, who went to the District Collector’s
office to file a complaint. The Collector put pressure on
the sarpanch to relent, which he did after several months
of stalling.
Chandababen
relates this type of problem to a personal problem with
the village sarpanch. He disapproves of women leaving the
village. When Chandababen approached him for a proof of
residence declaration, needed to secure a passport, he refused,
stating that she would flee abroad and leave her family
behind. Undeterred, she went to the next level of government,
the talati, and attempted to bribe the official to provide
her with the required documentation. But he declined her
bribe. He knew and trusted SEWA, and provided her with the
documents on the spot. Jeevika is still underway in Chandababen’s
village, although the sarpanch remains uncooperative.
The
story of forty-seven year old Prembaaben Sodha Darbar resembles
that of Mehtaben and Chandababen. She too was a refugee
from Pakistan, although it is not the country of her birth.
She was born in the village of Motivamoti, in the district
of Kutch, to a very poor family. Her father worked as a
wood-cutter, earning Rs.50 per day, and her mother tended
to the children and their small mud and brick kuccha house.
Of her five siblings, only the youngest brother received
any education. In the Darbar community, of which she is
a member, women are traditionally forbidden to leave the
home, and therefore cannot attend school or work.
At
the age of fifteen Prembaaben was married to a man from
the village of Gardiyo, in Pakistan. It was there that she
moved to start a family. But the circumstances of her marriage
meant that Prembaaben was not welcome in her new village.
Her father had not been able to afford the traditionally
dowry offered with marriage in the Darbar community. He
therefore decided to marry Prembaaben to a man from the
Sodha community, which did not require a dowry. The Sodha
community in Gardiyo was not pleased with this inter-caste
marriage, and made life untenable in the village for Prembaaben
and her husband. Thus, five months after her arrival, three
months pregnant, Prembaaben and her husband were forced
to flee, leaving all their possessions behind them in Pakistan.
