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| Rashmi, with some of the women she works with |
Rashmi Tiwari founded the Aahan
Tribal Development Foundation. Fighting trafficking in young girls from the
state of Jharkhand, India, Rashmi’s advocacy efforts have helped to slowly
shift the social mindset and landscape on the perception of girls and women,
and their rights. Here is her story in her own words.
Slog overs
The four decades of my existence has been much like a roller-coaster
ride. Life gave me the opportunity to experience a whole range of situations
and shades of human emotions. Life treated me like a princess till I was 9
years old. I had a shot at all the possible luxuries of life. And then, in the
blink of an eye, I found myself at the other end of the spectrum, where the
only luxury I could have was a 60W light bulb in a room that measured 3.5 feet
x 5.5 feet: a room which was my drawing room, bedroom, study as well as the kitchen,
till I completed my Masters.
I was a posthumous child. During the period of struggle, my not-very-educated-mother
dabbled with various professions ranging from being a daily-wage laborer to a
primary school teacher, to help us survive this tough journey.
The discrimination and stigma of our conservative society was evident
and worked as spanner in the wheel whenever I tried to spread my wings. However,
nothing could hold me back. It only slowed me down. I distinctly remember that
even under those harsh financial conditions, I gave up the scholarship meant for
girl students who were coming from financially weaker sections when I was in Class
7. I knew what the reality was, but I never believed that I was weak or
vulnerable. Instead of taking the scholarship that would have tagged me and my
mother as poor, I decided to protect my self-respect and earn my school books
and clothes by entertaining senior girl students through my dance and mimicry
skills.
Adversities such as hunger, poverty, discrimination and such else made
me stronger. By the time I was ten, I had experienced the taste of my own notebook
page, because at times, it was the only thing I could nibble on. However, I
never chose to seek sympathy.
I always had a latent desire to work in the social sector. However, fear of financial uncertainty always pulled me away from taking the plunge. After my US State Department-Fortune Mentorship Program in the USA, I started searching for my cause. The turning point in my life came when, during one of my journeys in search of a cause, I met a tribal family of four in a small village of Orissa. The family was very poor and had very little food to survive on.
While I was interacting with the mother of the three girls, I expressed
my desire to speak with her daughters, as well. She said that she could only
call one girl at a time, as there was only one proper set of decent clothes
that her three daughters shared. I was transported back to my period of struggle.
I saw tribal girls as young as seven being brought to Delhi and being sold for a
few years as a domestic maid, working for 18-20 hours in miserable conditions! I
knew that my calling was to help these tribal people living on the edge.
That was when I decided to start Aahan Tribal Development Foundation. I
left my corporate job at CEO Clubs of India to be able to fully devote my time
to this initiative.
The challenges
Tribal areas, especially those areas where primitive tribal groups
reside, are extremely deep seated and are devoid of even basic infrastructure
like toilets, electricity and roads. It is not only that it is extremely
difficult to reach such areas, it is also extremely dangerous. The Naxalites have
been considered as biggest internal security threat and are actively opposed to
any development activities in many tribal regions in India. The frequent
combing operations in these areas further delay our pace of activities.
It is extremely difficult of earn the trust of people as they do not
understand our language. The tribal people of India have been neglected for an
awfully long period of time and few encounters they have are with mafia and
other unscrupulous people who are ready to devour their land and resources. It
was extremely difficult to win their trust and start activities. The worst part of it all is that not
much information is available about the vast majority tribal areas of India as
they are not covered by media and sometime not even by the research bodies.
Under these circumstances it is imperative to find somebody in the tribal areas
who not only understands our language but also has an intention to help us in
starting the community development work.
A majority of the tribal regions do not form a part of the consumer
segment and hence we faced difficulty in raising the funds from the corporates.
Since we are less than three years old we are not eligible for government aids
under the current rules. In order to penetrate deeper and in lesser time,
together with the help of my business partner who happens to be from a
journalism background we forged a network of journalists. They helped us in
getting foothold into the tribal locations by connecting us with the local
leaders and communicating them our vision.
We set out to identify change agents, women leaders and influential
people who were ready to lend their support in identifying and empowering
girls/ women who wish to make a difference in their lives.
We made use
of local news-reporters and few people who are well aware of the local areas.
The reporters and locals are not perceived as imminent threat by Naxals. By
carefully choosing such resources we ensured our safe passage to the interiors
to gather information and support for the cause. Further, we approached the
women Mukhiya and Sarpanchs of the villages and explained to them our
objectives of coming to their village. These women have detailed knowledge
about their areas and are well connected as well. They took several steps in advance to ensure a
safe passage and stay for me and my colleagues.
Aahan also stationed
a resource and entrusted a few volunteers of local origin to periodically visit
the Chatakpur village and gather support and to actively lobby with government
and develop contacts. We interacted with the women Sarpanch
and members of the women self help groups. We made them aware about our
intentions and how exactly we are going to systematically eradicate the menace
of trafficking. These women enjoy great respect among the tribal community
members and especially tribal women. They were able to make the tribal families
aware about us in their local language and put a word of recommendation as
well. All this greatly helped us in breaking the ice and take tribals into
confidence.
Of the leaders who supported us, some are the Minister of Women and
Child Development, the Chairman of the Women’s Commission, College Teachers, Senior
Police Officers, Journalists, Senior Members of the Judiciary and Members of the
Local-Government
The story of change
Archana Toppo was a Tribal girl taking skill course from a quite well
known college in Ranchi, Jharkhand. She came from a relatively well off Tribal
family. However, she neither had anybody who could guide her nor she had any
career road map for herself. She intended to get a job as soon as possible and
hence decided to take up skill courses, which could have helped her in getting
some clerical job.
Archana’s case is not alone where girls are not have any clue about how
they can improvise and make themselves suitable for the high rewarding blue
collared jobs in leading companies.
ATDF took help of an organization called Sales Express, which is into
providing trained sales professional to corporates. Archana Deepti Toppo was
sponsored to get her training completed so that she could apply for decent jobs
available with big companies. With this little help Archana was able to clear
interviews and got recruited with in a month.
Archana is now a role model for many Tribal girls who have been shown a
way to lay a strong foundation of their career by moving into the sales field,
which offers huge employment opportunities.
Soni Lakra’s story
Soni Lakra is an ambitious girls from Jaria village of Jharkhand. She is
one of the two girls in entire village who has completed graduation. However,
the absence of facilities and job opportunities had fettered her ambitions. She
was just as lost as other Tribal girls in the village. The situation was
becoming complex for her each passing day as she was reaching marriageable age
and was coming under constant pressure to get married. She knew that once she
enters into this life-stage she would never be able to live her dreams.
ATDF gave her a platform to share her problems with experienced mentors
during the annual Aahan Tribal Mentoring Walk. She got inspiration from women
speakers, discussed possible ways of moving forward and got support from women
entrepreneurs.
Soni Lakra is now a confident young girl who is actively interacting
with the members of the Women Self Help Group and bringing positive changes not
just in her life but also in the lives of other girls and women of her village.
You can support them, too
Aahan has created a successful method to eradicate the machinery of
trafficking in tribal areas through the creation of women empowerment center in
Chatakpur village in the heart of Naxal region. We need to open up many more such
centers for creating a substantial impact on the lives of a huge number of
tribal girls and women. However, Aahan is a self-funded organisation and it
needs external monetary support for creating more centers. We have requests
from other villages to open such centre but due to lack of funds, we are unable
to accept these requests. People who can help us in creating small sustainable
business in tribal areas, which can employ tribal women and girls are always
welcome.