7/30/2019 manthan Inculcating hope in marginalised rural women
of Bihar.
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Aasha has shown aasha (hope) for marginalized women.
Aasha is a marginalized woman of Kujap village in the target
area of SOIR supported
project at Gaya. She belongs to one of the schedule caste now
Mahadalit category
of Scheduled castes as per Bihar government. She is like any
other woman of rural
marginalized society. One day in the year 2010 during the
routine activities ofproject intervention she came in contact with
manthans facilitators Pratima and
Babita. Both the facilitators of manthan informed Aasha about
the ongoing project
and its purpose of women empowerment. On the first interaction
with facilitators
she was not very curious about the work of manthan through this
intervention. But
the intervention was going on with its own speed and as per the
schedule, and in
this process Aasha meet regularly with our facilitators due to
the location of her
home and her own personality. This way she became almost friend
to Pratima and
Babita. One day during our group talk we invited her to join the
talk and know about
the self help groups. She came, participated and at the end
expressed her wish to
work with manthan. This was our privilege to involve more and
more women from
marginalized section to work with the rural community. Then it
was decided to
accept the wish of Aasha to invite in the team of manthan as a
paid volunteer. It
was explained to her that as a volunteer she will get Rs 600 per
month initially
apart from the local conveyance. She was very happy that now she
is an earning
member of her family. Though the amount is less this is why we
call it honorarium,
just to give honour to the person. Slowly she became a team
member of manthan,
who is aware about the project, its target groups, activities
and many more issues
related to community development. She was slow but speedy in her
learning. In
these two years she became familiar to all the target groups and
many ongoing
welfare schemes of government. One day in the month of October
2011 she got
information about the recruitment under government Mahadalit
Scheme in Primaryschool. She was asking our suggestions/opinion
about the scheme and its
vacancies. We gathered all possible information related to the
Mahadalit scheme
and explained that to Aasha.we also encouraged her to apply
through proper
application and supporting document. She did all the work apart
from the regular
follow-up to know the development related to recruitment .She
met the head
master of local primary school, Panchayat leader to convince her
candidature. She
was not able to pay any money to the concern persons but she was
ready to work
for the marginalized children. She was trained enough in the
field work during her
work as a volunteer in the SOIR supported project of manthan.
This is why in the
month of December luck also favours Aasha and announced her
selection as a
community facilitator of Mahadalit scheme at local primary
school. Now she is going
to facilitate the children of mahadalit castes to join the
formal school. This is her
beginning to mainstream from a volunteer at manthan to
facilitator in the
government mahadalit scheme. Now she will earn Rs 2000/per month
and also the
respect related to government agencies i.e. School, Hospital etc
very common in
social setup of Bihar. This state has special regard for
government sector or any
work related to government agencies. Here our Aasha is lucky and
we are really
