Sarai Khatela is a small village in Palwal District, Haryana, 70 kilometers from Delhi on the main highway on Mathura Road. Some of the villagers approached Anhad towards the end of 2008 to start a tailoring and cutting center for girls in their village. It took us some time to visit the place but once we went there we were totally appalled by the conditions.
Sarai Khatela has a population of approximately 10,000 people, majority of them meos (mewati) from the Muslim community, there are some 15-20 Dalit families in the village. The village has no school, one primary school is across the Highway. There is no dispensary, roads are in pathetic condition, and electricity appears during the day every alternate week and during the night during the other weeks. Major portion of the village does not get drinking water. The water line does not touch the inner part of the village as a result women spend a lot of time fetching water.
Most of the girls above the age group of 10-12 are totally illiterate, the younger kids have now started going to school. There is an ill equipped small private school inside the village run by a local enthusiastic youth. Rain water gets clogged up as there is no sewer system in the village; most the roads do not have drains. Mosquitoes in thousands breed in the village.
Anhad’s Intervention
Anhad started a small women empowerment center in the village and called it Apna Aagan. 60 young girls are enrolled in this center. It was inaugurated on January 29, 2009.
Series of meetings with four former sarpunches and some enthusiastic young people took place before starting the center. The inaugural marked the beginning of the journey towards transformation.
Anhad was able to convince the village elders that women and girls will sit in the front at the inaugural function. Nothing like that had happened in the village. Apna Aangan slowly started transforming the 60 girls, they now can stitch many things pretty well but more than that the freedom to come out everyday is great. They have an hour for reading stories and newspapers and discuss what is happening in the world and in the country around them. They are already worried what will happen to them once their course is over in July. Not one of them wants to return to the confines of their homes without coming out once a day to learn more and more.
Anhad has been able to form a women’s group, two groups of young people and a group of senior citizens, to monitor the work and act as a pressure group to get the developmental work done in the village.
Due to Anhad’s intervention and submission of charter of demands the authoritites have promised to : clean the village, to provide clean drinking water, to build the boundary of the dalit cremetorium, to start the process of building a dispensary in the village etc. The pressure of course is also due to several RTIs which have been filed.
Anhad’s Future Action Plans
- Further consolidation of various coordination committees
- Regular filing of RTI applications to find the status of the development work and the money available and being spent on it.
- Monitoring of NREGA scheme
- Starting Open School classes for adult girls-especially for our own students
- Starting a primary school for girls with immediate effect
- Organising free health camps
- Organising Clean the Village drives
- Organising meetings, lectures on various topics; health, hygiene, child marriage, dowry, education, women literacy and empowerment, minority rights, gender rights, Dalit rights, political rights given to a citizen by the Indian constitution
- Organising regular interaction between the village monitoring committee and different state officials- District Collector, Chief Medical Officer, Block Development Officer
- Getting the government to provide basic infrastructure for the village through meeting, negotiations and as a last resort dharnas and demonstrations
- Checking the corruption at various levels
- Organising cultural, sports and other activities in the village
- Sensitising and involving the urban youth to the reality and conditions of ordinary villagers in India.
Anhad aims to fight the social evils like child marriage, illiteracy and dowry, improve the health of each and every villager, especially women, make them aware of their citizenship rights and empower them to fight for their rights, pressurize the government to develop the basic infrastructure of the village.
Anhad plans to accomplish this task in the coming three years before expanding to other villages in the region.
We need your help:
- Donations - Anhad has 80-g tax exemption certificate.
- Your time- the most precious- Volunteers who are ready to live in the village at least thrice a week and teach young girls. We are looking for two female volunteers. The minimum commitment required is 6 months thrice a week. Apna Aangan has folding beds, a toilet and electricity. It has basic cooking facilities for volunteers to stay and cook their own food. those wanting to volunteer should write send their cv to anhad.delhi(at)gmail.com
- Material help- stationary- note books, chart papers, colours, pencils, sharpners etc/ Fridge/ cooler
- Story Books for 12-13+ in Hindi/ Children’s books- can be dropped off at Anhad, 23, Canning Lane( Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukl Lane, off Kasturba Gandhi Marg), New Delhi-110001
Those who want to help us in this endevour can contact Anhad: -anhad.delhi(at)gmail.com
Arun Kumar Tiwari— Coordinator Apna Aangan— 9871528361
Mansi Sharma: 23070740/23070722
PS: Anhad also works in remote villages of Kashmir for which we are inviting internship. last date for that is June 15, 2009. Contact Mansi Sharma: anhad.delhi(at)gmail.com
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