Editorial - Kirsty Walton

Welcome to the Summer Edition of the Development in Action Magazine. It’s been a busy time for DiA in the last few months; this year’s 2-month volunteers are now in the full swing of their placements in India, whilst 9 new 5-month volunteers prepare for a September departure. After their recent training weekend, without a male volunteer in sight, I was pleased to compile this quarter’s edition with contributions from both sexes.

With so many development issues hinged on gender, this edition seeks to explore some of these.

To kick off, James Fairfax explores an encouraging new HIV prevention initiative being rolled out in 23 countries, including India. This initiative, involving the creation of country “Report Cards”, aims to tackle the spread of HIV across the globe. Looking at India’s report card, James highlights the recommended strategies governments and NGOs can adopt to stop the spread of the disease in young women and girls, as well as the role of men and boys in HIV prevention.

Hannah van Hove writes about the work of B.D.W.W.T, an organisation that aims to protect the rights of domestic workers in Bhopal, who often suffer under horrific conditions at the hands of their middle-class employers. The stories of many workers Hannah met in Patna illustrate a battle won for many domestic workers fighting for their basic human rights.

A key contributor to the feeling of empowerment amongst workers is the safety of financial self reliance, something our next article investigates. Our dedicated UK Coordinator Katie will be leaving us this autumn, and thus has contributed to this issue before DiA becomes a smaller, though not absent part of her life. Katie has looked at microcredit and the role this can play in empowering women in the developing and developed world, who as individuals cannot access bank accounts to save for their futures.

Microcredit is one of the aspects of the work of Sharana, one of DiA’s key partner organisations. A past volunteer, John McGreachy, presents another aspect of their work; the community crèche and medical dispensary in Angalakuppam, a village just outside of Pondicherry. John highlights the vital work of Lakshmi, the medical nurse at Sharana’s centre, in providing much needed healthcare. This article highlights more than anything, a great example of how one woman has overcome the pressure to abandon her education and followed through her ambition to help others through studying medicine.

Finally, the last article looks at another case study of one of our partners; this summer brought exciting news for DiA, when Jimmy McGilligan at the Barli Development Institute for Rural Women was awarded an OBE. As a past volunteer at Barli in 2004, Tom Wilmot was keen to interview him and find out what progress has been made at Barli in the past few years.

We welcome comments on this issue and encourage DiA members and volunteers to put pen to paper in the coming months.

Kirsty Walton, Editor

HIV Prevention for Girls and Young Women: the Report Cards initiative

Under the umbrella of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS (GCWA), the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), together with UNFPA and Young Positives, are developing country Report Cards to strengthen HIV Prevention strategies for girls and young women. By the end of 2008, 23 country cards will have been produced, including one on India.

Each Report Card provides a country profile, information on HIV prevention from the legal, policy, service availability and accessibility, rights and participation perspectives and includes quotes and issues raised by young women and girls of the country. They also discuss key social and cultural issues, including the role of men and boys in HIV prevention. These form the basis for a series of recommendations aimed at increasing and improving the programmatic, policy and funding actions taken on HIV prevention for young women and girls, targeting national, regional and international decision makers. So what does India’s report card tell us about the extent of HIV & AIDS in the country?

India provides an interesting case study within the global HIV & AIDS epidemic. Over the last few years, the figure for the estimated number of people living with HIV (PLHIV) have been contested and revised. One thing that cannot be disputed is that, as in many other parts of the world, women are increasingly affected by the virus. India accounts for almost 1.4 million of the estimated 1.6 million young people (ages 15 – 24) living with HIV in the World Health Organisation’s South-East Asia Region.[i]

Awareness regarding HIV is lower among women, especially girls and young women in rural and tribal areas. Therefore, within the general population, women and young people are becoming increasingly more vulnerable to HIV infection. According to sentinel surveillance reports for 2005, 38.5 percent of HIV infected persons are women. The number of monogamous women getting infected from their husbands is rapidly increasing; highlighting the need to simultaneously target men and boys in HIV prevention programmes in order to develop a comprehensive and sustainable response. Home remedies and self medication are commonplace across India, as is the belief in traditional healers.

Young people in India cannot be categorised as a homogenous group and different sub populations are exposed to different risk settings depending on location. Social and cultural factors influence discussions on issues around sex and sexuality, particularly in rural and tribal areas. Sexual harassment and physical abuse continue to affect single migrant women and those deserted by their husbands, making them particularly vulnerable and susceptible to commercial exploitation, and therefore, increasingly at risk of infection. Poverty, as a result of a lack of resources and poor infrastructural support may force some women to trade sex for food and other necessities.[ii]

In light of this the Report Card makes the following prominent recommendations to donor and NGO programmers and policy makers, and the national and regional governments:

Ø Ensure comprehensive training of health care workers on issues relating to stigma and discrimination and privacy and confidentiality so as to foster an inclusive environment that will not deter people (particularly young girls and women and those in rural areas) from accessing services.

Ø Work with boys and men to improve their understanding and behaviour around sexual health and HIV prevention issues so as to reduce the transmission of HIV and STIs to their regular and recreational partners.

Following the production of the printed Report Card, a launch event was held in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh with the aim of disseminating it to all key stakeholders including bi-lateral donors, UN agencies, federal government, NGOs and grassroots organisations. Hard copies of the Report Card have been sent to the Barli Development Institute for Rural Women, one of DiA’s partner organisations.

Prior to the launch individuals were not aware of the vulnerability of young women and this was reflected by the lack of programmes that organisations were running. As part of the launch, organisations became sensitised to the issues.

A large problem that was discussed was the plight of rural women being trafficked to large urban centres such as Delhi, Agra and Bombay and ending up in the sex work industry. The underlying cause of this was largely attributed to the plight of rural farmers who see/have no other option in terms of income generation. Identifying these specific factors is a key step to formulating prevention strategies.

The Report Card has also been translated into Hindi, as the English version is only really useful for policy makers and programmers in international organisations. This Hindi version can be of far more use on the ground because it is easily accessible to government departments.

Through building upon the relationships forged in the Report Card development process, the Family Planning Association of India in Bhopal (IPPF Member Association in India) has recently had the opportunity to make inputs to the National Rural Health Mission, which addresses sexual and reproductive health issues. There is a specific section on ‘Life Skills Education’; sexual health cannot be explicitly talked about in India, but progress is being made.

This initiative hopes to ensure that in countries like India, a country-specific and tailored response to HIV prevention can be developed.

James Fairfax

To read more about the IPPF Report Cards click here.

[1] WHO (2006) Summary Country Profile for Treatment Scale Up, India (Date accessed 13/07/06)

[1] Government of India (2005), National Aids Control Organisation and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Progress Report on the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) (Date accessed 15/02/07)

Behind closed doors

India’s domestic workers find their voice

It was a regular Sunday morning for the domestic workers of Patna. Though the monsoon rains had suddenly broken out and the streets were flooded with water, about two hundred domestic workers, most of them young girls, had still managed to make it to their weekly get-together, organised by the Bihar Domestic Workers Welfare Trust.

After being given a most amazing welcome, including Indian songs, flowers and garlands, one of them, a shy girl who couldn’t have been older than sixteen, stepped forward and started talking to us about the horrors she had experienced as a young child labourer.

By the time she was ten years old, Sanju Kisku had been working as a domestic worker for four years, changing households whenever her employers sold her on, working day and night behind closed doors for 25 rupees a month. Unfortunately, Sanju’s situation is not uncommon in Bihar - she is one of many domestic workers; girls, boys and women who work 16 to 18 hours a day in the houses of their employers, doing household work which includes cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, looking after babies, children, the sick and the elderly. More accurately, these workers do everything to ensure that the household runs smoothly, so that their employers can work outside the home, visit friends and relatives and lead a normal, middle-class life. They are thus an intrinsically vital part of society, constituting the backbone of middle-class Indian households. Yet they are looked down upon and are forced to remain on the margins of society being, at best, invisible and at worst, desperately exploited and abused.

The state of Bihar does not even recognize domestic workers as labourers and, to this day, they remain deprived of any social or constitutional rights. They are therefore particularly vulnerable to exploitation and are often denied just and due salary wages. Some of them don’t even get basic requirements like sufficient food and a decent place to sleep, and are denied any breaks during the day or days off. Furthermore, they are often subject to harassment by their employers and verbal, physical and/or sexual abuse is not uncommon.

Sanam Minj, a young woman from Jharkand, tells me “I worked for the whole day and night, and was fed stale food. Whenever the employers went to work, they used to lock me inside the house. They treated me like an animal.”

The Bihar Domestic Workers Welfare Trust (B.D.W.W.T), led by sister Maggie, aims to establish a just society for domestic workers by providing them with a security network. It works by registering prospective workers and employers and drawing up employment contracts between both parties. Upon registering with the organisation, domestic workers are taken in and given some training to prepare them for life in the city and the work they’ll be expected to do. Self-help groups and counseling are also provided to support them.

Employers looking for a domestic worker will also register with the organisation, and be required to sign a contract which protects the domestic worker’s welfare, ensuring he or she will receive a fixed salary rate, basic living conditions and fair treatment. The contract also states they should be granted leave on a Sunday to allow them to attend church and classes.

Every Sunday all the domestic workers get together from 6am to 3pm. They attend church and follow classes in which they learn to read and write and are able to continue their studies. “With the help of B.D.W.W.T, I will write my matric board examination this autumn,” an older woman in a brightly-coloured saree proudly tells me.

Workshops are organised around legal aid, gender issues and AIDS awareness as well as vocational training skills such as tailoring, knitting and embroidery. The workers are encouraged to save their money and deposit it in banks, and are given information on life insurance and bank accounts, allowing the domestic workers to become financially self-reliant.

But above all, Sundays mean a break away from isolation and provide these young women with their own identity, and a chance to step out from behind the closed doors of their households and meet other people in similar situations.

Standing in front of all these women, having listened to their brave testimonies, it was difficult not to feel utterly useless. But supporting an organisation like this, which attempts to empower these girls and raise the consciousness of their employers, is a small step in keeping this vital issue alive. And slowly, lives on both sides of the divide are being changed. After a decade of exploitation, at the age of sixteen, Sanju Kisku has finally found a place worthy of living, through B.D.W.W.T. “I sleep in an air-conditioned room with my employer’s daughter, we eat together, and they always support me if I have problems. They treat me like a daughter."

Self-help, multiple gains

We are brought up with piggy banks, Children’s bonds and the notion of ‘saving money for a rainy day.’ Savings, investments, loans, mortgages and new-fangled tax-free options are part of everyday life for many. For a vast majority of the world’s population, however, bank accounts are out of reach and out of mind.

The Grameen bank of Bangladesh, and others like it, changed the face of banking in the developing world in 1976 when Professor Yunus launched a program to enable groups, to take loans, create cooperatives, and invest their hard earned savings. This was the start of ‘micro-credit’.

Since the 1970s, micro-credit has been a feature of developing countries where vast numbers of people are excluded from banking as individuals. Micro-credit works on the theory that groups of people rely on each other and are, therefore, more likely to pay back loans.

Creating a basis for empowerment through micro-credit, or aptly named self-help, groups, micro-credit’s biggest impact has so far been on women and their families in south Asia and parts of Africa.

One of the pioneers of micro-credit in India is PRADAN, which is based in New Delhi. Last year’s figures illustrated their work with over 7000 micro-credit groups in the surrounding areas.

It is rare to see a man directly involved in micro-credit groups. In fact the Department for International Development in the UK claim that ‘poor women usually have the best credit ratings. In India, women are less likely to default than men.’

Providing women with banking opportunities leads to financial gains and economic progression within the household and society. They are able to provide extra income to their household and borrow loans for emergency situations.

Self-help groups created through the passages of micro-credit tend to provide more than just economic gain. Empowerment, both economical and social, have been direct outputs of self-help groups.

As a Kenyan adage conveys, “Sticks tied together cannot be easily broken”. The power of group action cannot be underestimated in societies where women might only see the back of society, or in many cases, the back of its hand.

Self-help groups can act as arenas for education and training, political mobility and technological advancement. UNICEF aims for ‘women empowering women’ and self-help groups are a prime example of this aim in action.

CAMFED International run a micro-credit scheme called the seed money programme which ‘is uniquely run by young women for young women, creating a bond of female solidarity that is integral to its success’. The most successful self-help groups are often those lead and advised by women.

PRADAN explain that their efforts lead to ‘new and acquired capabilities and linkages [which] enhance the women’s self-confidence and status in the family and community.’

With this elevated status, women are able to make changes to issues that affect them and their children, as well as the lives of their male counterparts.

Rural Education and Action Development (READ) based in Tamil Nadu in Southern India has organised over 11,000 women into self-help groups since 1994. Concurrently, READ has worked with these groups of women to provide schools and education programmes for their children, health and sanitation camps for women, HIV/AIDS prevention schemes, consumer awareness sessions, and training in new agricultural techniques for farmers (often the women’s husbands).

Similarly, the Ghanaian organisation, WomensTrust doesn’t limit its work to credit and lending, but it ‘integrates[s] supplementary programs of education, adult literacy, and healthcare’.

By using the self-help groups as starting blocks for collaboration, women are enabling each other to make their own decisions and empower themselves and their communities.

International agencies recognise the accomplishments of micro-credit. UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2007 report states: ‘By challenging and defying discriminatory attitudes in their communities, women's groups can advance the rights of girls and women for generations to come.’

Through creation of an idea, discussion, action and successful implementation, self-help groups are ensuring the women within them are becoming more valuably recognised in their societies. And this is a huge step towards gender equality.

The success of self-help groups has proved that micro-credit is no longer just limited to the developing world. The first Grameen bank in New York was opened on 25th April this year.

From a concept that only came into existence in the 1970s aimed at the rural corners of Bangladesh, to the first American-style Grameen bank in 2008, micro-credit’s presence is ever more evident throughout the world.

It has yet to be seen how micro-credit will change the face of banking in the developed world. Will the indicator of female empowerment be measured to the same degree? Will the greater empowerment of low-income people be achieved?

Or perhaps, as bank loans become less accessible to those on low incomes, and personal debts increase, self-help groups will provide another option to those in need, in our world of savings, investment, loans, mortgages, ISAs, bonds….

Katie Hill

Lakshmi’s story

Lakshmi lives in the same house where she was born, in the village of Angalakuppam in Tamil Nadu, South India. She is 26 years old and has worked in the village’s medical dispensary since it opened in 2002.

Before the dispensary opened, the village’s residents, many of whom without access to transport faced a 16 kilometre journey to the nearest hospital and clinic in Puducherry. This barrier particularly affected the village’s older residents.

Along with the untold health benefits brought to the village the dispensary has seen Lakshmi become integral to daily life in Angalakuppam due to her work at the dispensary. As a girl growing up in a rural village, Lakshmi always wanted to go into medicine, but was unsure if she would receive an opportunity to pursue her wish of practising medicine. Lakshmi told me:

‘I always wanted to do a medical course or to become a doctor, but it was not possible for me in my family’.

When the dispensary opened in 2002 Lakshmi received training from a nurse three times a week for a period of 18 months, learning to prescribe appropriate medicines, give physical examinations and apply dressings. Lakshmi is proud of the service that she provides and says the best part of her job is ‘treating everyone, giving pregnancy advice and advising on immunisations for babies… I like working here because I can give a service to my people’.

Balakrishnan comes twice a week to receive tablets for back pain. The 67-year-old grandfather says that the dispensary has benefited ‘everyone’ and that now people are starting to come from surrounding villages.

Despite improved access to healthcare provided by the dispensary, Lakshmi knew that she would have to some dispel traditional anxieties surrounding the ‘new medicine’ and that as a girl from the village she would have to win the patients’ trust:

‘Yes, they were afraid to come here, I am a young girl and come from the village, “how can she treat us?”. Then after a few months we had 10 patients a day. Now we have up to 50 patients a day, it is like a hospital… people trust me more than the hospital!’


Since this article was written Lakshmi has married and moved from her childhood home. She now lives in a nearby village, travelling to the centre every day to continue her work at the centre.