A ray hope for Neha at COP21

21st UNFCCC Conference of the Parties or COP21 has just begun. Its THE most important climate summit of our lifetime where we expect the world to strike a climate deal - one that will be "gender responsive". On the occasion, I am running a 2-week blog campaign, connecting the dots among COP21, Climate Change and Gender


 A very interesting development took place on the 3rd day of COP21: the World Bank Group announced that it would make a  US$500 million investment to support one of India's groundwater program.  India, we must remember, is the world’s largest consumer of groundwater.

The announcement made me think of Neha - the little girl in the picture - a 6th grade school student who spends several hours out of school, drawing water for the family everyday from a small pond. The quality of water - as you can see - is horrible.

A muddy pond - the main source of water for Neha

When Thirst Beats Education

A few weeks back, I was in a village along the border of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where I met Sandhya Rani, a 10 year old. She was carrying a bamboo staff on her shoulder and , fastened to its ends, three aluminum vessels. In these vessels, she was going to carry water from a borewell for her family, along with her 7 year old sister Saundrya.

Their parents were working as migrant laborers in a city and the girls lived with their elderly grandmother.

I followed Rani from her house which was at the village' entrance to the borewell at the far end of the village. That was the only borwell in the village - the source of potable water for over 500 people.

Girls' Education: Lets Look Beyond Enrollment

I recently met Bharti, a bubbly 13 year old, at a children's shelter 110 km away from Hyderabad. She had been rescued a few of months ago, the staff at the shelter told me.

"Rescued from who and what? Traffickers? Abusive employers?" I wanted to know
The answer was, "from her own parents".

No, Bharti's parents were not abusive or trying to sell their daughter to someone. It's just that they often stopped her from going to school and took her to work in a farm instead.

Now this sounds quite trivial, doesn't it? After all, the parents are just making the girl miss a few days' school now and then, right?

Not quite.

Sex Workers Daughters Access Education in India

The story below was published in Global Press Institute on Oct 11- the first International Girl's Day. I was traveling and read it myself after a couple of days. So, thought of sharing it here, with a few new photos. You can also read the original article here.

The kids at Chaithanya Happy Home sing as a proud Jayamma - their guardian looks with a smile.

NEW DELHI, INDIA – Madhavi, 12, of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state in southern India, is an aspiring poet.

“I love music and poetry,” she says. “When I grow up, I want to teach poetry to little children.”

But the girl’s own childhood was far from poetic. Deep scars on Madhavi’s face mark the time a dog mauled her at age 2 while she was living on the streets with her mother, who earned a living as a sex worker.

Yet Madhavi’s eyes shine as she smiles and dreams about her future.

“To be a schoolteacher and take care of so many children will be fun,” she says.

And she now has the opportunity to achieve her dreams. No longer living on the streets with her mother, she has safe shelter at Chaithanya Happy Home and studies in the fifth grade at a city school.

Chaithanya Happy Home is part of Chaithanya Mahila Mandali, India’s first nonprofit organization founded by a former sex worker, Jayamma Bandari. Between the ages of 4 and 14, the 35 girls living in the home are all daughters of commercial sex workers.

Even a decade ago, the fate for these girls was to join the same profession as their mothers once they came of age. Today, however, they are living in a safe place and are attending one of the best English-medium schools in Hyderabad, dreaming of becoming schoolteachers, engineers, doctors and revenue collectors.

Failed States, Just Give Women A Chance!

Thanks to World Pulse - the largest network of women, I now have a colleague in each of the 187 countries. So anything happens anywhere in the world and I can actually have someone to connect it to! And that's what I am doing now, linking the Failed State Index to my colleagues in - the failed states!

Early this week, I started reading the Failed State Index 2012 – an annual, globally recognized and accepted report prepared by the Washington DC- based organization Fund for Peace that ranks countries of the world according to their stability and capacity.

Topping the list of the failed states, for the fifth straight time, is Somalia. According to J J Messner, editor of the report, if this was a championship, Somalia would be called a legend. But since it’s not, the rank only indicates how bad the state of affairs is in the country where chaos and conflicts rule. Things are almost equally bad in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which has gotten the dubious 2nd place. Also sharing the space in the top 10 bracket is Zimbabwe.

Now, I have read this report a couple of times in earlier and just took them as what they were: a compilation of facts. But this year as I was reading it, a series of faces flashed before my eyes; women who are young, energetic, forever challenging, forever questioning everything that is wrong and, what’s more, also working to set them right.

These women come from these failed states, but are anything but a representative of failure. And here’s the reason why I thought of them: they are women of our very own World Pulse change-makers’ fraternity.

Chhattisgarhnama III: At 56, she labors hard, so her girls can stand on their feet.

Phulwanti - woman who is defying age and poverty to ensure the girls in her home grow up as strong, self-sufficient women.

Like so many of my aunts living in villages, Phulwanti Sahu of Machandur village in Chhattisgarh also can't say the year that she was born, or, how old she really is. Her ration card (the little book that allows her to buy food grains and sugar at a subsidized rate) shows she is 56. On the afternoon that I reach her home, a little girl playing in front of her house tells me that 'Ma' has gone to work in the field. This is, however, only half the truth; contrary to what it sounds like, Phulwanti is not working in her own farm. Instead, she is working as a laborer, in a neighbor's field, cutting the hard, uneven ground, making it even (Chhattisgarh government called it Bhumi sudhar yojana/land improvement scheme). This work, provided to her by the government for 100 days in a year, is Phulwanti's sole source of earning. With INR 122 per day, she earns INR 12,200 a year (about $250), that is, when the 'Thikedar'/supervisor is not corrupt and not cheating on her.

And she has three people to support: herself and two young, school-going girls.

Both the girls are her own grand children, but daughters of two different mothers. The elder one of them, Neha, was abandoned by her mother when she was 3 month-old. Her father, Phulwanti's son, is a migrant laborer who travels from state to state in search of work. A few years ago, he remarried, got three more children and decided to take care of two of them - both boys. So, the girl child - a 7 year old Dolly, was sent to the village, to Phulwanti. The old woman, who struggles to get a square meal for herself, took both the girls under her wings, and is today playing the multidimensional role a parent, a care giver and a friend.

There is a school in Phulwanti's village, but it provides education only upto the elemenatry level. Little Dolly studies here, while Neha, a student of 7th grade,  has to travel 3 Km to go to her school. Under a government scheme, Phulwanti has got a toilet in her house, but like most other villages in the region, there is no water. Both Neha and Dolly wake up early and fill up old plastic cans (Phulwanti can't afford to buy either pitchers or buckets) from a borewell by the road - a good half a km from their house."The girls work very hard", says Phulwanti, with a flicker of pride in her eyes, "they sweep, clean, and store water. Neha also cooks at times. They know their grandmother is getting old and try to decrease my burden."

The burden, however, is not easy to lower. Neha is growing up fast and Phulwanti worries about the time she will get her menstruation. Walking 6 km a day is going to be tough, so will be the job of carrying all the water cans. The girls will need more nutrition in their daily diet. Besides, Phulwanti cooks over wood stove  (cooking gas is beyond her reach and shockingly, the idea of biogas - the most affordable mode of cooking fuel to rural folks, is still alien here) and it might affect the girls' health. 

But not one to watch helplessly, Phulwanti is doing all she can: planted years ago, there is a Moringa tree in her house which has started bearing fruits and Phulwanti, who can't find either the money or the time to buy vegetables from local market, often cooks Moringa for the girls. And this year, she offered her paddy grower farmers, to sell their paddy in the market for them, so she can earn some extra wages and one day buy a cycle for Neha.

'Girls must stand on their own feet', says Phulwanti who, despite having three children, is forced to earn her own bread at the age of 56

'I did not get to study. But two years ago, I learned from my own daughter (who studied upto 8th grade) how to add, subtract and multiply. I also learned how to deposit and withdraw money from a bank. My neighbors, who are busy and are also illiterate, find it convenient if someone did the job for them,' she says.

In villages around here, girls are married off at the age of 18, if not earlier. Phulwanti herself was married at 15. But for her granddaughters, she wants a different future. "Neha was abandoned by her own mother. Dolly has been left here by her father. How can you say that the husband will stay by them?, she asks and continues,"Women must have means to take care of themselves. I want my granddaughters to study as far as possible and start earning. They should never be dependent on anyone in future. As long as my hands and feet are strong enough, I will labor."

As she talks, I look at this woman; dressed in an old synthetic sari, grey, dry hair tied with a piece of cloth (torn off the border of a sari), with no slippers and calloused hands, she is your typical woman living below the poverty line. But her vision, coupled with her courage makes her a woman you don't dare feel sorry for; only bow to, in respect.