Gender and Equality: connecting communities and empowering people.

“Discover women as agents of social change or the change maker”

“Amartya sen suggested gender equality in terms of increasing human capabilities and enhancing opportunities for both men and women alike. He recognized that without equality in capabilities and opportunities, women couldn’t be on the same level playing field with men. In his vision for mission 2007 and for the national virtual academy. M.S Swami Nathan goes up a step further than Amartya Sen, in setting higher standards- creating an army of over one million knowledge workers in India, half of which are women from the grassroots as those who enhance capabilities of their community members and provide opportunities for their communities.”

To consolidate the gains from the micro credit facilities to the disadvantaged women, several inputs are required which would facilitate and promote women empowerment in a holistic manner.  On several occasions during lengthy discussion and interactions with field functionaries, government officials, local CBOs an the community, a need was expressed for emergence of a local center operating as a converging point for all services, trainings, information and resource material development. 

To fulfill the above community demand resource center, Krushi has came forward to establish and address issues of   women and gender empowerment. The district administration has given its heartful cooperation to run the center from district collectrate. The project as titled as SAHAYA to empower women through capacity building activities.

The objectives of the center:

1. To initiate and stabilize the micro credit activities of SHGs
2. To secure access to community resources to all stakeholders of their empowerment
3. To cerate and improve awareness on various gender development related issues among specific groups of stakeholders.
4. To provide strategic inputs to strengthen the existing skills od successful women entrepreneurs
5. To develop and offer need based and activity oriented package courses to specific groups of women and their families.

The stakeholders of the project include all types of stakeholders, who directly or indirectly involved in women empowerment programmes, namely field level community workers, organizers, SHG leaders, and members.

 With the strong spirit of community that the Krushi-Development organization took initiative to establish a women’s cell at District Collectorate in Karimnagar by name Center for Protection of Women’s Rights. Through this cell, the Krushi is making efforts to address the women issues like atrocities, domestic violence, dowry harassment, gender issues, legal aid and counseling and is also running a short shelter home for distressed women in Mahila Pranganam with the cooperation of Women and Child Welfare Department. On the twenty-third day of every month a meeting is held in District Collector’s chamber for review of cases filed by SAHAYA. The Superintendent of Police and district officials from various departments and representatives from NGOs attend the meeting. After examining the applications and interacting with victims, the Collector issues suitable instructions to the concerned departments for necessary action. The Krushi, Loksatta and other like minded organizations are taking initiative to conduct fact findings to know the details of incidents and after collecting the facts from the victims, the report is submitted to the District Collector for immediate help like medical support and release of cash compensation from the government. The performance of the center is as follows:

Achievements of SAHAYA Center during the year 2002-06

S. No.	Year	No. of cases received	No. of cases initiated	No. of cases settled	No. of cases under process	No. of cases dropped	Reply due from Govt. dept.
1	2002	11	11	11
2	2003	179	179	154	20	5
3	2004	107	107	85	16	6
4	2005	39	39	25	11	3
5	up to June' 2006	32	32	15	16	1
TOTAL :		368	368	290	63	15	0

Krushi partners: Building Relationships:

Solidarity for the distressed farmers In developing countries like India majority population is dependent on agriculture sector. The same is the situation in Andhra Pradesh also. Once upon a time the state was called the rice bowl of the country. In all the three regions of the state i.e. Andhra, Rayalaseema and Telangana farmers were happy with copious rainfall and agriculture production. Not only the small and marginal farmers but also agriculture laborers were happily living in this sector. But during the past decade the agriculture scenario had changed. The rainfall was scant and farmers were forced to depend on ground water. Every farmer was drilling tube wells indiscriminately resulting in depletion of ground water. People are suffering from the acute lack drinking and irrigations waters. Besides the above pathetic ecological conditions, the investments on agriculture had also abnormally increased due to over usage of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Even after all the heavy investment the farmers were not getting support price. The end result was growing debts. Many such farmers were left with no alternative but to commit suicide. So far, 120 farmers have committed suicide in Karimnagar district alone.

The women organizations promoted by Krushi came forward and expressed solidarity with the distressed families. They appealed to farmers not to discourage but to fight for better life. In many villages, the women groups extended credit support to farmers’ families to establish alternative livelihood activities like dairy units, sheep rearing, vegetable vending, rain fed farming with low cost technology, enterprise activities etc. Besides sensitizing the farmers on above interventions, the Krushi is making efforts to promote demand-driven agriculture produces like organic rice, chilies, maize, pulses etc., this year, The farmers who are practicing organic farming methods are getting price in the market. Thus the Krushi is expressing solidarity with the support of community-based organizations.

Anti girl child trafficking campaign

Incidents of child trafficking for
begging, labour, organ transplantation,
pornography, prostitution and pedophilia are increasing in the state. That there is a need for systematic recording of cases of trafficking and follow up at various levels. As per the available sources, that there is no comprehensive study on the incidents of child trafficking for various purposes. There is no data or literature on the situation on this issue with state specific information. And a few NGO are working directly in the issue and their efforts are largely in rescue. The government is seriously, working towards developing a comprehensive legislation to combat child trafficking. By all these experiences that the krushi development organization has been looking the issue and handle in the following way.

The Krushi made strong efforts in successfully organizing anti girl child trafficking campaign in Karimnagar district. The ICDS Projects with the help of Mothers Committees and Change Agents in villages organized the campaign. The Krushi personnel explained the adverse effects of trafficking and child marriages in the meetings. The message percolated to the grassroots through campaigns. In every village adolescent girls and members of women’s groups actively took part in this campaign.

Community Management programme:

Awareness generation and organization:

In order to awaken the innate leadership qualities in rural women, which for one reason or the other have remained dormant, Krushi has been organizing skill-training programmes. The training programme aim at inculcating the spirit of leadership and cooperation   in each stakeholder so that they would become, in turn a source of inspiration to others.

The trained women are taken to the nearby villages to motivate other women and to induce organizational and managerial capabilities among them. During the camps the women also get to know about several family and child welfare programmes of the government, nutritional requirement of the children, community health, environmental sanitation, community organization and other social problems. 

S.No.	Particulars	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
1	Dowry Murders	14	16	14	14	8
2	Dowry Deaths	65	83	53	52	62
3	Forcible Deaths	71	69	90	93	69
4	Harassments	226	212	227	243	260
5	Anti-Dowry Cases	87	93	72	63	74
6	Atrocities	92	63	69	79	56
7	Molestation	235	208	240	260	274
8	Kidnaps	30	24	29	23	32
9	Bigamy	16	14	13	19	16
10	Women Murders	24	27	18	23	26
11	Eve-teasing	67	37	29	52	72
TOTAL		927	846	854	921	1049

Source: District Police Crime Report
The Krushi is working jointly with like-minded organisations on women’s issues. It launched a network along with government and other voluntary organisations by the name of SAHAYA (help).  The Krushi is promptly responding to incidents of atrocities on women and conducting fact finding enquiries and taking all steps towards bringing justice to victims.

With the efforts made by Krushi the following results were achieved:
 

S. No.	Month	No. of cases received	No. of cases initiated	No. of cases settled	No. of cases under process	Reply due from Govt. departmental
1	Dec'2002	11	11	11	-	-
2	Jan'2003	20	20	11	2	7
3	Feb'2003	14	14	8	2	5
4	Mar'2003	14	14
TOTAL:		59	59

 

Krushi is taking the following steps through SAHAYA:

1. Immediate assistance to victims
2. Rehabilitation of victims
3. Counseling
4. Legal support
5. Short shelter home for distressed women
6. Advocacy and lobbying towards prevention of violence against women and gender discrimination

Rehabilitation of sex workers

Krushi is committed to work on prevention of HIV/AIDS. In its interventions, it is moving in a different way. For the last four years it took up a few awareness programmes. But during the last year it has concentrated on rehabilitation of sex workers in Sirsilla town. The objective of the programme is to control the growth of STD at its generating points. To reach its goal, on pilot basis, it came to know about the present situation by doing the counseling of sex workers. The Krushi was also involved the district administration i.e., District Collector and local Revenue Divisional Officer, other officials in counseling the sex workers. We have taken up few activities such as joining the children in main stream,32 persons have been identified as target people and also taking the steps towards economic rehabilitation with the help of local bankers and other govt. line departments.