Ajmer, July 1975. With inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign, railway employee Sri Sagar Mal Kaushik (Kaushik Ji) led relief efforts amidst flash floods. With a foundation in grassroots activism and more than ten years of service activities, Kaushik Ji then founded Rajasthan Mahila Kalyan Mandal (RMKM) in 1987. The organization was established to address issues of women’s empowerment, special education, health and livelihoods enhancement.
Today, RMKM runs nine programs in more than 80 villages and urban areas with a dedicated team of 75 staff members, including Kaushik Ji’s youngest son and daughter-in-law.
Kaushik Ji’s early days of service focused on education, with special attention to providing opportunities for mentally challenged children. This belief led to the establishment of two schools for the mentally challenged: Minu Manovakis Mandir (1989) in Chachiyawas and Sanjay Special School (2001) in Beawer. Collectively the schools have 450 students and 28 staff members; the former is a residential school. In 2005, RMKM organized the first ever state-level Special Olympics for mentally challenged children in the Ajmer district.
In addition to the aforementioned initiatives, RMKM has collaborated with the Room to Read program. Room to Read is a government-accredited program designed to promote literacy in rural India. RMKM aligned with the government in 2008 to bring the program to Ajmer district and has established 100 libraries thus far to promote reading habits in government school students.
Along with the organization’s education initiatives, RMKM has established the AWARE program (Advancement of Women in Rural Environment). The program has trained 487 women in handicrafts work. These women market their products at various exhibitions, outlets, and Mumal - the crafts centre in the RMKM campus. In order to help these women become financially independent, RMKM has formed 190 self-help groups (SHGs), which encourage savings and collective action. The SHGs have also resulted in more active female participation in local governance. For example, the women of Chachiyawas initiated the closing of an illegal alcohol shop in their community.
Over the years, RMKM has purposefully built a repertoire of programs that provides opportunities for local children and women to realize their potential.
Need for Project:
In 1975, when Kaushik Ji started his flood relief work, he was supported by a handful of women who assisted him by providing food to families stranded by flood waters. While Kaushik Ji has taken up a number of causes in his lifetime, he has always believed that economic independence plays a crucial role in helping women make decisions in their homes and communities. A few years after the flood, Kaushik Ji lobbied the government for women to be given employment in the Indian railways.
At present, RMKM is supporting over a 1,000 women through 190 SHGs. Each SHG consists of 10 to 15 members. A group of SHGs at the village level forms a cluster of SHGs, which consists of representatives from each SHG. The AWARE program has enabled them to earn anywhere between Rs. 500 to Rs. 4,000 per month. The greatest impact of the program has been the increased savings rate of the women.
However, RMKM sees SHGs as a tool to support women further by creating awareness about social issues, livelihoods, health and nutrition. RMKM encourages women to value their individual identities and empower each other.
As an August 2010 Indicorps Fellow, your task will be to strengthen existing SHGs and assist with creating new ones.
In the first phase, you should focus on understanding the ongoing SHG activities at RMKM. For this, you should spend time with the community, especially members of the SHGs. You might want to consider shadowing staff members and attending SHG meetings. Understanding how SHGs function and the benefits women receive from them will help you decide the course of your project.
In the second phase, you should focus on strengthening the existing SHGs. You should assist with training women to take on leadership roles in the SHGs and clusters. Your trainings should focus on skills that are essential for the smooth functioning of the SHGs, such as accounting and management skills. Simultaneously, as a focus area, you should help with the designing and marketing of products created by the women under the AWARE program.
Finally, you should rally women in other villages to create their own SHGs. In addition to promoting savings and loans, you can help raise awareness about social issues amongst the women. You may organize regular meetings with the women, cultural programs, street plays, etc. While creatively coming up with new ideas, you should also draw from RMKM’s experience in the field.
Throughout the year, you should carefully document all your activities and their impact to present periodically to the organization. Your observations and learnings will be crucial in helping the organization shape future activities.
Target Community:
The target community consists of rural women between the ages of 20 to 50 years. A majority of the women are involved in agriculture and have no formal schooling. Many of them have taken up construction work to earn additional income. The average household income is Rs.800 per month.
Objectives:
• Creating new SHGs and strengthening existing ones
• Raising awareness about social issues amongst women
• Providing design inputs and market linkages to boost the income-generation activities
Challenges:
• Ensuring the smooth functioning of SHGs, given the diverse range of members in terms of age and education levels
• Enabling women to control the decision making process
• Living on campus will offer limited personal space/privacy
Team-Based Model:
Each project is designed as a three-way partnership between you, Indicorps, and a partner organization. Each grassroots partner organization – in this case RMKM – will be hosting two to four Fellows. Consequently, the August 2010 Fellowship will have both an individual and a team component.
As a team of Indicorps Fellows, your focus is to infuse new creative and innovative elements in RMKM’s key activities. Team members will focus on different areas, including inculcating reading habits in government school children, further advancing the women’s self-help groups and promoting inclusive education amongst mentally challenged and mainstream primary school students.
You will live in a shared dormitory with other staff members in the RMKM campus. Simple vegetarian food will be provided. You will do your own laundry and chores and will be expected to assist with team responsibilities. Internet and international calling facilities are available in the nearby city of Ajmer which is 15 km away from the campus. For local transportation, you will use government transportation, shared jeeps, or travel tandem with staff on motorcycles. Ajmer is well connected to all major cities in the country by the road and railway network.
The language spoken at RMKM is Hindi, and the local dialect is Marwari. For this project, a basic knowledge of Hindi is required. If you do not have a basic knowledge of Hindi, you can still apply if you commit to learning the language before the start of your Fellowship year.
Prior experience or interest in community organization and mobilization of women would be helpful for this project.
Please explain the qualifications that make you a strong candidate for this project - be sure to elaborate on any experiences with all-women organizations.
2.
It comes to your attention that there have been three separate incidents of domestic violence in your village in the past month. How will you create awareness about domestic violence in the RMKM communities? How will you empower women in the SHG to speak out against this issue?
3.
Change takes time. How will you exercise patience and restraint when your project does not go according to plan? How have you exhibited patience in the past?
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