Woman’s Empowerment: First hand experience

Yesterday was an amazing day. It was beyond what I had hoped to experience here. We had planned for a quiet day at the office doing data entry. But in the morning about 20 women from one group of villages came. We spent some time talking to them and found out the following story:
They had been selling their milk to Krishna Dairy, in the nearest big town. A couple months ago the dairy didn’t pay them, around 90,000 Rupees. The dairy went out of business and changed hands. They still had not paid them. The women leaders went to the law, the owners, the new owners and fought for their money. As of today they were still short 20,000 Rupees. They had decided today that they would all go to the Dairy and demand to be paid. If they didn’t get paid, they had planned to bring back equipment from the dairy. After talking to them, we thought it would be interesting to go along.
The ride there consisted of two jeeps and a motorcycle (carrying Pankaj and Rajesh – who came along just for support but did not plan on taking part in anything). Each jeep had 20 women in it. A regular sized jeep. And that is how I made the hour long ride. Talk about cramped. But it was a total bonding experience. The women next to me held onto me the whole time and it was a blast (even though my foot fell asleep like whoa). We got there and hung around for a bit, waiting for someone to come, who was third in charge of the dairy, who I called the “owner”. Pankaj called the owner but he didn’t pick up. The women spent their time looking at the equipment and trying to decide what they could take. The “owner” came and said that they have no money to give to the women. It was interesting to see that Srijan staff did not talk to the “owner”, they let the women do everything. The women had a sense of ownership and they knew they had a right to ask for their money. The staff just stood back and observed. Finally they called a truck and decided to put a huge milk carrying tub in it. They definitely carried through on what I thought was just a threat. The truck driver was scared of getting involved in illegal things. It was interesting that the driver refused to participate until Pankaj and Rajesh talked to him. Still, at every step, people do not want to trust a group of village women, no matter how powerful they are. Another dairy owner had been called as well to store the tub in his dairy. But he backed out at the last minute. It was decided to bring back the truck to our organization’s dairy. The women themselves put the tub in the truck, around 20 women helping. The job was quick and easy and the men couldn’t have resisted if they wanted to. It didn’t seem like they wanted to. The power that was in the air and the clear example of woman’s empowerment was just beyond words. The women posed with the equipment and cheered while putting the tub in the truck. It was a complete display that power comes in groups and with self-confidence. The organization knows how to instill that in these women, and then realize to step back to ensure the women have control at the end of the day.
On the way back, about 20 women (with the leaders) and I stopped by the district collectors office. He had been involved in the matter but hadn’t done anything so far. He is some high position government official, not sure exactly what. So I got there to find him sitting in his office not doing much. In the verandah there were about 40 people already waiting. Finally he opened the door and a guard let the first group in (all 40 were in that group). We waited for about 20 minutes, which is apparently the least amount of time they have had to wait. Usually it is a couple hours. It was about 3 in the afternoon and I had not eaten lunch and had ran out of water (if u bring a bottle, all the women will drink from it!). Needless to say I was getting worried about dehydration, but it still seemed not as important as the problems faced by these women. Finally we were called in. I stood in the back because I didn’t want any special treatment because of me and it was all about the women and their issue. They calmly told the collector Sahib what they had done and said we don’t think this is wrong, even though we went on private property and took something. He looked really amused and said that he knows the group does not do anything wrong and was glad they came themselves to report it (before the dairy owner could do anything). The whole meeting lasted about 10 minutes. We got back in the jeep and some women kept saying “We stole and are reporting it ourselves”. They found this funny. The women leaders were all like, we did NOT steal. We took what was ours. They owed us money. It was nice to see who realized their ownership and who still thought they had done something wrong. The energy that was in the jeep on the way back was amazing. It was so much fun. Today the news made the front page of the local newspaper, picture and all…