Ten Rooms Where a Scheme Became an Application

A woman can be formally entitled to speak in a village forum and still have nowhere to prepare what she is going to say.

The Empowering Rural Women initiative worked through hamlet-level women’s groups linked at gram panchayat and block level, around rights to food, work, equality and a dignified living. Ten village resource centres - one for each participating panchayat - put information within walking distance and gave collective members somewhere to prepare.

DEHAT facilitated orientation on Panchayati Raj institutions, on employment-guarantee and public-distribution procedure, on leadership, and on how to hold an interface with officials. The women’s collectives ran the social platform: sharing what they knew, identifying the common barriers, carrying the questions into public forums.

At one interface, 350 applicants took part and 1,086 applications on development issues were submitted. Across the period, 1,380 women accessed schemes including maternity support, housing, health cards, financial assistance and widow pensions.

Participation by women in open Gram Sabha meetings reached forty-five per cent in the intervention area. After the Panchayat elections, open meetings were held across all ten gram panchayats. Karikot decided to hold one on the eighth day of every month. Annual employment planning began with community involvement in all ten.

When women compared notes at a resource centre, a missing pension or a ration problem stopped looking like a private difficulty. The group could work out which institution held responsibility and whether the matter belonged in a Gram Sabha, an office or a written application.

DEHAT facilitated the training, the tools and the institutional connections. The women sustained the groups, brought the claims and occupied the rooms where decisions were made.

A missing pension stopped being a private difficulty.