Own Your Body/ Aapka Shareer Aapki Jaageer

Amba Dalmia Women Empowerment Cell
(Ajmer Adult Education Association Office, Kanta Marwah Bhawan,Vidyut Marg, Shastri Nagar Extension, Ajmer)

Concept

The body remains the major site of exploitation as far as women are concerned – from sexual abuse and harassment to domestic violence; from the glamour industry to the selective abortion of female foetuses. When we speak of empowerment we need to pay greater heed to the female body as she negotiates patriarchal institutions and customs from infancy to old age.

Rajasthan is a tradition-bound, feudal state and statistics show that women are still at a great disadvantage here whether it is the field of education, health or economy. But the inequity is not confined to villages and the under-privileged as some would like to believe. It cuts across class, caste and the rural-urban divide. In 1990s, for instance, our city, Ajmer, was rocked by a scandal when a local newspaper broke the story that some men had been coercing and blackmailing schoolgirls into sex; taking pictures and making videos of the act. Almost two decades later we still need to ask the question why such an incident happened. They were city girls being educated in prestigious institutions. (To read more about the incident go to http://www.anuradhamarwah.com/search/label/forthcoming)
We also need to be confident that such an incident will not happen again.

In fact, with the proliferation of the glamour industry in the country the likelihood of such exploitation has only increased. If options have increased for women; crime against women has multiplied as well. Our socio-legal system is ill-prepared for the onslaught of globalization and over the last few years has repeatedly shown itself to be incapable of protecting the weak from the unscrupulous. For example, does it ensure the safety of young women on the roads? Can a girl dress as she likes even in the city?

The answer would be in the negative for both questions and the existing state of affairs should be a cause of grave concern to all of us. There is the fundamentalist school of thought that believes that all problems of society can be solved by locking women away from benefits of modernity and pushing them back into the nineteenth century. This is a knee-jerk reaction to globalization and by definition inhuman and untenable. Also, what passes for tradition in such discourses is hardly women-friendly – dowry, domestic violence being cases in point.
For women to take their rightful place as citizens of a free democracy in the twenty-first century we need support structures and help groups not prisons. We need to re-build institutions, re-interpret laws and social customs so that they include the new needs and demands of women. Amba Dalmia Women Empowerment Cell is a small step in this direction by AAEA that has been working for the empowerment of the under-privileged since 1971.

Starting the cell has become possible for us due to a private donation made to AAEA by Mrs. Manju Kapur Dalmia. The cell commemorates the memory of her daughter Amba Dalmia.


The Scope of Own Your Body/ Aapka Shareer Aapki Jaageer programme

We plan to focus on the body – not because being a woman is only biological; but because the body needs to be recognised as the primary site of struggle. It is what Nature gives us by way of the gift of life and it is what society continuously denies us by challenging our ownership of our own bodies in several devious ways. Ownership of the body is crucial to understanding and implementing the following:
a. No to all kinds of sexual abuse
b. Anti-sexual harassment policy in the workplace.
c. Equality in love and sex for the adolescent girl
d. Empowered negotiations with glamour and beauty
e. Women’s rights in marital sex
f. No to all kinds of domestic violence
g. Reproductive Rights and decisions about motherhood
h. Reproductive health
i. Menopause and care of the ageing female body

Target Group

For almost 40 years AAEA has been working in Ajmer. Our target group would include
a. Schoolgirls
b. College students
c. Field workers in various organisations
d. Women working in offices
e. Women from Khadim Mohalla, Harijan Basti and all other localities where we already have a relationship.
f. Men and Boys

Methodology

To achieve our objectives we plan to
a. Hold public lectures
b. Organise short term training programmes for adolescent girls and women
c. Run a library and resource centre in the AAEA office
d. Make provisions for legal and medical counselling in the AAEA office
e. Conduct a survey in various offices and organisations in Ajmer to determine the number that have implemented an anti-sexual harassment policy.
f. Conduct gender sensitization workshops for men and boys
g. Generate resource material
h. Network with other NGOs working in the field.

The programme would be planned for 6 months at a time. Our plan from April – September 2009, the first phase, includes:
a. Starting the library and resource centre in the AAEA office (April-May)
b. Organizing a three-day self-defence training programme for women field workers from NGOs in June-July (Resource persons: Vishakha, Jaipur)
c. Starting an outreach programme in girls’ schools in Ajmer (July-September)

Anuradha Marwah

Secretary, AAEA

Ajmer Adult Education Association Profile

Ajmer Adult Education Association (AAEA), a registered voluntary organization, has been working in Ajmer district since 1971. Our goal all along has been to bring positive change in the lives of the poor, excluded, marginalized, and minority sections and enthusing them to educate themselves. We believe that education is an indispensable tool to bring about social transformation. AAEA has a committed team of workers who are working hard towards the concretization of this goal and empowerment of women and men, children and adolescents. AAEA has its Head Office at Ajmer and a Field Office in Sarwar.

AAEA Vision
We envision a society in which every woman, child and man is entitled to a life of dignity and where everyone is free to participate in taking decisions affecting social, cultural, economic and political aspects of her / his life. AAEA has a vision of an equitable society marked by fraternity and social justice.

AAEA Mission
First and foremost, to work for the poor, deprived and marginalized sections of society, which are generally village people, so that they claim their due share in the benefits of development. To ensure and nurture gender justice by empowering women and adolescent girls. Special care is taken to address women in all the activities of AAEA. To engage in critical partnership with the government and forge alliances with other actors of civil society, such as people’s movements and networks, women’s groups, academics and researchers to strengthen and consolidate people’s empowerment processes already in motion.

AAEA Interventions so far
During the last thirty eight years of its existence, AAEA has successfully undertaken various projects like Non Formal Education (NFE), One Thousand House Hold Industries (HHI), National Adult Education Programme (NAEP), Women’s Health and Domestic Violence, Lok Jumbish Project (LJP), and Doosara Dashak to name a few. During its infancy, AAEA worked to educate jail inmates and child labour. AAEA also made a breakthrough in educating Muslim women and girls living in the ‘walled’ Ajmer city. These women and girls were also empowered economically by relevant vocational trainings. These experiences gave AAEA confidence and resolve to economically empower poor womenfolk in general. State Industry Department sponsored One Thousand House Hold Industries (HHI) project to realize the dream of economic empowerment. Similar efforts were made through Training for Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM) and Schedule Caste Youth Training for Self Employment (SCYTE).
AAEA strongly believes that education is the most powerful medium of change. In 1971 AAEA adopted a village Bisudani and was successful in making the village totally literate within a short span of two years. Bisudani was the first village to achieve total literacy in Ajmer district long before the concept of total literacy was even heard of. Bisudani experience enthused AAEA to work more ambitiously in Central Government sponsored National Adult Programme. Intensive and sustained efforts were made in Arain and Pisangan blocks through NAEP, NFE and Post Literacy and Continuing Education programmes. An independent IIM(A) evaluation rated AAEA efforts very highly. It was observed that many poor and deprived boys and girls in villages and towns left or dropped out of the mainstream of formal education. AAEA found it imperative to address their needs through NFE projects. Later these efforts continued under Lok Jumbish Project and Doosara Dashak. These projects aimed at universalization of adolescents’ and children’s education by enhanced community participation and qualitative improvement in government-run schools. IRANGAN Reading Clubs were added to some schools to make learning a more joyful experience for children.
Currently, AAEA is running a project called ‘Education and Development of Adolescents in Arain Block’ in fifty villages. This project is oriented towards providing a value-based and integrated education and to ensure the participation of the beneficiaries in the process of social change. As a part of this project, we work with villages from all age groups, particularly adolescents and youth. This involves school children, school dropouts and illiterates who are not only provided education but are also given the opportunity to acquire different life skills for their all round development.

AAEA Capacity Building efforts
Various trainings have been conducted from time to time to orient, re-orient and enable the functionaries of AAEA to be more effective in their efforts. AAEA has a number of capable, experienced trainers and resource persons who team up to train different groups. In initial years of the organization AAEA effectively trained two groups of national volunteers under National Social Volunteer Scheme. Many of these volunteers later joined the AAEA team. Under Women’s Development Programme (WDP) of the state government, AAEA initiated a state-level resource centre for WDP functionaries, IDARA (Information Development and Resource Agency) and effectively-trained grassroot women functionaries. Many groups were empowered through IDARA’s trainings. Sathing Ro Kagad, a bulletin for semi-literate Saathins (grassroot women functionaries of WDP) and village women, was effective in keeping them abreast of concepts and developments. AAEA, while working for WDP, felt a strong need to address adolescent girls. A training of trainers (TOT) was organized on reproductive health for grassroot social activists. Dairying being an important and crucial means of livelihood in countryside Ajmer, trainings were also conducted for barefoot veterinary doctors.
Shikshakarmis, LJ functionaries, DD workers and instructors, supervisors of NAEP & NFE were effectively trained from time to time. Role of women panchs and sarpanchs is crucial in good governance, hence district-level trainings were organized to empower and orient these women leaders.

AAEA Resources
Appreciating AAEA’s pro-poor, pro-Dalit and gender-sensitive stance, central and state governments have financially helped AAEA since its inception. We have also received financial aid and assistance from UNICEF, British Council, NABARD, ACCORD, Delhi, and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai. We also accept donations from individuals. Such donations by Indian
citizens are exempt from Income tax under 80-G. Owing to participatory methods and transparency in its entire work, AAEA is identified by its integrity.

Future vision
After working for society for almost four decades AAEA now plans to funnel down its focus to the rights of the poor, excluded and marginalized sections in Rajasthan. AAEA team would endeavour to take up rights based work so that deprived women, children and men are enabled to claim their full rights as Indian citizen.

Contact:
Ajmer Adult Education Association
Kanta Marwah Bhawan,
Vidyut Marg, Shastri Nagar Extention, AJMER 305006
Tel. +1452424592,
Email : ajadultedu@gmail.com