Empowering Widows and Single Women and mainstreaming them
Widows are the silent (silenced) sufferers of India. From the very moment of the death of their husbands, they are deprived of all their rights, right to live a dignified life, right to mobility, right to assume leadership, right to property, right to re-marry, right to dress up in the way they want etc. in the name of culture & religion and the socially ostracized practices. They are looked down as ‘unlucky’, treated as ‘living corpses’ and considered as the cause for ‘ill-omen’ by their own families, kith and kin and the society around. Analyzing the reality of Widows Mrs. Meera Khanna Vice Chairperson, Kashmir Interventions says,“Indian widow is triply discriminated against, as a woman, as a widow and as a poor widowed woman.” They are … physically alive, but socially dead.” (Meera Khanna, ‘The Voiceless Millions of Widows in India – Focus on Rights of Widows within the CEDAW Framework.
http://www.wunrn.com/news/2010/02_10/02_08_10/020810_india3.htm)
The age old plight of widows is inter-twined with gender discrimination and superstition issues / beliefs which have embedded into the ethos of our Indian culture. It emanates out of the deep-rooted notion in the mind-set of Indian people that ‘women cease to have the right to live, the moment they are widowed... the moment they become single’.
Kalangarai’s Intervention in Widows’ Empowerment
Widows in India were / are never been given a great concern on their well being as well as during the post-tsunami phase too the widows were totally neglected a lot both by society and NGOs. Kalangarai during the Tsunami relief work towards the affected people and closer interactions with the widows opened the eyes of the team regarding the cultural and social ostracism thrust upon them for hundreds of years. Their plight obviously demanded from Kalangarai a long-term commitment in their struggle towards emancipation. To address the painful problems of widows struggling to make a meaningful livelihood, Kalangarai set up micro-credit groups in 80 villages.
Following the work, all the women were formed into as many as 87 micro-credit groups in and around Nagapattinam. Two leaders were elected for each group and a bank account was opened in the names of the two elected leaders. Later, financial help was extended to all the 87 groups consisting of 1300 individual widows.
Since 2005 onwards Kalangarai has engaged in assisting widows to avail government welfare schemes, to cultivate leadership qualities, to attain socio, economic and health betterment, to understand laws related women and to pursue micro enterprise activities.
a) Micro-credit self-help groups
Since 2005 till date Kalangarai has been animating 150 self-help groups consisting of 2300 individuals in Nagapattinam and Mayiladuthurai districts. Economic efforts are extended to promote and generating activities such as rearing goats and cows, running petty shops, selling fish, collective enterprises and etc.
b) Widows Movement
In the process of empowering the members of the micro-credit self-help groups, a movement was launched under the banner 'Movement for the Livelihood Rights of Widows & Deserted Women'. The movement had its birth at the International Women's Day Conventions organized in March 2007. Within a year, the movement picked up its momentum quickly that in the year 2009 during the International Women's Day celebrations, the leaders of the movement gained confidence to shoulder the entire responsibility of organizing rallies and conventions. Moving a step further, toward the end of the conventions, they were convinced to pass the following resolutions, which obviously had political resonance. They demanded the Government;
- To come out with a law as that of 'SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act' to protect widows from verbal and physical abuse.
- To evolve a Welfare Board/separate department to look into the problems of widows.
- To provide job opportunities to youth who come forward to marry widows.
- To take care of the education of widows' children living below the poverty line.
The Movement has registered itself under Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act 1975 on 7th January, 2016 and has become an independent entity having its own office, General Body, Executive Body and Office Bearers.
