bREAKING THE CYCLE in rural rajasthan
WORDS & IMAGES BY CATHY MINTO
Guddi and her family meeting the Photographers Without Borders team.
I first met Guddi, 23, while walking around the bustling streets of rural Setrawa, a small, semi-arid village in Northern Rajasthan, two-hours drive north-west of Jodhpur.
Here to visit the local empowerment centre, setup by the Sambhali Trust, I wanted to meet local residents and get a feel for the community. Guddi was eager to practice her English, having not had foreign visitors for a few years due to the Covid pandemic. With pride she described her 12 years of education at the Sambhali Empowerment Centre.
Sambhali Trust is an Indian non-profit organisation based in Jodhpur, with a center in Sertrawa. Founded in 2007 by Govind Singh Rathore, the organisation aims to empower local women and children and marginalised people through educational programs, vocational training, domestic violence emergency helpline, legal support and psychological counseling and a variety of social services including school workshops on prevention of sexual abuse
Setrawa village, Phalodi District, Rajasthan, India.
Sambhali Trust currently runs seven empowerment centres, all with similar models. In the mornings the empowerment centre is for women from the community who sign a contract to attend for one year. In this time they will learn sewing, have a primary education (English, reading, writing and maths), attend workshops on legal rights, health and the environment, find support for a variety of challenges they may be facing at home (including domestic violence) and also practice exercise including dance and self-defence. On graduating they receive a sewing machine and the raw materials to make their own living, separate from their husband, and provide them with financial independence. They can also access microfinancing to start a variety of small business enterprises – a more accessible route to loans than banks offer. Successful graduates of the program even return to Sambhali to offer microfinancing loans to other women.
Kanwaru Kanwar teaching sewing at the Sambhali Trust Empowerment Centre in Setrawa.
In the afternoon the empowerment Centre becomes a school, mostly for girls like Guddi who otherwise have no education, but also for boys who are already in local schools and wish to extend their studies or get homework help. The children are taught in both Hindi and English and progress through beginner, intermediate and advanced classes. The reason for allowing boys to learn alongside the girls at the empowerment centre illustrates the long-term societal changes that Sambhali Trust aims to build from the ground up in the community. Slowly but surely, attitudes of the boys will change if they learn alongside girls as their equals.
Sunita Prajapat teaching the beginner primary school class at the Abhaya Sambhali Trust Empowerment Centre in Jodhpur. Three primary school classes fit into a small cramped upstairs building.
Guddi started her educational journey at the Sambhali empowerment centre aged 6 and left at 18 to get married, educated and speaking good English, and also skilled in reading, writing and maths. As we chat in the street, her husband and other family members come to meet us and take the obligatory selfies with the foreigner visitors. Guddi introduces her nephew and nieces and without thinking I ask if she has children. Tears well up in her eyes and she quietly talks about recently losing her only child.
As an obstetrician and gynaecologist, I know that surviving your first child’s delivery is no mean feat in rural India. With minimal antenatal care, Guddi managed to stay well and safely delivered her daughter in hospital in Jodhpur. A German doctor working there overheard Guddi face-timing her English speaking friend who had been a volunteer teacher at the Sambhali Trust some years before. This doctor marvelled at her good English and as Guddi told him about the empowerment centre, she also took the chance to encourage other women on the postnatal ward to consider going along.
As a patriarchal, conservative society, boys still trump girls. The current high birth ratio of boys to girls reveals the continuing practice of terminating pregnancies with a female baby. But things are changing, albeit very slowly. National and regional initiatives are in place throughout India to encourage the birth of girl babies, including National Girl Child Day, celebrated annually on January 24th and more recently incentive payments of $15,000 rupes (around US$200) are paid out to mothers in Rajasthan who give birth to a baby girl. Guddi and her husband were delighted with their first born daughter, only to face tragedy four months later when their daughter died suddenly at home from gastroenteritis.
Dr Paras seeing patients in his health clinic.
Dr. Paras, one of the village doctors in Setrawa, reveals two of the leading health issues facing children in this area are gastroenteritis and chest problems. While I am visiting his clinic a mother brings in her young son, who has been having breathing problems. Dr Paras believes the rise in childhood respiratory illness is due to both viruses and poor air quality.
This part of India struggles with a serious air pollution problem. The causes are varied, and include; industrial pollutants, vehicular emissions, debris from construction, open burning of rubbish (especially plastics and rubber) and natural phenomena such as dust storms. Added to this, malnutrition and poor healthcare in India compound the dangers children face in surviving illnesses. The 2020 WHO statistics reveal a bleak picture for new-borns in India showing it has one of the worst global death rates for children from birth to five years. A baby born in rural India still faces a shocking 1 in 10 chance of dying before reaching the age of five.
On my winding walk through Setrawa I also met Deva Ram, the 60-year-old village pottery seller, sitting proud with his vivid orange turban and surrounded by his ceramic wares; Diwali diyas and pots for storing lassi, water and yoghurt. On discussing education he laughs out loud and shows me his arm. As a young man he had his name tattooed on his forearm at a fair, but tells me he does not know what it says because he can’t read. Google translate confirms that it does indeed say “Deva Ram.”
His family story shows the pace of change in India in just two generations. Although he had no education, he sent his three sons to the village school (but not his three daughters). Fast forward twenty years and all twelve of his grandchildren are in school–both girls and boys.
Back at the Sambhali Empowerment Centre I meet Guddi again, this time she is lobbying the Sambhali Trust founder, Govind Singh Rathore, on behalf of her 11 year old niece Bhumika or “Bhumi,” which means “Earth.” Govind knows all too well the struggles Bhumi faces. He was there 18 years ago when 6-year old Guddi was often forcibly stopped from attending the empowerment centre school and how she had to fight hard to keep attending. Guddi’s cousins were sent to their husbands aged 12 and 13, but Guddi found a way to stay in school unmarried until she was 18. Now her niece “Bhumi” has dropped out of her education in Setrawa. She hangs around on the periphery of the empowerment centre, reluctant to enter. Unlike her younger brother and sister who get to concentrate on their schooling, Bhumi is called back home to clean, help with household chores, look after her younger siblings and run errands; the traditional life of a young Indian girl. Guddi sees Bhumi caught in the same vicious cycle that she fought to escape and she wants something much better for her.
Govind’s deep understanding of the struggles facing girls like Guddi and Bhumi helped him create workable solutions for the community. “I saw that the mothers had given up on their lives, they thought that they were just supposed to look after the home and bear children…but after attending the empowerment centres, their life started improving. So they asked me if I can help their daughters as well with school scholarships, as the fathers are often drunk, don’t do much work and they are very violent. So the idea was to bring the girls education. But in the village it was difficult, a lot of the girls lived far from the school – transportation was an issue, with safety and security being the biggest problem for them. So I proposed a boarding home in Jodhpur, the girls would live in my house and I would take full responsibility. The first boarding home started in 2012 with 15 girls. Now we have three boarding homes and 77 girls.”
Govind explains that “Sambhali” means “rise of the downtrodden,” and shares his own personal story of witnessing his mother fall in society’s grace when his father passed away, fuelling his passion to create safe spaces for growth for all. “First we listen to the community and ask about their problems. Then we propose to them some solutions and see if they will accept it. We cannot force it on them. It will not work.” In this way the empowerment centres came about followed by the myriad of other initiatives, most recently the “Garima” or dignity project for gender minorities (LGBTQIA+) promoting connections into mainstream life and providing both peer and professional support.
There is good news for Guddi and Bhumi. Govind agrees next year to create a place for Bhumi at the Sambhali Trust secondary school boarding house for girls in Jodhpur, a safe space where she will live with other girls around her age and attend school; protected from child marriage and the onerous and patriarchal demands of her home life she will be free to explore her dreams.
This story was made by Cathy Minto on the PWB Storytelling School India workshop. Sambhali Trust relies on donations to continue their life changing work. Support Sambhali Trust by joining us on our next workshop.
