Solidarity Building
Solidarity-building is an activity that our organization has been involved in, with the objective of promoting self-reliance among women and girls living in communities. Solidarity-building involves two aspects:
- facilitating women living in communities to form groups to help and support each other, and to collectively address issues pertaining to them; and
- to help groups that have been formed to strengthen their formations and to function effectively, efficiently, in a professional manner and with a purpose.
Beneficiaries include groups of adolescent girls, mahila mandals, federation of mahila mandals and single and destitute women. Our staff makes regular visits to the groups to facilitate the process of solidarity-building.
1.1 MAHILA MANDALS
We have been working with mahila mandals since 2000. We have directed our efforts at strengthening the functioning of mahila mandals as they are the first point of crisis intervention for women living in communities. The effort has also been directed at building the capacities of mahila mandals to function in an independent, efficient and self-reliant manner, incorporating principles of professionalism, democratic decision-making, transparency and accountability. Towards these ends, the following activities have been conducted regularly in the past six years:
registration of mahila mandals with the Charity Commission;
- registration of mahila mandals with the Charity Commission;
- group-building exercises;
- opening of bank accounts for the mandals;
- trainings on financial management and keeping of accounts;
- trainings on documentation and case work;
- formulation of values and principles that the mandals will abide by;
- formulation of rules for crisis intervention and assistance to women;
- inter-mandal exposure visits;
- joint celebrations of religious festivals; and
- conducting external audit.
1.2 FEDERATION OF MAHILA MANDALS
In 2005, Hukook-e-Niswaan Mahila Sanghatana - a federation of more than 20 mahila mandals was formed with the active assistance of WRAG. The objective behind formation of the federation is to ensure that collective voices of women are heard by the policy makers, particularly on the issue of gender-just reforms in Muslim family law. Apart from representatives of the mandals, the federation consists of several members in their individual capacity. By December 2008, the federation has more than 25 mahila mandals as its members, representing over 5000 women.
In order to encourage members to take initiative, feel a sense of ownership and to facilitate the democratic functioning of the Federation, election was conducted in the year 2005 and a core group formed for chalking out its annual work plan. Vision and mission, rules and regulations for membership of the Federation and criteria for membership were also formulated in 2005. Since 2006, elections are being held annually; the elected committee continues to conduct the affairs of the Federation. In May 2009, the Federation started functioning independently. We see this as the result of many years of perspective-building and solidarity-building efforts of WRAG.
1.3 SINGLE & DESITUTE WOMEN
During the work with mahila mandals and women living in communities, we came to realize that while all women in the community are vulnerable to discrimination, harassment and violence from the family and society, single and destitute women were a minority within the minority and faced extreme vulnerability. Hence, with the initiative of our organization, and with some women who were single from underprivileged backgrounds, Saheli (female friend in Hindi) was born in 2001. Saheli is a group of and for single and destitute women from underprivileged communities. The main objective of this activity was to create a platform for women to share their feelings and experiences, and to help them gain strength and support from each other through an exchange of experiences.
Saheli now consists of six community-based single women’s groups, based in the Mumbai suburbs of Behrampada in Bandra, Jarimari in Andheri, Dharavi in Sion, Navpada and Bharatnagar in Bandra and Mira Road. We have been instrumental in bringing these groups together and gradually formalizing Saheli's structure to enhance its independent functioning. Saheli now has a 3-tier structure: it has an elected committee of eleven members who take important decisions regarding the performance and expansion of the group. The group is headed by women living in communities. This committee forms the core of Saheli’s structure. Second tier consists of approximately 250 members from the communities. Members assist approximately 100-150 women per year in their respective communities. The third tier consists of about 50 support group members, who are persons supportive of the issues raised by Saheli, and may or may not be living in communities. Saheli independently participates in campaigns specifically related to single women’s rights, such as the Mental Health Campaign, AMASS and the Ekal Naari Shakti Sanghatan (National Forum for Single Women's Rights).
Activities of Saheli directed at solidarity-building include:
- weekly meetings with members - to share their day-to-day stress, learn coping strategies from and provide emotional support to each other;
- meetings with mothers of single women – to create a better support system at home for the member of Saheli;
- counseling and emotional support through a) peer counseling; b) referrals to professional counselors; c) home visits; d) counseling to mothers of single women;
- telephone counseling and support; and
- celebration of cultural festivals.
1.4 ADOLESCENT GIRLS
In the year 2003, we decided to extend our activities towards working at a preventive level too – through formation of groups of adolescent girls living in communities. Purpose of this exercise was to enable our organization to work with such girls at a preventive level on violence against women, and to build their capacities to resist exploitation, harassment and violence.
We presently work with adolescent girls in six communities in Mumbai, with a total membership of 70 girls. The membership is floating in nature, with some girls getting married and moving to reside outside the communities that we work with, while other unmarried girls join the groups. Contact is maintained with past members of the group who get married, to ensure that they do not face any violence / harassment within their matrimonial relationship. Activities initiated in order to build solidarity between the members of the groups include:
- weekly meetings among members – to share their experiences and feelings;
- activities in team and group-building;
- celebration of religious festivals and other occasions such as Teachers’ Day, Valentine’s Day, Friendship Day and New Year; and
- meeting with parents.
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