Finding their voice
Before working with CLWR's partner, Lutheran World Service - India (LWSI), women living in South 24 Paraganas were often confined to their homes. They were frightened to speak up and endured a lot of pressure from their male counterparts. It wasn’t easy for LWSI to involve the women but the staff’s dedication has paid off.
By organizing awareness meetings with the men and women together they managed to convince them that they could better achieve their development goals by valuing the contributions of both genders. “Before we weren’t allowed to go outside on our own and we couldn’t even meet with other women. Talking with the men as we do today was unthinkable,” says Manasha Charan Shaw, a Social Action Group (SAG) member from Nagendrapur Paschimpara. “Now,” she adds excitedly, “the situation has changed and we can even speak on the microphone!”
Mentalities do not change overnight and the process of cultivating gender equality in parts of the world where this is a new idea can be very time-consuming. While in some communities the people involved themselves quite rapidly by creating several SAGs in the first year of intervention, others have been much slower. For example, in Chotofokal village only one SAG was created in 2002 and it took four years before other groups were formed. The people wanted to see if these groups could really make a change to their livelihood; now five groups are actively participating in the development activities, uniting all community members - men, women and children alike.
Support for programming that cultivates gender equality is one of three main objectives for Canadian Lutheran World Relief. CLWR stresses involving women and men at all stages of the ongoing development process. Poor and marginalized women are encouraged to organize themselves in small groups and are supported to take up collective actions to bring about qualitative changes in their lives.
