Case Studies
Health secrets in Dry Days
For the health of the family its important for every woman to keep herself healthy and fit. This task was undertaken by the Mahila bachat group. With the help of MVM they planned a solution for it. Inspite of facing difficulties they tried to achieve their goals with confidence. With only 10 women to start with, the number reached upto 50 women working for them. Till today women from every bachat group maintain one dry day. What is DRY DAY?
Haradoli village in bhandara district,12 kms away from Tumsar taluka, is situated on the outskirts of Sihara and Bafera. Its entire population is 1725 with only 375 families living in it. Inspite of being near the highway it is still underdeveloped as modern technology is unknown to them. Imagine the plight of the women here! They just sit at home cooking and caring for their families as they are not allowed to go out. With male dominance in the village, the women are not permitted to take decisions.
Under such circumstances, a Mahila self-help group was started by the Mahila finance development committee. They visited Anganwadi women to inform them about their aims and request support to start Bachat groups. After much perseverance with the help of 12 women , Amrapali- Bachat group was established. The women here were trained in group planning, accounts, secretarial practice etc. But they had to face many difficulties. Women were opposed and criticized by men, often they were also physically tortured by their men. But with firm determination and will-power , cooperation of other women, bachat group was soon established. One by one 10 bachat groups were established in this village. Women started getting out of their homes, independently found solutions to their problems through discussions. They took active part in cultural activities, attended gramsabha. Bachat group gave them a new platform to voice their opinions. The group stepped further to form an organization for the development of their village. In 2007 with the help of Mahila Vikas Mahamandal, village development committee was established which had women from7 bachat groups working together.
Keeping this in view , the most important question ,the bachat group decided, was regarding women’s health. Farming starts during the rainy season and with it start many diseases such as malaria etc. With malaria in progress the patients have to stay at home and loose their daily wages, since the treatment being expensive they have to spend lot of money. The solution to this problem was difficult to handle but the women dissolved this issue. On the auspiscious occasion of Savitribai Phule’s birthday, with the help of village development committee they launched a drive called as DRY DAY! They decided to maintain one day of every week as dry day. To make women aware of this drive they planned several prpgrammes. Health officer Bhandarkar suggested these programmes. There were many discussions on this topic during the meetings but there was no response from the women. It was Bhandarkar again who explained in a simple language all about dry day and precautions to be taken against malaria.
For the health of the family its important for every woman to keep herself healthy and fit. This task was undertaken by the Mahila bachat group. With the help of MAVIM they planned a solution for it. Inspite of facing difficulties they tried to achieve their goals with confidence. With only 10 women to start with, the number reached upto 50 women working for them. Till today women from every bachat group maintain one dry day. What is DRY DAY? On that day every family in the village finish their house work by 9 a.m, wash and clean the utensils, add TCL powder to the water tanks and then smear it with limestone. In the evening these utensils are dried and then clean water is filled up. All this was very difficult in the beginning but now every family in the village dutifully follows this process.
Every Tuesday was declared as DRY DAY and the result was great. There were no flue cases so the daily wages too were saved. This news reached the top officials and they were impressed so much that they send official help to the group. This increased the ardour in the women and they took strict and disciplined steps towards it. Women who did not follow the rule of dry day were duly fined. This has improved the scenario a lot. Women are now active in politics, grampanchayat elections etc. This has proved to be an inspiration to others. Women are now on the verge of stepping into bussiness . Steps are being taken by the committee in that direction. With the help of Bachat group the villagers now live a good healthy life!