Father's daughter. ...

Father's daughter.....

This morning was different. I got up with thoughts of my father who would be ninety-two today. Many people tell me that I look my father and those who know me well say that my mannerisms and behaviour are so much like him. No doubt I am my father's daughter yet I don't think I possess half the qualities that he has.
Born and brought up in Tamil Nadu in a well-to-do family his life was good until tragedy struck by way of a loss in business. All of a sudden his world toppled and their family had to face tough times. However that did not dampen his spirits. He was bold enough to accept a job far away from his home in Mumbai when he joined the Railways.
He started his career as an Electrical Foreman and rose upto the ranks of Divisional Electrical Engineer. A workaholic, I had never seen him shirk any of his responsibilities. He was so punctual that people would set their clocks on his movement. A stickler for rules, people feared and respected his no-nonsense attitude.
At home he was soft , non-interfering but a strict disciplinarian. He ruled the roost silently.
His uprightness and honesty were examples to learn from though it led to a lot of hardships. However he ensured that all of us imbibed those qualities and followed them in life. Without doubt they have enabled all of us to stand tall in our lives. His straightforward behaviour was another quality which made him different. Never one to mince words he has always been pure of heart.
A chip of the old block I may have inherited at least an iota of all these qualities. However what I like most about him is his enthusiasm and liveliness for everything. So if anyone was visiting us he would ensure that the list of places to be seen was ready before hand. They guests could certainly not leave without vsiting those places.
He is the first one even now to make telephone calls to all his children and grandchildren who are way and enquire about their well-being everyday. As for me his concern and desire to know everything about me and keep me protected even at this age is so endearing. 

His prayers give us strength and keeps the family together. Therefore the earliest memories of my childhood are of us praying together as family in the evenings when we would all sing Jai Jagdish Hare. The weekly visit to the Hanuman Mandir and Shani Mnadir were a must. I remember our chats while walking to the temple and coming back. I was very much outgoing and more of a tomboy whereas my sister was docile and soft spoken. I had learnt to cycle by myself at the age of five and for some reason my sister hadn't even at eleven. My father took it upon himself that learning cycling was a must for her. He literally pushed her into it against her wishes. I remember running besides her as he forced her to ride the cycle and also her fall into a deep gutter. She came out dishevelled, shivering and severely bruised and hurt. My father was much more hurt emotionally. He felt tormented that he had pushed my sister and apologised profusely that he would never do so again. Such was the softness in his attitude. Always understanding and supporting us in every possible way. As for me , he stood by me when I chose humanities and a career so demanding and different. My parents lived with me at the places I was posted to ensure that I was safe and secure.
My mother supported him in more ways than one. She was the one who used to manage our family of six which included us four siblings. It was a tightrope walk in the salary he earned and she was the one who had to borrow or take loans to manage our lives. None of us were very demanding and we led a simple life. However sending my brother to IIT was the biggest financial challenge which they surmounted too.
Their integrity is something which is embedded in our being like their blessings. This later led us to better days on the sheer dint of our education and hard work. Each one of us excelled in the fields we chose to join and with the blessings of God life has been comfortable.  
My mother's biggest grouse has been the fact that they had no home of their own but my father has been cool enough to accept his children's home as theirs. More admirable is the fact that he adjusts with all of us and our spouses and children so wonderfully that everyone loves to be with him and have him.around.
His presence electrifies the house and makes it lively with his jokes and camaraderie. His habit of playing religious music in all the rooms maybe a little unnerving at times but becomes a part of one's psyche as one gets used to it.
I am all of fifty-three yet I begin my day as my father's daughter with a call from him. My day  ends with it too.
It is certainly a tall order to be my father's daughter yet I keep trying everyday to follow him as best as possible. One thing I haven't been able to imbibe is his physical discipline. He walks almost two hours daily even if it is the rooms of the house. He food is measured and he never overeats which is perhaps the most difficult to follow. According to my mother the only flaw he had was his temper which I think has mellowed through the years. It is easy to inherit flaws and unfortunately I seem to have inherited it though I too am mastering the art of controlling it and hope to achieve my equilibrium sooner or later!
On his birthday today we joined together as family on a zoom call. He was full of life in the virtual celebration asking us to sing and dance. His toothless grin and child like joy on cutting the cake made by his loving daughter-in-law and granddaughter-in-law was palpable. As we prayed and sang our way to joy I could feel a sense of great satisfaction and delight. A sense of gratitude too that indeed I am fortunate and lucky to be my father's daughter....

Asmita Yojana and quizzing on Menstrual Hygiene

Asmita Yojana and quizzing on Menstrual Hygiene.....

28th May is International Menstrual Hygeine Day and I was in a web conference with my team planning a facebook live session to spread the message of safe periods.
The rural development department of the Government of Maharashtra had launched the Asmita Yojana in 2018 as a one stop approach to Menstrual Management.
The scheme not only centred around spreading awareness about menstrual hygiene and management but emphasized on making good quality sanitary napkins affordable, available and accessible in the villages through the robust network of self help groups under MSRLM Umed . After initial setbacks in the tri-fold Asmita sanitray napkins things have begun to settle with the launch of the new Asmita Plus sanitary napkins in 2019.
As of date only 36 percent of women in India use sanitary napkins and most of them are urban. There is a need to make rural women more aware of the importance of using good quality sanitary napkins. We therefore decided to have Facebook live talk where menstrual hygeine and management could be explained to rural women.
Asmita Yojana has been in operation for almost two years and it was important to gauge the awareness of the scheme and of menstrual management among women. By coming up with a unique idea of conducting an online quiz on Asmita Yojana and Menstrual management we added an element of fun and curiosity.

The quiz competition was for our community cadre of almost 60,000 Community Resource Persons, CRPs. All plans were put into action, the questions framed, the groups informed and the link created along with ten questions.
The link was to remain open for 30 minutes from 11 to 11.30 a.m on Saturday, the 23rd May 2020. No sooner were the lines opened, than the responses started pouring in. 
We all have heard of science quiz, G.K.Quiz and the like but it was probably the first time an open online quiz on Menstrual mangement was held. The ladies were excited and their responded enthusiastically. When the time ended more than 29000 CRPs had participated.
We were also flooded with pictures and selfies of women participating in the quiz Some had responded from their fields, some from their homes or place of work. One CRP balanced the art of making papads while responding to the quiz.
Many sent video messages after the quiz ended. The testimonial of Ms.Priyadarshini Sudhakar Kamble of Osmanabad moistened my eyes as she confessed that after marriage this was probably the first time she was attempting something like this. She felt she was back at school and spent two days in learning about the scheme though she knew most things. Her satisfaction on getting this opportunity was palpable. She represented the hope and energy of our sixty thousand strong force of Sakhis or CRPs.
Sharmila Sunil Jogi and Vaishali Samadhaan Janjaal from Jalgaon, Navshaa Daalim Sheikh from Osmanabad found the quiz useful and also emphasized on the importance of Asmita Yojana for their well-being and as a means of livelihood.
Menstruation has always been a hush-hush affair and open discussion on it taboo. Religion, rituals and patriarchal societies attach a stigma to it so much so that girls and women experience a sense of shame to even speak about it. Added to it are the woes of non-availability of good quality sanitary napkins, water and sanitation facilities. In such an environment it is difficult to discuss such an important issue with alacrity.
The celebration of International menstrual hygeine day on 28th May every year broke the taboos by highlighting the need of healthy and hygienic menstrual management.
In this day and age too rural girls are largely unaware about menstrual cycle and with its onset of puberty choose to drop out of school or remain absent on those five days due to feelings of hesitation, shame and poor sanitation facilities. A pack of eight Asmita napkins made available at Rs.Five to girls of Zilla Parishad schools between the age of 11 and 19 has certainly eased the situation.
Asmita Yojana has also enabled over 30000 SHGs to register as traders for Asmita sanitary napkins. Till date they have sold more than one crore packets. SHGs have also been made aware of proper disposal to prevent environmental hazards.
With the increase in cases of ovarian and cervical cancer and other uterine diseases it is important that rural women are made aware of menstrual hygiene and mangement along with easy access to good quality sanitary napkins.
28th May , the international Menstrual Hygeine Day enables us to break the silence on this topic. The objective of MHD is to address the challenges faced by women and girls during menstruation, advocate policy changes and provide solutions. UNICEF also takes interest in MHM as it is a part of WASH program. This is also an opportunity for government organizations to raise awareness and increase accountability.
MSRLM Umed's unique quiz for its community resource persons was an innovative step in this direction.

 Nothing stops men from displaying their manliness and probably periods would have been a matter of great pride had men been getting them. It is strange that almost forty percent of the world's population experiences menstraution yet it is looked down with a sense of shame. Several issues need to be addressed till women accept their menstrual cycle as something natural and normal like peeing and overcome the feeling of shame. Till then we have to keep working to create a period positive approach....

P.S. Catch me live on MSRLM's Facebook page talking about Asmita Yojana, Menstrual management and Hygiene in English at 3 p.m and in Marathi at 4 p.m. The winners of the quiz competition will also be declared thereafter.

Stories of hope : Umed MSRLM

Stories of hope : Umed MSRLM

Tucked in the interiors of Yawatmal district is a village Ghatanji. Most of us in Maharashtra may possibly not even have heard of Yawatmal leave alone about Ghatanji village.
Yet strong-willed women who have been toiling hard in their villages despite the fear of Corona Virus exist here. 
Lakhs of lives have been adversely affected and their means of livelihood have dwindled due to the spread of Covid 19. Each one of us is facing different challenges and difficulties and struggling with restrictions.. Businesses are crashing and access to fresh fish, fruits and vegetables is a dream
Under such circumstances, the block mission management unit of Ghatanji came up with a novel initiative to support rural women by enabling them to sell vegetables, fruits and fish. The women are members of self help groups of MSRLM Umed and are already involved in producing vegetables and fish.
With markets closed during the COVID 19 lockdown their business was disrupted due to the perishable nature of their products which mainly included fruits, vegetables and fish.
The active intervention by Pravin Bende working as the Block Mission Manager of Ghatanji came to their rescue. Pravin made efforts to contact the local Police Station and explain the marketing plan of these commodities. He assured that they would abide by the rules made by the authorities and also maintain social distance. His efficient communication with the appropriate authorities facilitated sale of 3000 Kgs of fish from four ponds due to which the SHG women could earn Rs. 3 Lakhs. They continue to earn on a regular basis due to the channel established by Pravin. Additionally they are also making face masks which has great demand due to Covid 19.
The District team facilitated them by furnishing them with orders for masks from various departments. As a result 173 women from Ghatanji sold 65,000 masks earning Rs. 6,50,000. They have earned Rs.1,47000 from fruits and Rs. 58500 from vegetables. Their willingness to work hard and the support by block team led to this transformation.
East or west MSRLM Umed proves to be a standing example of hope. On the western coast of Maharashtra, in Chiplun block of Ratnagiri district is Anjali Chalke, a self-made woman who also metamorphosed challenge to opportunity.
Anjali had stared a nutri garden in 2017 and was benefitting from sale of vegetables. The members of their group were engaged in several activities and managing multiple businesses. In fact the micro-enterprises model by the 45 Micro enterprise consultants MECs has resulted in creation of over 1500 small and medium enterprises.
Anjali completed training in poultry and took the bold step of establishing a poultry with popular indigenous breed vanraj and giriraj. She bought 100 chicks of the breeds and even constructed a new shed for them. The covid crisis struck just when the birds were ready for sale. Not one to lose heart and hope she decided to sell the birds locally. Villagers were also happy to get indigenous chicken as safe food. Anjali could sell all birds and make a profit of Rs 17,000. There has been no looking back as Anjali has ordered for 200 chicks again. Additionally she earns Rs.1200 per week by selling fresh vegetables like brinjal, cluster beans, bottle gourd, amarthanthus from her Kitchen garden. Here too the district team led by the block manager Amol Katkar has been of great help. 

Umed means hope in Marathi language and MSRLM Umed has been the hope of many such lives. Today MSRLM has 4.5 lakh self help groups and almost 50 lakh households with over 20 lakh enterprises. With hope on our side nothing can stop us, not even Corona.....

Online training : Bringing learning to people.....

Online training : Bringing learning to people.....

Maharashtra State Rural Livelihoods Mission works for the empowerment of women through community based organizations. It is backed by National Rural Livelihoods Mission's robust ideology and methodology which ensures social and financial inclusion leading to sustainable livelihoods. World Bank's investment has added great value to this effort.
Capacity building is the mainstay of NRLM and special efforts are made to ensure that the community cadre and staff are trained appropriately.
The annual action plan prepared before the end of every financial year is the culmination of several rounds of discussion and is finally approved by the Empowered Committee under the Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India. The states then undertake a series of workshops for actual implementation.
This year due to the Covid 19 pandemic holding workshops was not possible. On the one hand offices were closed and the staff was allowed to work from home but on the other hand agricultural operations were to be continued in the villages.
The communities were facing extreme hardships with no place to sell their goods as local mandis were closed, markets shut and animal husbandry crashing. Combating these problems and preparing for the ensuing Kharif season was vital.
Most of the livelihood activities undertaken by MSRLM is related to agriculture and animal husbandry. They form an integral part of the annual action plan. 

Communicating the approved plan to the members of the SHGs and community cadre who are essentially agriculturist was extremely important and online training came to our rescue. In this we were supported by Parth Knowledge Network Ltd, a technology company which has been authorized by Government of Maharashtra to provide broadcasting services.
What we wanted was not a broadcasting platform alone but an interactive medium like Google Duo Meeting which could be used by the presenters and the participants and integrated with the broadcasting platform. Once that was combined it was easy to plan the sessions.
The objective of the online workshop was to orient the mission staff and cadre about AAP-2020-21 priorities and key activities proposed to be taken under different thematic components and guide them. So there were sessions on capacity building, farm and non-farm livelihoods, convergence, DDUGKY-skilling. One session was specially held for Cluster Level Federation Managers on their roles and responsibilities.
When it comes to online teaching and learning the content is most important. If the content is not designed masterfully all efforts could be wasted. A lot of attention was paid to the training modules to make them interesting. It was also important to ensure that the trainees were not distracted but remained engrossed in the sessions. The sessions were therfore kept short.
Different methods were used to make this online learning program more effective and interactive using lectures with power point presentations (PPTs), videos and direct question and answer sessions with trainers.
This online learning platform allowed key participants to ask questions during live session on behalf of all participants connected from block office, homes and villages. Experience sharing and learning session were also arranged during live sessions. The facility of Video conferencing and messaging made trainings more interactive and effective. Rest of the participants provided one common WhatsApp mobile number to send their questions or queries.
No training is complete without heartfelt feedback and this online training designed an E-feedback form in regional language (Marathi) on “Google form.” comprising of 10 simple closed ended and 3 open ended questions. Most participants were satisfied with the online workshops and found it as good as classroom training.
While government machineries across Central, State and District are struggling to combat corona virus with limited resources the SHGs have risen to the occasion to face the extraordinary challenge of the global pandemic due to COVID-19 outbreak. They are mitigating shortfalls in supply of face masks & sanitizers and are actively providing vegetables and food, creating awareness among the rural community and even providing banking and financial services at doorstep through the existing network of Bank Sakhis /BC Sakhis at district level.
Despite challenges during lockdown the community cadres, institutions, field level staff are making efforts to plan and promote livelihoods. MSRLM undertook online training workshops to guide and facilitate field level team in planning and execution.
The experience made us realise that online training is one way of staying ahead with the times. We could train almost ten thousand staff and cadre using the digital platform. Knowledge sharing till the community cadre became simple and easy. Additionally it was extremely cost-effective as transport to training centres and cost of training centers was avoided.
People found it convenient to attend the training from their homes or offices. All they needed was access to a smart phone or computer and the internet which most had.
Learning and development strategies are constantly evolving in the modern world.
It is important that government institutions, especially those like NRLM and SRLMs promoting business enterprises through community organizations adapt to new technologies for training and capacity building.
It is only then we can ensure that the communities don't lose their business opportunities.
Online training proved to be an effective way to ensure that SHGs explore the opportunities available to them. As for us, our biggest learning was that to motivate action all we needed was to bring learning to people instead of people to learning !

Lockdown, Liquor and foolhardiness.....

Lockdown, Liquor and foolhardiness.....

Day before yesterday"s announcement of opening liquor shops was like a bolt from the blue, Covid 19 be damned! Like thunderbolts men made a bee line to the liquor shops ( I was told that in Mumbai some shops were kept open only for women too). Parched by a forty-five day lockdown they probably needed to lift their spirits ! It appeared that people were so crazy for buying liquor that all norms of social distancing had gone with the wind. Neither were they concerned that they were endangering their lives as well as those of others.
On my way to office, I was stupefied by the queue in front of the liquor shop which almost wound upto a kilometer. A teetotaller like me has never been able to fathom people's craze for drinks. In contrast I have always been at the receiving end for being a "non-trendy", "unfashionable" teetotaller. I am almost condemned at most social dos, a misfit at most getogethers official or personal. Many times people look in disbelief that i do not drink. And then there are those who will recommend gin, the ladies drink. Some even suggest that one can be breezy with breezers or spritzers (?) while others say the wine is certainly sinless. Most pass jibes on how much I was missing in life while some suggest lacing it in such a way with some soft drink that nobody would know !
While I can overlook most of the comments in good humour I always get amused with the "nobody will know" whispers . I always find it strange that people limit their conscience to others knowing what they do and not to their own conscience.....
The degree of being 'uncool' and 'far away from the times' multiply manifold when one discovers you are vegetarian. Their biggest woe then is what do you do to enjoy life? And then their heart.goes all out to me in commiseration of what all I am missing in my life . My opinion of being happier without losing my balance hardly matters to them nor the fact that besides alcohol there are umpteen pleasures in life. Being gullible to their own weakness my strength must be surely unsettling to them. No wonder efforts are made by some to prove the futility of my attitude and approach or even make me feel little at times.
I have witnessed the pettiness of guests ordering drinks at a party hosted by me much to my chagrin. I had to bear the heights of love for alcoholic drinks during a recent study tour where public transport was emphasized to save taxpayers money while they ended blowing up same on endless drinks in the evening.
Each experience has made me learn that isolating myself from such occassions is better than convincing them because my feelings would not matter to them anyways.
So normally I would keep myself away but today when the nation is in crisis with hundreds dying of Covid 19 and when thousands are working tirelessly in hospitals, on roads and other places it is highly unfair to come out in hordes like mindless sheep upsetting the cart. I have heard that with alcohol comes irresponsibility but the nonchalant crowding on roads , the melee to reach liquor shops throwing all caution to the wind reflects the most inhuman face of alcohol consumers.
The administration had no choice but to roll back the order of sale of liquor but the damage has been done. This reckless rush for purchase of liquor can lead to a spike in Covid 19 cases due to the total absence of social distancing. Another fallout was closing of non-essential shops which had been opened. The repercussions of such thoughtless behavior by alcohol consumers can be drastic on their own health and well as others. Much as they won't like it, I hope good sense prevails and they stick to soft drinks. Just like a funny line I had read, " Dont drink alcohol and be an alcoholic, drink fanta and be fantastic"