HEALTH CAMP IN SANGAM VIHAR, DELHI: We are looking for volunteers for CSR’s latest project ‘Shuruaat: A new Beginning’ in Delhi. Can you help?

Shuruaat is running a Health Camp at our Sangam Vihar Crisis Intervention Centre (CIC), Delhi on  8th & 9th November to provide vital medical treatment to women and children from the local community. One doctor, one nurse and one assistant from Fortis Hospital will be joining us for the two-day health camp and free medical check-ups, vitamins and de-worming tablets will be made available to all patients attending.

We’re looking for young, enthusiastic, caring volunteers who can spare one morning or afternoon on Tuesday 8th or Wednesday 9th November to assist with running the Health Camp. Volunteers will assist in registration of patients, patient care, distribution of medication, and to provide basic healthcare information to the women and children of Sangam Vihar.

Volunteers are requested to bring one packet of multivitamins (iron/calcium/vitamin-E) or pack of glucose powder. Volunteers can sign up for either a morning shift (10.30am-1pm) or afternoon shift (2-5pm) and refreshments will be provided for at Sangam Vihar CIC.

If you are interested in this unique opportunity to give something back to the local community, and would like more information, please email Anubhuti at anubhuti@csrindia.org or leave your number by calling 011 26899998 and we will call you back the same day.

Rape is one of the most distressing and prevalent forms of violence against women in India today, with as many as two women being raped every hour across the country, according to the latest National Crime Bureau statistics. Owing to an alarming increase in the number of rape cases in the Capital, in July of this year our Development division undertook a study which examined the First Information Reports (FIRs) registered at CSR’s Rape Crisis Intervention Centre from early 2010 to July 2011. A total of 58 cases were examined, and additional field visits to South Western district police stations were conducted to review the quality of the implementation of Delhi High Court directives dealing with child sexual abuse cases.

So far, to date, the study has been covered among national and international outlets including the Times of India, Daily Pioneer, Asian Age, and Outlook India. While much of this media attention focussed on timing and location of the incidents, the study also revealed a trend in the age of victims and perpetrators. The majority of rape victims seeking assistance and filing reports at the CSR Crisis Intervention Centre are below the age of 20 (66%, with 22% of victims under the age of 10). On the other hand, 67% of accused were over the age of 20.

Additionally striking, was the discovery of a high prevalence of sexual assault committed by persons known to the victim: 51 out of 58 persons accused were relatives, neighbours, friends, teachers or acquaintances; only 7 out of 58 persons accused were either strangers or were not further specified by the victim.

By Kara Brown, a Centre for Social Research Intern in the Media & Communication Division. Kara is a recent graduate from the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

To be honest, I really didn’t know what to expect before moving to New Delhi to join the Centre for Social Research team. Although I secretly feared that I’d find the extent of poverty and crime against women here discouraging, I was also determined to avoid forming any pre-conceptions. Two months into my internship, I had the privilege of visiting one of CSR’s four Crisis Intervention Centres (CICs) in Delhi, where grassroots-level work to end violence in families and communities takes place.

Accompanied by friends and family visiting from as far as Scotland, England and Germany, a handful of CSR staff headed to Chattarpur, in the southwestern most reaches of New Delhi, for the monthly Parivartan Mahila Swawlamban Samiti (Women’s Change Committee) meeting on Tuesday 30^th August. Women and girls, some as young as 8 years old, from all four of our CICs across the city had gathered in Chattarpur to greet us. A few introductory songs and dance performances later, and Chattarpur head counselor Rekha opened up the floor to a question and answer session between our guests and community members. After one teenaged girl raised her hand to ask my own mother if she’d had an arranged marriage, the entire crowd cheered, squealed in excitement and applauded when my mother shyly answered that she’d had a love marriage.

Next, we ran an art workshop where we asked everyone to paint or draw their hopes and dreams for the future. All of the women who come to our CICs for assistance have been through unthinkable traumas in their past, and many are still suffering in the present. On that Tuesday afternoon, however, in a little shaded corner of Chattarpur, after finishing their jobs and household chores, hidden away from the hustle and bustle of Delhi life and the hardships they face every day, the women and girls were all sitting there smiling, singing and laughing as they dreamed up futures of happy families, brilliant careers, palm trees, beaches and endless good weather.

One young woman in particular caught my attention. During the earlier discussion, she rocked back and forth with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She showed signs of someone who had experienced the kind of difficulties I have only read about in books: the type of childhood stories that would no doubt reduce you to tears. However, as guests and community members alike took turns to introduce themselves, she had confidently introduced herself to the group and told us that she has been coming to the Chattarpur CIC for a long time. As everyone separated into smaller groups and jostled for a portion of the art supplies, this girl began to draw one of the most colourful and expressive pictures of all. If I did have any pre-conceptions of a bleak future for the women and girls of India, or the frustrations that come with working to change mindsets in a society steeped in patriarchy, they disappeared at least for a while that afternoon in Chattarpur. These young women, with the help of an invaluable support network around them, are finding the strength to believe in themselves and gradually working towards making Delhi a safer place to live. They give me hope for the future generations of men and women in India and organisations working in the field of human rights and development, like CSR.

As some of the middle-aged women and primary school girls began approaching our guests in order to explain and eventually gift us their artworks, a few of the teenagers grabbed a set of drums and broke into song. Some of the younger girls pulled the CSR office staffers and our guests out of our seats to dance and insisted that we couldn’t leave before they’d painted mehndi (henna) designs on our hands and feet. While the henna on my own hands has since faded, it remains clearly etched in my mind just how supportive the women and counsellors in the CICs are of each other, and how warmly and selflessly they welcomed a group of strangers into their community.

By Rana Kattan, a Centre for Social Research intern in the Media and Communication Department. Rana is a recent graduate of McGill University in Canada.

It was definitely the hottest day I’ve seen so far. Armed with a bottle of sunscreen, chilled water and a cap protecting my head, I was anticipating a scene unlike any I’ve been exposed to before. With minimal expectations and preconceptions, I was only certain we were headed towards one of our four Crisis intervention Centres in Delhi, particularly the one in Uttam Nagar, West Delhi for a community meeting to discuss women’s health, network progress and education.

The narrowing streets with filled with children playfully running, sweet shops on the pavement, dogs and cattle dozing the heat away signaled that we’ve reached our destination. I stepped into the centre itself, which young women covered like a carpet and was greeted by the crowd with wide, enthusiastic eyes. Stationed at the other end of the room were the CSR counselors. Two large fans ventilated the room, but were hardly sufficient to combat the heat. Interestingly enough, that didn’t seem to dampen the young women’s eagerness to listen and participate in today’s discussion. Once all was settled, the CSR counselors brought fourth the topics on the agenda: starting with women’s health concerns, as my fellow interns interpreted for me. Although the girls seemed thrilled to voice their opinions, the topic took a turn when a man and women entered the room to join the counselors at their desk.  While it was difficult for me to fathom what they had come for, a scan of the young women’s facial expressions indicated they shared my curiosity.

As the man proceeded with his speech, I was able to detect the words “English Language”, “Computer Education” and “Personality Development”. I asked one of our Indian interns, Pallavi, for the interpretation necessary for me to connect the dots. Then, I understood that these newcomers represented an NGO named “Etasha” and were here to share with the local community the services they targeted at young women (especially those from a disadvantaged background and lacking access to a proper education despite passing the required examinations). These services included vocational training a, as well as a more inclusive, career guidance program for which the vast majority of attendees (seemingly between 14 and 20 years old) were eligible.

At this point, the floor was yielded to a woman Ms. Anindita Kar Gupta, who explained the concept and emphasized the importance of organised sectors, focusing on the service sector (such as areas of customer care) and how Etasha provided placement for young graduates in these sectors. Perhaps merely due to the fact that she was a woman, a factor that served as a strong common bond with the young listeners, the audience instantly perked up, seeming more open and interactive with her. The offering of refreshments and freshly cooked Samosas (a personal favourite) marked the end of the CIC meeting, with the young women quickly rushing back to their interrupted daily routines. The key representatives from the two NGOs remained behind to roughly sketch a collaborative action plan and stipulate the responsibilities of each party.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pick up any Hindi from that trip. However, applying my observation skills enabled me to squeeze out some valuable life lessons. These young women set an example of how persistence and determination can yield vast crops out of tiny seeds and minimal resources, while CSR and Etasha’s unfaltering commitment and cooperation symbolized the fertilizers constantly nourishing the growth and development of these seeds.

On April 25 and 26, members of our research team, including Head of Research Dr. Manasi Mishra, were invited to participate at key speakers at the second Beti Bachao (Save the Girl Child) conference in Panipat, Haryana state. Beti Bachao was founded last year in Ambala by activists from 14 Indian states and meets annually to strengthen the campaign.

Organised by the Alliance for People’s Movement (NAPM) and Asha Parivar, the conference was jointly inaugurated by Chaudhary Virendar Singh, General Secretary of All India Congress Committee; Manimala, social activist and writer; Veena Behen from Gandhi Global Family; and eminent Pakistani peace activist Saeeda Deep. More than seven hundred people from across India participated in the conference.

By Michelle Tan, Intern – Research Department.

Dressed in a plain brown Saree, a 44-year-old woman from a remote rural village in Ambala (Haryana state) peered at us curiously when we knocked on the broken, rusty gates of her house. “Namaste,” my colleague Amrita said. “We are from Centre for Social Research and would like to conduct a quick survey with you. Can we come in?” The woman nodded her head shyly, smiled at us and then excitedly beckoned us into the front yard of her house.

To say that she lived in a “house” might be somewhat of a misnomer, especially since her “house” was in fact really a shed, and there were half-laid stones and bricks strewn everywhere. The walls were Grey and incomplete, and construction had obviously long been in progress. We sat down on the only piece of furniture to begin what we had initially imagined would be a typical conversation on female foeticide—or, as typical as a conversation on female foeticide could be. What we didn’t expect was that our host would so warmly and immediately open up to us, revealing her most personal experiences of sexs election, discrimination and the ordeal she went through when standing up against it.

Already a mother of one boy and two girls, our host was pregnant for the fourth time when her in-laws and husband found out from a sonogram that she was once again expecting a girl child. Angered by the news, the family adamantly insisted that she should undergo an abortion. They, like so many in India, believed that a girl child was a waste of family resources. A girl, they argued, was of no particular value and as a result of dowry, she would also be impossibly expensive. But unlike many mothers who silently suffered, our host was strong-willed and refused to give up her child or undergo an abortion. She was henceforth disgraced and expelled from her family, slammed in the face with a quick divorce. Shamed by the scandals of their daughter, her parents put her up for a second arranged marriage. She married again, but her husband died young in the Indian army, and she became a widow. At the moment, she continues to bravely and independently support four young children on her own—an incredibly rare, brave and admirable feat especially in rural India.

We left that day, humbled and in awe of this incredibly strong woman. Her story serves as a painful and grave reminder that female foeticide, for all its supposed allegations and denials, is still a real and pervasive reality in much of Indian society today. Her story reminds us that women who transgress from the norm and elect to stand up against their family to save a female fetus risk losing their livelihoods, if not their lives. Her story stands out not only because she was empowered in spite of lacking a formal education or any privileges whatsoever, but also because she spoke with no complaint and no expectations of sympathy. That’s where she stands victorious: because this one woman in her plain brown Saree does not see herself as an object of pity, but as a woman in her totality who can and will get her due in her own right.

View more photos from the April 5-7 baseline study in Ambala at Centre for Social Research’s Flickr account.

Yesterday, our Research team held a Community Watch Group meeting as part of our Meri Shakti, Meri Beti project at the anganwaadi (daycare) centre in the Manav Chowk and Kotwali Sarai areas of Ambala, Haryana.The meeting brought together over 30 women from the local community as well as young girls and boys.

Major issues discussed included the need for educating boys and girls so that they know more about their rights and duties as community and family members. Many women called for recruiting more men to Community Watch Group meetings to enlist their help in spreading awareness about pre-natal sex selection (female foeticide) and the need for equality between genders.

Community Watch Groups meetings are an important part of our team’s work on violence against women, female foeticide and overall efforts to promote gender equality. They represent an important opportunity to interact with local communities and share ideas on how best to move forward on these issues.

The second Interface workshop under our comprehensive Meri Shakti Meri Beti project was held at the Panchayat Bhawan of Kurukshetra, Haryana state on March 4, with thanks to our funders: WomenPowerConnect and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Bahari Mohalla(community) residents of all ages attended the meeting with aaganwadi (daycare) and ASHA workers, and students from Kurukshetra University and the Kurukshetra College of Education. The designated “Expert Group” included Dr. Sushma Saini, Chief Medical Officer, and Ms. Deepshikha Kaushik, Domestic Violence Officer.

Initiating the workshop, our own Dr. Manasi Mishra spoke about the wider social and economic implications of pre-natal sex selection (female foeticide). To successfully address pre-natal sex selection, the status of women must increase by changing the deeply patriarchal mindset in communities and families. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Saini pointed out that ultrasound technology was invented to assist medical treatment and not to perpetuate a social malice like female foeticide. Other speakers, including members of the local community, spoke about the high cases of domestic violence in parts of Haryana and the importance of taking more responsibility to care for girl children.

To date, the Meri Shakti, Meri Beti project to reduce pre-natal sex selection has organised over 40 Community Outreach Programs, nine Community Watch Group meetings, two Expert Group meetings and one Interface Workshop in the Kurukshetra district of Haryana state.

To view more photos from event, visit Center for Social Research’s Flickr account.