Post from Mireya: Rights for Girl Children and Dalits in India

Day 11

Today we had the opportunity to spend lunch with a very inspiring woman, Shanti. She cooked lunch for us and it was the best rice I had eaten in India. I might have liked it so much because it wasn’t too spicy. We ate lunch in a new building (still under construction) they were making for the organization Solidarity for Women. She told us that this was the first time they had a meeting in their new building, so that really made me happy to know that we were the first to be in there.

Their vision is to promote and protect gender justice for the human dignity and the right of children, adolescents and women. There mission was to provide them with education in means of clubs, groups, and other several activities to provide future involvement. She also explained to us that they provide women a job were they are able to learn various things like how to create cement brick-blocks and how to use the machines used to make them. Shanti explained that it provided them with a job in the future so that they would have something to be living off of.

After lunch with Shanti we had gone to another office for Social Awareness Society for Youths (SASY) (http://sasy.org.in/) and a leader in the organization, Ramesh Nathan, provided us with several information about the Dalits and what their organization did and provided for the Dalits after the tsunami in 2005. They had all given us some tea and cookies while he gave the presentation which personally I loved. If it weren’t for that presentation I would have never known that there was great organizations out there that had a mission to facilitate all efforts towards establishing a just society for human dignity by protecting and promoting the human rights of Dalits and tribes, fostering Dalit empowerment.

I had learned a lot from both Shanti Ma'am and Ramesh Nathan Sir and was really inspired on how they do anything and provide great organizations that help people here in South India. At the end of the day I really appreciated their great welcoming in wanting to speak to us and teach us more about their organizations and what they do.