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Report on Guild of Service Members Visit to Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan
By D. V. Mohini Giri

Since a decade now, Guild of service has been zealously working in Sawai Madhopur with a mission to the empowerment of women. The involvement of Guild of Service is multi dimensional with an eye only on developmental activities. The goal as always is the empowerment of the underprivileged and emancipation of marginalized women and children.


Dr. Suman Sharma interacting with women

Keeping the tempo of Guild of Service initiatives, a Workshop for Legal Awareness was undertaken at Guild for Service Centre on the 25th & 26th of December, 2008. Dr. Suman Sharma and Ms. Raj Mohini, members of Guild of Service interacted with the marginalized women and the self help groups of the area, constituted by the Guild of Service. This was in elongation to our developmental initiatives undertaken from time to time.

Dr Suman Sharma & Ms Raj Mohini reached Sawai Madhopur on 25th December, 2008, and on 26th December early morning, they had long discussions with Mr. Yateendra from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. At 9.30 a.m. in the morning they went to Guild of Service office where they checked F.C. Centre records, Staff files, Case registers of SHA Group etc.

Social Empowerment:

Next on agenda was an interactive session with the women gathered at the Guild premises. There were about 90-100 of them. The session was very informative and interactive. Dr. (Mrs.). Suman Sharma delivered a lecture on the women rights to the gathering. In this session, there were discussions on the problems being faced by the women there. The most important problem faced by the area was alcoholism of the male members and the domestic violence. The women were very keen to learn different skills to earn better livelihood.


Guild of Service skill Development Session with women

At 12.30 hrs meeting of the Family Counseling Centre Executive Committee was held. The members discussed various problems faced by the family councilors. They also explained about the number of cases which they successfully resolved in the last six months. The details of the cases were noted in the Minutes of the meeting. They handled a total of 31 cases from April 8th to September 8th 2008 and from October till date 12 more cases were registered.

The local committee was also constituted for the smooth functioning and expansion of the Centre. The Guild of service is happy to have Ms. Ipsita Prushti, wife of the District Magistrate and an eminent lawyer, Ms. Rathore as active participants in our initiatives.

Both the members visited the "KACHI BASTI" in which around 1500 people from Dalit Community are living in a miserable condition. Most of the people were working in a Cement factory which was closed almost two decades back. Most of the men were doing the job of casual construction laborers.


Picture of Kachi Basti

The main problem was again that of alcoholism & unemployment. Women folk are ready to work but they did not have appropriate skill level and training to do the same. Though they are very keen to learn the skills from the representatives of the Guild of service if they are provided with the same in their colony itself where space is no problem. They felt they all will not be able to commute to the present office of the Guild of Service.


Picture of Kachi Basti Area

Interaction session was a great success and the Guild members after assessment of the prevailing ground realities reached to a conclusion that the following economic empowerment steps must be taken to bring about a new face to our initiatives

Economic empowerment recommendations

  1. Anti Addiction Camp to be held near Guild of Service and also in Kacchi Basti
  2. Extension of skill training; for example, English Speaking Course, Computer Literacy Classes, Block Printing, Training in Handicrafts.
  3. Marketing the products of the Guild of Services
  4. The basic infrastructure has to be improved. Premises need to be white washed & painted
  5. The toilet was permanently locked and not accessible to the people. It is recommended to have the inhabitants an access to this basic need.

The team returned with a resolve to vigorously follow-up with the ongoing initiatives and to build up a strong team to facilitate the implementation of the Guild's dream to turn the project into a showpiece of development of the area.

 

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