Gandhian Unit for Integrated Development Education (GUIDE)

Guide started in 1985 with the intention of guiding the rural poor to resolve their issues themselves, related to felt and strategic needs, through awareness on human rights. GUIDE specializes on ensuring the rights of the women of Dalit, Adivasi and other underserved communities. Through legal, social, cultural and political orientation and skill development courses, GUIDE trains village women leaders and fishermen to take forward village level associations to resolve village issues and federate them at the district level, so as to resolve issues on a macro scale through policy intervention.

Truly Avant-Garde
Guide’s strategy is to bring political attention to marginalized communities’ needs. Through building federations of women leaders and fishermen communities, Guide is transforming the sociopolitical environment of coastal communities in Tamil Nadu. Its work with women’s groups goes back for 20 years. They aim to counter gender violence by mobilizing women to participate actively in local governance. Hand in hand with this process is improving women’s access to livelihood generating activities.

They have succeeded in bringing together women from tsunami-affected villages through federating Self-Help Groups. Guide has formed a statewide federation, whose conveners consist of 5 men and 2 women, including traditional panchayat leaders. The federation recently came to the decision that they would work to convince each of their village panchayats to elect women as panchayat members in the next election. Elections are held yearly and currently women have never held a position in traditional panchayats. Thus far, 16 panchayats have agreed.

Adapting to Women’s Needs
Innovations in Business Planning
Guide made some modifications to the way ice plants are traditionally run in order to make it feasible for women to run them independently. By reducing the weight of each bar of ice that must be carried, they made them a size easily manageable by women. Ice plants in the region commonly have bars that weigh 45 kgs. With Guide’s help, bars no weigh 5-10kg. Also, small size of the plant itself allows women to handle it without depending much on men.

Forging out Independently
Women Form a Fish-selling Cooperative Without Government Support
Through extensive participatory planning with women in the village of Sadras, Guide is supporting a women’s fish-selling cooperative. Opting out of the government supported cooperative program because of its beaurocracy and limitations, women started a fish sales outlet in Chengalpatttu. Fish-selling women from Sadras bring fish. Traditionally, individual women fish-vendors carpool in auto-rickshaws to the market, but have individual stalls. In the Guide supported cooperative, they not only share the cost of transportation, they hare profits as well, thus reducing risk and fostering a network of women vendors.

“This is again a new trial, so far women used to go together with their individual baskets in one auto rickshaw and get dropped in different villages. In other words, only the transportation is shared. Whereas what we have helped them to do is sharing the sales itself. Right now, it looks successful, but we have to wait and see, what are the long term implications,” says Vasantha, Guide Director

Addressing Gaps in Relief and Rehabilitation
Initially men did not allow women to speak or take part in relief activities. Now they encourage equal participation in all matters and convinced the community that standing together could increase their gains.

When monetary relief entitlements from the government were first being distributed, village leaders were distributing them according to the number of males over the age of 18 in each household. This meant that households with 4 males over the age of 18 would receive 4 times the money than households with 1 male over the age of 18 and female-headed households would receive nothing. In meetings facilitated by Guide, women expressed their concern for the female-headed households that would be excluded from this entitlement. Women leaders decided to approach village leaders. They were successful in obtaining approval for all Guide relief materials to be given directly to women’s groups, who would then distribute the goods according to need. This meant that even supplies traditionally utilized only by men such as boats and nets would be given to women. When Guide issued catamarans to the village, women decided they wanted to maintain collective ownerships of them and lend them for payment to fishermen. A symbolic gesture, it is perceived as a demonstration of the possibility of a shift in gender relations in fishing communities.

A Special Day
When our staff visited the village of Sadras to meet Guide directors and observe the World Fisher Peoples Day celebration, a novel process was occurring. Women leaders were gathered in a thatched roof community center to discuss their current issues and strategize about how to present to the male village leaders. Motivational visitors included federation leaders and landless agricultural Dalit women who have become active leaders and women’s empowerment advocates. One of these speakers was a woman named Pushparani. She is a widow who visited Sadras to see what the women were up to and share her own experience as an SHG leader as an example.

“You can take lesson from my life what I have done to my village,” says Pushparani, “Just go and sit in the meeting, at least listen. It may take time. Gradually you will improve yourself and change the mindset of men…After the tsunami, I was invited to a meeting organized by a men’s association. I am a widow and not educated and I was not sure what should I say. It was the first time I was to speak to a crowd. When my name was called, I started shivering. When I started my speech, the audience was silent and listening to my initiatives in the villages and problems faced by women community. I spoke adamantly about men not giving any space to women for the role in relief efforts and recording damages and losses. When GUIDE came to the village and started addressing women’s role in relief effort slowly, the men’s approach began to change.”

Another woman, Menaka, told women that, “We should be united; a single woman can’t do anything. We could do a lot if we unite.”

After hearing the voices from the women like Yellamma and Pushparani, young women from Sadras village were encouraged to speak out. They selected representatives from each age group among the female members of the community, made a list of their requests that included a school and a hospital and practiced addressing the larger community through rehearsals.

At the end of the day (the community meeting had been postponed because of heavy rains), we had the opportunity to speak with the traditional panchayat president, Murugesan. He expressed an enthusiastic welcoming of women’s participation in panchayat decision making.

“If we are not giving space to participation for women in village matters, we won’t develop further,” he said.

According to him, it is the collective duty of the entire community and support organizations such as Guide to help bring women into the mainstream.

“It is possible and will happen,”
– Murugesan, traditional panchayat president

To read more about GUIDE, please click here..

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