Q.
How did you come in touch with Asha Trust?
A. I was working as a weaver in the saree
business here with my family. At the same time I was also running the schools
in the villages. After the nuclear tests by India, I had heard on Sandeep
Pandey starting a peace march from Benaras to Rajasthan. The route of the march
went through Mehdiganj and I got a chance to meet him. I told him about the
work we do here and he was quite impressed that we had been working on our own,
without any outside help, since 1994. Six months later some volunteers from
Asha came to visit and understand how we worked. In 2000, I attended the Asha
conference at Kanpur and spoke of how we worked. I spoke about getting work
done being much more important than money. I slowly got more involved with Asha
activities and I became a trustee member of Asha Trust in 2001. Sandeep Pandey
then helped me get financial help for the running of the schools.
Q. Which
schools are you seeking recognition for - day or night schools?
A. We are running two permanent schools,
10 night schools and two stitching centers for girls, which are being supported
by Asha Chicago. At the Asha conference we spoke about getting schools
registered and there were two options, either we register a center or we could
get all centers run Asha-wide registered. It was decided that we will get all
the centers registered on a national level and I think Monica Wahi (from Delhi)
was supposed to work on this.
We
are working on getting registration for both the day and night schools.
Actually if we get one registered then we can get all the kids to give their
class five exams through that center and then they can join the government
school.
Q.
How many schools is Asha Chicago supporting?
A. The two permanent schools, 10 night
schools and two stitching centers are being supported by Asha Chicago.
Q. How much time do volunteers spend and how are they
supported for their livelihood?
A. All the volunteers are under the age of
30 with 40% being students in schools/ colleges and the rest of them are
weavers, laborers, farm workers, etc. There are three types of volunteers
i. Full timers Ð like Mukeshm Suresh,
Arvind who work full time with Lok Samiti and we try and get them some sort of
financial support.
ii.
Part timers Ð like the school teachers teaching at the night schools and the
members of the kalamanch. The school teachers work 2 hours/day and receive Rs
300/month. The members of the kalamanch work 1 week/month and receive about Rs
500-700/month.
iii.
Individuals Ð People from the village who are members of the Lok Samiti. They
take part in meetings of the Lok Samiti once a month and are involved in our
activities for 2-3 days in a month.
Q.
How many children are in the schools run by Lok Samati?
A. There must be about 600 odd children in
all the centers. In the two permanent centers there are about 225 and 150
children. In the ten night schools, there are 30-50 children and in the two
stitching centers there are 30-40 girls.
Q. How many children who were in the schools are now
part of Lok Samati?
A. Most of the children who have been
through the schools support us in some form or the other. We even get support
from the families and guardians of the children who are studying with us. I
would believe that at least 50% of the children help us in some form. They may
be doing their own work but when we launched the dharna, they came forward to
support us and whenever there is an issue or problem in the village they speak
up against the problem.
Q.
Do the night schools have any girls?
A.
About 50% of the student population would be girls.
Q. How many volunteers are women? What do women youth
do? Name of the organization for women? Why are they different?
A. The Lok Samiti consists of about 25-30
men and 25-30 women from each village who form the core group of that village.
They work on issues being faced by the people. Lok Samiti in all consists of
about 500 men and 500 women. Say there is a problem between husband and wife,
the core group from that village will go speak to the people, their families,
the pradhan and try to resolve the issue. For example if the pradhan is
cheating on ration card allotments, then the core group will go and check what
is happening, meet the Block Development Officer (BDO) if needed and conduct
surveys to find out other people similarly affected.
Once
a month we have a meeting with one-two members from each village. The group
talks about the issues being faced by the people, the awareness campaigns needed
for Right to Information, Coca-cola struggle, anti-corruption drive and also
discusses the work done by other movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
People who are facing some problems also turn up for the meeting. We also
decide on the program/ activities being planned for the next whole month.
Fifty
percent of the teachers in the schools are women. There are two women who work
full time with us. More than fifty percent of the people working with us are
women. Women are more active volunteers than men. Most of the women are busy
with house-hold work and some of them work at home in the saree business.
Women
have formed 25-30 self help groups, where they contribute Rs 25-100/month. They
collect this money and use it for their personal use, maybe to buy jewellery.
We train them on issues of health, reservations, women empowerment, rules of
the Panchayat and the responsibilities they may have as a Panchayat member.
The
women group is called Mahila Chetna Samiti and they meet separately at the
office. The group is led by Urmila Patel and Urmila Vishwakarma. The group has
the responsibility of bringing the women for the dharna. Two women and one man
are sent to bring the women from the villages.
We
may be working under two different names but essentially we are the same and
all of us can be considered to be working under Lok Samiti. For example, the
kalamanch is actually called the Jan Chetna Kalamanch.
Q.
Can we get the scripts for the plays you put up?
A.
Sandeep Pandey is coming to America in June and I will try and send recordings
of the plays and even the scripts. Gaurav from Asha Chicago was here and he saw
and recorded a couple of plays. When Madhuji was here she also took a recording
of the announcement of the play, the play and then the discussion following the
play.
Q.
How are you documenting the surveys?
A. We have maintained files for all the
surveys we have done from the very beginning. We have maintained a good record
of all the surveys.
Q. How effective is the dharna and what are you
planning to do to get the government to act?
A.
We keep been printing updates about the dharna and give them to the government.
I speak to the LIO on a daily basis and tell him what is happening with the
dharna. Whenever we go to Benaras, we try and contact the local authorities
there and tell them about our problems. Recently a new DM was appointed, so one
of us went and spoke to him telling him about our problems and out struggle.
Till now there has been no response from their side. One day a representative
from the Lekhpal office had come to learn about the issue. He wanted to get
some proof on the stamp duty evasion and land encroachment case against
Coca-cola. I showed him the court orders and he took copies of the documents
with him.