Training for self-reliance

Afsana (18) is busy sewing a blue cotton salwar on the floor of a small flat in a building located in one of the narrow lanes of Batla House in Southeast Delhi.

Written by Irena Akbar

July 15, 2012 02:17 AM IST

5 min read

Afsana (18) is busy sewing a blue cotton salwar on the floor of a small flat in a building located in one of the narrow lanes of Batla House in Southeast Delhi. Shes just enrolled for a year-long course in adult education at Muslim Womens Welfare Organisation (MWWO),a self-help group that seeks to empower Muslim women belonging to low-income families. Afsana,originally from Madhubani in Bihar,is one such woman a domestic help whose parents are no more,and who lives in a slum in Okhla with her sister,also a domestic help,and brother-in-law,a mason.

Shes too shy to speak,and when she does,she is barely audible,but at the end of her year-long course,which teaches her to sew clothes and read and write elementary Hindi and Urdu,she hopes to be able to be more confident and make a decent living. It is such hopes that MWWO seeks to fulfil through the many short-term and long-term courses in tailoring,fashion designing,typing and make-up it offers to disadvantaged women.

Today,MWWO trains 70 such women in its long-term (one year) programmes. The count goes up to 150 in summer,when a lot of girls sign up for short-term (10 days to two months) courses. For Mamduha Majid,who founded the self-help group in 1989,the inspiration for empowering women of her community was the Shah Bano case of 1985. I was divorced around the same time,and my children were toddlers then. But I rejected the idea of alimony. Why should I beg a man who has kicked me out of his life? Asking him for maintenance money would be disrespecting myself. Thus,I was dead against the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case,which granted her the right to claim money from her husband, says Majid,who protested against the case ruling at India Gate,and gave several speeches against it wherever I could. But the long-term solution wasnt fiery demonstrations,rather a gradual process of empowering women,giving them skills that would make them independent and never beg. So,in 1988,she and a few other women,went door-to-door in Batla House,asking people if theyd want to enrol their daughters in a tailoring course. Only about 15 girls signed up,after much difficulty convincing their families,and were provided free sewing machines and fabric. MWWO began from the garage of Majids home,and as more girls began enrolling over the years,thanks to word of mouth,they shifted to a flat,provided by Majids friend,and have now moved to another flat,provided yet again by another of Majids friends. I have very supportive friends,who donate their flats,sewing machines,clothes,computers,and at times even money for this organisation, says Majid,whose children are all grown up and live in the United States,Angola and Saudi Arabia.

But relying only on friends for material support has been a challenge. I have run from pillar to post,visiting the Ministry of Minority Affairs,for monetary help. I even asked the Delhi government for help. But no one pays any heed,despite us having all our legal documents in place, says Majid,who has had to discontinue the computer course and often pays salaries to her staff after a gap of two to three months due to paucity of funds,given that the girls are charged a fee of only Rs 150-250,depending on the course,and in some cases like that of Afsana,are trained free of cost.

Things were not as bad between 1995 and 2007,when MWWO was associated with the Jamia Polytechnic. Under the agreement,the latter provided material and paid salaries to the teachers. MWWO is in talks with the National Institute of Open Schooling for a similar arrangement.

Meanwhile,the organisation struggles to keep up with the hopes of many disadvantaged girls. A lot of girls keep coming to us. We do an interview and take them in only if their family backgrounds convince us that they are needy, says Majid,as she supervises the women in three rooms of the apartment MWWO works from. In one room,Afsana is busy stitching a salwar; in another room,a 28-year-old woman,who started having frequent migraine attacks due to stress after her divorce,is fashioning a frilly skirt; in the third room,five girls huddle over sketches of clothes in a register. They are part of the fashion designing course. Two of them are from Afghanpur village in Meerut,and have recently moved to Delhi. Word of mouth brings us girls from outside our immediate surrounding areas. We have girls coming from Ghaziabad and Faridabad too, says Sajida,who lives in Batla House and has been teaching adult education for over 17 years at MWWO. Her colleagues Shaista and Saima also have been working for almost as long. They are often not paid their salaries on time,and the salary isnt much either,they say,but they dont want to leave the place. It is a great place for purdah-observing women like me to work and make a difference to other women. No men are allowed here. Its like home, says Sajida.

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batla house Madhubani