Tharparkar is known for being a victim of administrative negligence, extreme poverty, lack of basic health facilities, child malnourishment and weak infrastructure. There are hardly any stories from this region that can put up a smile on the reader’s face. However this will surely put one. This story is of an inspirational woman, Fatima who can also be called Tharparkar’s Wonder Woman.
Fatima who hails from a village named Rawatsar in Tharparkar has emerged as ray of hope for her community. She has decided to take the responsibility of addressing her village’s major issues in her hands. Rawatsar is a village which a few kilometres from the Indian border. The village has no electricity, no water and most of all no health facility. The nearest health facility is in Nagarparkar which is two hours away from Fatima’s village. There’s also no political representation.
One of the major problems of Fatima’s village was child marriages. Several years ago, she realized that young girls in her village would develop health problems soon after they got married . Their in-laws would put them to housework immediately upon marriage and the most difficult task was the search for water. The task of balancing a water matka on their heads for several kilometres for many years was the married child's right of passage.
In order to address this problem, Fatima started organising former child brides and prepared skits for the villagers to illustrate the calamitous effects of child marriage. Due to this initiative, Fatima has been successful in changing this trend of child marriages and as per the locals, the minimum age of marriage has gone up to 18 years. Over the decades, Fatima has saved many hundreds of girls from the fate of child marriages.
Today, Fatima, with a team of volunteers runs an NGO which the villagers fund themselves. One of their initiatives is to contribute a major item (charpai, ralli, animal, cutlery, sandooq etc) towards the dowry of any girl whose family waits till the age of 18. A ralli that costs Rs. 2,500 ,can sometimes make a difference between a would-be child bride turning into a healthy, grown, adult woman before getting married.
Today, Fatima's completely self financed NGO runs an adult literacy program along with the following initiatives:
Free seed and fertiliser lending. She is also working on helping the locals of her village to identify the right crop that can help the, to fulfil their dietary needs.
Female entrepreneurship and employment by giving skill training to them so that they can make handicrafts to sell and earn a living.
Girls' school with volunteer teachers. Fatima is also helping the children and locals of the area regarding the importance of basic hygiene habits. This is helping the village in terms of addressing issues such as cholera, diarrhoea and other small diseases caused due to unhygienic conditions.
Female health services
Maternity and delivery services
Fatima’s next plan is to work on the provision of clean water. For this purpose, two areas have been identified for deep wells and two water tanks that will supply the village of about 800 with clean drinking water so some human dignity is preserved in decisions such as marriage.
After this, the next step will be to find low water requiring varieties of crops to grow. This will help to save more water due to which there will be endless possibilities for livestock growth. A small intervention such as this can change the trajectory of the future generations of this village, Rawatsar.
Fatima’s story shows the importance of the involvement of local communities in solving issues. Despite having limited resources, her contribution is more than what the state is doing to address these issues. This clearly shows that if there’s a functional local government system in the form of village councils, even serious issues such as early marriages can get resolved.
Fatima’s story also shows that small scale operations are more effective than the donor funded social developmental projects in rural areas. Although donor funded projects get more attention due to their popularity but they have been found out to be relatively unsustainable as compared to the work Fatima is doing in her village which is expected to have a long lasting impact and will definitely contribute to the improvement of her village, Rawatsar’s condition.