Rural India
Daily wage women workers in Baroda make PPE kits for frontline workers
The lockdown had its most severe effect on the daily-wage community. But Swati Bedekar, an educationalist turned social-worker from Baroda transformed this situation as an opportunity to engage women to serve the country and also earn a living for the family in these trying times. Almost everything changed in the country after March. The coronavirus …
Tested HIV+ at 15, this woman is changing the lives of thousands of HIV+ women in rural Rajasthan
I had read and researched the background of the news subject I had to interview. Married off at the age of 12, tested positive for HIV at 15, got riddled with AIDS, lost a child who was barely 14 years old, and saw the death of her husband shortly after. If even one of the …
Married at 17, this woman began a crusade for mental health awarness in rural Bengal
The conversation began on a sombre note! I was half expecting it. I had briefly read about the story of Monica Majumdar and was prepared for a conversation accordingly. However, the unexpected came in at a few minutes in the conversation and lasted till the parting words, a full hour later. It was the persistent …
How these two 21-year olds are using Jute waste to create energy and livelihood for thousands
According to the medical journal The Lancet – as featured in an article in Bloomberg – Coal provides roughly 70 percent of India’s electrical energy needs, even as 1.24 million citizens die annually as a result of the country’s choking smog. According to Greenpeace and Air Visual, 7 of the world’s top 10 cities with …
How 2 young professionals are breaking the silence around menstruation for 600,000 people in rural Jharkhand
According to a 2014 report by the NGO Dasra titled Spot On!, it was found that nearly 23 million girls drop out of school annually due to lack of proper menstrual hygiene management facilities, which include the availability of sanitary napkins and logical awareness of menstruation. Concurrently, the report also states that 70 percent of …
St. Xavier’s College alumnae is combating malnutrition in the tribal villages of Madhya Pradesh using Soya Bean
Nutrition is a fundamental human need. But, this fundamental need often goes unsolicited, sadly leaving the fate of millions hanging in the perilous balance of life and death. According to a 2015 report by The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, India accounts for 23.8% of the global burden of malnourishment and has …
An Engineer who is building science laboratories in remote villages of India using locally available resources
For the past few years, engineers have been a subject of extreme mockery for the netizens. Social media is filled with memes (a millennial lingo) on how jobless engineering students are. We often have this misconception that engineering student in India either end up in a 9 to 5 job working on excel sheets or …
A jewellery lover who turned the fortunes of a distressed tribal community by using ‘Bamboo’
A jewellery lover and an art enthusiast, Saloni Sacheti, an ex-SBI Youth for India Fellow, is empowering the tribals of Dangs district of Gujarat, by engaging them into an alternative livelihood source of Bamboo Jewellery making. The primary occupation of the tribals there is agriculture and manual labour. But they suffer from huge water scarcity …