INDIA / COURAGE BRIGADES
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STORY: INDIA / COURAGE BRIGADE
TRT: 3:36
SOURCE: IFAD
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: HINDI / NATS
DATELINE: 8-10 MAY 2014, NARAYANPURA VILLAGE, CHHATARPUR DISTRICT, MADHYA PRADESH
1. Wide shot, village road with bicyclists, scooters
2. Med shot, mud house with children walking past
3. Med shot, children running down dusty lane
4. Close up, Afsana’s face
5. Med shot, Afsana making daughter’s hair
6. Wide shot, Afsana with daughters
7. SOUNDIBTE (Hindi) Afsana Begum:
“I couldn’t bear to see the children starving, so I got a job, but my husband beat me because it made him look bad. I felt helpless and didn’t know where to go for help.”
8. Wide shot, women in blue saris walking in village
9. Med shot, woman in blue sari knocks on door
10. Med shot, women discussing sanitation with a local housewife
11. Med shot, housewife listening
12. Wide shot, women
13. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Reshma Khatun, Courage Brigade:
“We were formed because girls here were being raped. They were so scared, they wouldn’t leave their homes. Our group has made a huge difference not just to women, but to their entire families as well.”
14. Wide shot, following a woman into house
15. Med shot, woman sitting
16. Close up, hands
17. SOUNDBITE (Hindi)
“We looked everywhere. Finally we found his body in the neighbor’s grain store. The fingers of both his hands were severed, his toes were cut off, his neck was wrenched. It was just awful to see.”
18. Wide of woman sitting with her local Courage Brigade
19. Med shot, women sitting on the floor talking
SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Nayak, District Manager:
“There are so many issues here-- gender violence, alcoholism, gambling, child marriage. Often the best solution lies not with law enforcement but by using community pressure to address problems.”
20. Wide shot, woman entering building
21. Med shot, community kitchen
22. Med shot, woman cooking chappatis
23. Close up, chappatis on red coals
24. Close up of woman’s face
25. Close up dough being rolled
26. SOUNDIBTE (Hindi) Usha Bano, Courage Brigade member:
“We fought for three years, the teacher threatened us constantly, once he even threw a hot stove at us. But we didn’t give in.”
27. Med shot, woman serving food to children
28. Close up of porridge
29. Med shot, children eating
30. Med shot, more children eating
31. Close up, plate
32. SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Mandakini Sony, 6 years old:
“I like the sugar cakes, the hot cereal, lentils, rice, bread, vegetables and porridge, I like everything.”
33. Med shot, Afsana rolling dough
34. Close up, dough
35. Med shot, with one employee
36. Wide shot, another employee patting dough
37. Close up, Afsana’s face
38. Wide shot, women working
The Indian state of Madhya Pradesh lies in the heart of India’s impoverished countryside. Here most people survive on less than two dollars a day and live without electricity, health care or regular work.
Women are particularly vulnerable, given their lower status.
Afsana Begum was eleven years old when she was removed from school in Class five, and married. She has three daughters and when a death in the extended family provoked a financial crisis, she violated generations of family tradition to seek work outside her home.
SOUNDIBTE (Hindi) Afsana Begum:
“I couldn’t bear to see the children starving, so I got a job, but my husband beat me because it made him look bad. I felt helpless and didn’t know where to go for help.”
With police stations often too far away, and inept police unwilling to help, Afsana turned to a group of local women called the Shaurya Dal, or Courage Brigade. Dressed in blue saris, the women go door to door to tackle a range of issues that affect their lives, including sanitation, violence, female feticide and literacy.
Initiated by the Government of Madhya Pradesh and financed by the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), they form committees with local leaders to challenge social attitudes towards women, and to seek community-based solutions.
SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Reshma Khatun, Courage Brigade:
“We were formed because girls here were being raped. They were so scared, they wouldn’t leave their homes. Our group has made a huge difference not just to women, but to their entire families as well.”
In many villages, where violence towards women and children is endemic, many live in fear. This woman agreed to tell her story if her name and her village were not revealed.
Her 14-year-old nephew was murdered by a neighbor simply because the boy’s goat had pilfered grain.
SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Unidentified:
“We looked everywhere. Finally we found his body in the neighbor’s grain store. The fingers of both his hands were severed, his toes were cut off, his neck was wrenched. It was just awful to see.”
The police refused to help the boy’s family until the local Courage Brigade summoned dozens of women to block the main highway in protest, demanding action. The alleged killer is now facing trial.
SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Manoj Nayak, District Program Manager.
“There are so many issues here-- gender violence, alcoholism, gambling, child marriage. Often the best solution lies not with law enforcement but by using community pressure to address problems.”
As the women take charge of their lives and the problems they face, life in their villages is changing fundamentally. Six days a week these women cook, having taken control of a government-subsidised school meals programme.
Previously, a corrupt teacher embezzled money and fed their children unappetizing and unhealthy bug-infested rice.
SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Usha Bano, Courage Brigade member:
“We fought for three years... the teacher threatened us constantly, once he even threw a hot stove at us. But we didn’t give in.”
About a hundred village children rely on the breakfast and lunch served in the nursery and primary school. Many are the children of laborers who disappear for weeks at a time looking for work. Nearly all these children have experienced starvation at some point. The school meal is a lifeline.
SOUNDBITE (Hindi) Mandakini Sony, age six:
“I like the sugar cakes, the hot cereal, lentils, rice, bread, the vegetables. I like everything.”
Long term, the women are creating jobs for themselves and reinvesting their new found autonomy to help their children, particularly their daughters, study more. With a loan from her local Courage Brigade, Afsana Begum has now built her own bakery. She employs five others, paying them each a salary of almost $70 (USD) per month. Just a week into opening, she says she’s inundated with orders for bread.
For the first time in her life, Afsana, like women in 2600 villages across Madhya Pradesh where the project operates, is making her own choices, and her own money. And with the Courage Brigades set to expand to more than thirty thousand additional villages, many more Indian women could yet be given a chance to fulfill their potential.