Ms.Chithra, aged 30 is living in Kallankollai, Maduranthakam Taluk, Chengalpattu District. She has studied up to 10th Standard. Her husband Mr.Selvam is a labourer and his job is wood cutting. They have 2 children; the boy Dinesh is studying in 7th standard and the girl Dineswari is studying in 5th Standard in Government School. Ms.Chithra used to accompany her husband for wood cutting work and earned Rs.500 /day as labour charges. After our Omega Micro loan programme initiation, she availed a loan of Rs.12,000 and bought a wood cutting machine which has helped her earn an additional income of Rs.300 (i.e. Rs.800/day). This has made her work easier and enabled her to save Rs. 200/month in her children’s names apart from affording nutritious food for the family.
As the income is steady and gradually increasing, they send their children to the school regularly and supporting the children to get new dress materials, lunch bag and chappals (initially they were not used to wearing chappals)
Also, Ms.Chithra is working in our project as SEWA SAKTHI and this gave her an opportunity to learn a lot of matters in connection with women social and economic empowerment. She has attended 3 meetings organized in ASSCOD office with the resource persons from Omega and the meeting cum training helped her to build self- confidence, self- assessment and the real status of tribal women. After having gained knowledge through training, she started helping her fellow women. She trained 3 women to become basic literates i.e. to read and sign, She helped Mr.Nagappan in her village to get the treatment for neck pain from the Primary Health Centre (PHC)
She helped Revathi w/o Jeeva, a pregnant woman to get proper vaccination from the village health worker and she accompanied the Village Health Nurse (VHN) to administer polio drops to 4 children and health services to other women and children in the village.
She recovered Omega micro loan amount from the beneficiaries and handed over to ASSCOD. As she got Rs.1000 as honorarium from our project and this is her first monthly pay, she decided to save the amount for her children’s education. She represented Parents and Teachers meeting and ensured her children perform well and also collected the list of children who have dropped out and is taking sincere efforts to re-enrol them in the school.
She attended a gramsabha meeting organised by the Sub-Collector and submitted a petition to get housing patta, ration card for 3 families etc.
She says that she is now very self-confident, supporting other women in the village, determined to enable her children to pursue higher studies and all these are happening because of her role as Sewa Sakthi. She expressed her sincere thanks to Omega/ASSCOD for their support to her and her village to become socially and economically strong.
