Cooperation
Dr. Brigitte Schulze, e-mail: info@femcinecult-kerala.de
Universität Trier, Medienwissenschaft/ media studies
D-54286 Trier, Germany
Networks and individuals supporting women in Kerala
with whom B. Schulze co-operated, or was in touch ...A very helpful reader on women’s resource and support networks is:
Support Services to Counter Violence against Women in Kerala
A Resource Directory
published by
Sakhi Resource Center for Women
T.C. 27/ 2323
Convent Road
Thiruvananthapuram – 695001
Kerala, India
in collaboration with
UNIFEM South Asia Regional Office
223, Jorbagh, New Delhi-110003
February 2002Co-ordinator of SAKHI: Aleyamma Vijayan, sakhi@md2.vsnl.net.in
Services of Sakhi: Library and Documentation centre, facilitate and strengthen women’s mobilisation at the local and regional level, training programmes for empowering women’s organisation, leadership training, publishing news letter, networking with other women’s organisations.
Referring to Sakhi’s publication (chapter II) here a summarised overview of
“Support Services available for women victims of violence by the state”
I. State agencies:1. Kerala Women’s Commission, Thiruvananthapuram/ Trivandrum
Kerala State women’s commission came into existence by an act of the Kerala Assembly in 1996 ...
2. Kerala State Social Welfare board, Thiruvananthapuram
Care & protection of destituted children, aged, disabled, mentally cured persons ...
3. Kerala State Women’s Development Corp., Thiruvananthapuram
Mainly giving financial assistance for women especially from backward and minority communities for self-employment ...
4. Kerala State Human Rights Commission, Thiruvananthapuram
KSHRC has the power to enquire on a complaint filed by a victim or any interested party in favour of victim or any interested party in favour of victim regarding the violation of human rights in the particular case at any level ...
5. Complaints Committee Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace
After the Supreme Court guideline on ‘Sexual harassment at work place’ in 1997, complaints committees has [sic] been constituted in about 54 workplaces like Government departments and universities ...
II. Non government organisations and individuals in Kerala
with whom B. Schulze co-operated, or was in touch:1. Dalit Women’s Society, Sachivothamapuram, Kurichy, Kottayam District
A voluntary organisation of dalit women of Kerala.
Founded and registered in 1992 in the beginning one was mainly active with the following:
-corner meetings of women on dalit issues, savings for dalit women, tuition programs for poor school going children, employment training, leadership and motivation training, ... rural development fund, conference of dalit students, publishing of study report “An introduction to Dalit studies”;
In 1994-95 the focus was on: -corner meetings, savings, tuition, employment training, awareness programs, pre-primary, rual development, conference of dalit students, Sodari credit union ..., Swasraya Education scheme (savings), children’s club, ... employment loan.
In 1996-97:
-corner meetings on women issues, savings, employment training, awareness programs, pre-primary, Centre for Dalit Studies, Credit union ..., Swasraya education scheme, children’s club, community centre, State Convention of Dalit Women, Library & Documentation, eployment training on computer application and umbrella assembling, Sodari Enterprises (employment program), Dalit Women’s Theatre [with their own play Vezhcha adapted from a short story by C. Ayyappan and made into a drama by T.M. Yesudasan, enacted by the members of Dalit Women Society, B.S.], network activities, dalit voluntary work.
In 1998-99:
-children’s club, credit union, employment training, library and documentation, community centre, employment training [see above], network activities, dalit voluntary work, news letter.One of the founders and today’s secretary of DWS: Lovely Stephen
DWS’s newsletter: Sodari (‘Sister’)
2. C.K. Janu, leader of Adivasi-Dalit Co-Ordination Committee, Nettamani House, Kattikkulam via, Wayanad District
3. Thrani (Center for Crisis Control), Thiruvananthapuram
Since 1999 ... addressing issues like suicide tendency, stress, family problems ...4. Foundation for Integrated Research in Mental Health (FIRM), Thiruvananthapuram
Person in charge: Dr. Jayashree A.K., jayasree@vsnl.com; www.firmkerala.org
... open to sex workers and other sexually exploited women ...5. Kerala Sthreevedi, c/o Sakhi, Thiruvananthapuram
Was founded in 1996. A forum of 10 women’s organisations [throughout the State] ... which takes up women’s issues, especially all kinds of violence against women and doing agitations for protecting women’s rights, networking of autonomous women’s groups etc.6. Geetha T., social worker, women’s activist, Sangeeth, Alappuzha.
7. (Sree) D. Pankajakshan, former teacher, a freethinker and inspiring person in his village which he wants to organise according to his profound ideas about a humane, ethical-emotional, and ecological balance between people and the larger nature without money or private property, he is respected as a trustful and dedicated man at his Darsanam, Kanjippadam P.O., Alappuzha.
8. SAHAJA, Brick House, SH Mount, P.O., Kottayam
Person in charge: Elizabeth Philip, lalup@hotmail.com
Founded in 1989 addressing issues like domestic violence, rape, work place harassment, eve-teasing ...9. Advocate Anila George – can be contacted through SAHAJA ...
10. MOCHANA De-Addiction & Counselling Centre, Kottayam
Issues addressed and activities: alcoholic and drug addicts, treatment and rehabilitation, medication, 15 bed stay ...11. Leela Menon, outstanding journalist on women’s issues who is facing discrimination herself in her field, the press, where she has to survive as a freelancer, Ernakulam.
12. Kamala Suraiya, humanist and rebellious poetress in English; in English and Malayalam a dedicated writer about a woman’s love, erotic desires and her compassion, with great sensitivity for injustices and engagement to curb it, with a rustic, down-to-earth humour which otherwise totally lacks in today’s high-caste and male dominated literature in Kerala, she lives in Ernakulam.
13. P.E. Usha, social worker, who now organises marginalised women in the project of AHADS; she is a courageous fighter for women’s human rights, is often forsaken by other ‘feminist’s, or ‘women groups’ (for complex – but not really good – reasons) lives and works in Kottathara, Palakkad District.
14. Dr. P. Geetha, a sharp observer and critic of the many inconsistencies in ‘women’s politics’ who publishes in Malayalam, Prasanthi, Angadippuram, Mallapuram District.
15. Anweshi Women’s Counselling Centre, Kozhikod
Person in charge: Ajith K., anweshi@eth.net
Founded in 1993 Anweshi addresses: family violence, problems of rape victims, property disputes, violence at workplace, mental illness, drug addicts ... child abuse, dowry related issues ...16. Vinaya, Police Constable, a very inspiring woman who fought the dress code and other discriminative practices in the Kerala police. Vinaya, though, was heavily attacked by her male colleagues, and was finally ‘suspended’ – and injustice which she fights – and she is a role model to many young women in the State. She also published a very courageous book in Malayalam on her experiences, Ambalavayal Police Station, Wayanad District.
17. K.J. Baby, Kanavu, Nadavayal, Wayanad:
In the hilly areas of Northern Kerala K. J. Baby, dramatist, multi-facetted activist, and the wise and dedicated English teacher and translator Shirly M. Joseph, and their two daughters are living, learning and teaching since more than a decade in a close symbiosis with local Adivasis; in a mutual effort they organised a 'co-operative' / ‘commune’ which is holistically oriented focusing the small community life towards a self-determined, liberating learning called 'Kanavu' ('Dream'). It started as a small alternative school project in the early 1990s.
When B. Schulze spent some longer time with them, it was during the shooting of their own feature film GUDA in 2001, and there were around 50 children, a self-built school and library, a girls' house, and small clay houses for a few Adivasi families; there were also fields and groves. 'Kanavu' had grown into a 'village' and attracted also adult Adivasis from near and far; there are hundreds of sympathisers, friends, teachers, social activists etc. who come and spend as much time as they wish to gift to 'Kanavu' along with any of their special skills; they usually contribute something to perpetuate 'the dream' further; they often wish to understand more about this open, self-organised experiment in community life-cum-learning which is unique to Kerala, as it is, as we know, to any society that is based on an unlimited commodification of living beings and resources combining it with a distribution system of competitive markets, supplied by capitalist industries, all maintained by a nation state ruled by the 'winners' (backed by a more or less direct use of violence) of elections: the competition of vested interests organised through parties.An essential part of 'Kanavu' is the creative 're-appropriation' of the Adivasi's different and very particular cultures that had always been and still are maligned and marginalised by the mainstream Kerala society. In the context of 'Kanavu' they joyfully recover, and they sing their traditional songs, and new ones, too, with self-written lyrics combined with the old tunes; they travel and stage their songs and dances, and were also engaged in their own acclaimed theatre projects.
These are linked to a past that still stirs the memories of an Adivasi resurrection which had greatly been brought to full maturity by K. J. Baby's play Nadugadhika (a ritual of exorcising evil spirits from the lands).By May 2001 GUDA, the first ever film script on an Adivasi culture, an Adivasi perspective on life and history and on the deadly myths produced by the dominant society was ready; written in Nayaka, one of the local Adivasi languages GUDA weaves together the individual story of a young Adivasi girl whose impoverished family can't perform her puberty ritual (connected with the hut-like guda), into the larger history of the manifacetted enslavement and marginalisation into which the different tribes in this region had been forced to this day. She had to spend one whole year in a kind of isolation in the small space of the guda because her poor parents couldn't find a suitable groom for her matured daughter. First, the guda appears to her like a kafkaesque captivity leaving her without hope and with desperate questions about her identity as an Adivasi girl and woman. However, her most intimate girl friend - an orphan leading a nomadic life but with a mixed ancestry of Adivasi and Malayali background - and the long periods of sharing her anxieties and views with each other, the guda slowly provided a space where reflection became possible, where nightmares of oppression could turn into dreams of liberation, where she could realise her strength, become Self-aware, and finally break out of the guda.
In the course of August-September 2004 B. Schulze will provide more informations about Kanavu and the film GUDA on our website: www.re-wo-man.net
18. Father J.C. Manalel, Malloossery, Kottayam – 686041
An engaged founder of Jeevadhara Theological Society, and during the mid 1990s active in the organisation of villages as little units of ‘Ayalkkoottan’ democratic neighbourhood communes.
In this context women of the area managed to organise themselves, form small saving groups, etc. and also calmed down communalist passions which flared up in the mid 1990s in their village.