VST News : Summer 2006

MEET OUR PEOPLE!

It's five years since we started Network Theni and in that time your donations have touched the lives of thousands of people. Let us introduce you to some of them.

Meet Vijaya, the president of a federation of women's groups who never thought she would see so much change for the better in her life.

Or Vinotha who was in such despair she was thinking of killing her baby daughter. Or Padma, whose brickmaking business is thriving with a Network Theni loan.

The experiences of these people and five others are described in this newsletter along with an account of what we've achieved under Network Theni and where we go next.

THE RECKONING

The idea was to make an impact. Focus on women and Dalits, the most disadvantaged. Bring a group of NGOs together in one locality to work on TB, Aids, women's rights, small-scale enterprise, and use the local political system to benefit the poor. Create and work with women's self-help groups. That was the grand plan when we started Network Theni five years ago. So did it work?

Of course Aids and TB and poverty and discrimination have not vanished overnight. But in the accounts of the eight people featured in this newsletter you can sense a society on the move. Things have changed. More and more people know about Aids and TB: how to recognise these diseases, how they can be treated. Thousands of women have exchanged laborious badly paid farm work for theirown small enterprises. Women in villages across Theni district now stand up for their rights, refuse to accept a second class existence and fulfil their potential. Politics and community life is changing from one dominated by men and wealth and shady practices to one that is open and fair to all.

We set some targets for what we wanted to achieve, and now we can call up the results.

• In TB we exceeded our target of curing 2,040 patients, and after some early technical teething troubles we beat the WHO's benchmark for cure rates. In the first years we concentrated on survey work to find TB sufferers; later as knowledge about TB spread we could rely on people with symptoms such as persistent cough to present themselves for treatment. Our TB programme was accepted as part of the government's national TB control programme and we benefited from free government TB drugs. More recently the focus of TB work switched from providing treatment ourselves to referring patients to the government primary health centres for treatment.
• In Aids we aimed to reach 45,000 people at particular risk; we actually reached more than 60,000. At first we focused on educating people about Aids and promoting safer sex through street theatre and mass awareness campaigns. Later we concentrated on trying to persuade particular high risk groups such as sex workers and truck drivers to change their behaviour. One particularly effective strategy was to train young men as ‘peer educators' to spread the message among their associates. We also formed self-help groups among sex workers. It soon became apparent that sexually transmitted infections contributed to transmission of the HIV virus so we set up STI clinics, treating large numbers and their partners. STI levels have fallen in the areas where we work.
• In mother and child health we planned on working with 85,700 beneficiaries. We estimate almost 93,000 benefited. At first we concentrated on recruiting and training village health workers but from the second year switched emphasis to one of cooperation with government primary health centres, encouraging people to use their services and supporting the PHC staff. As a result severe malnourishment, vitamin deficiency and childhood diseases such as measles have become rare. Better maternity services have reduced birth complications and infant mortality.
• In micro-enterprise we expected 8,000 women would start their own businesses. It turned out 10,523 did so. Network Theni mobilised 145 million rupees (just under £2m) in credit and subsidies to finance small businesses. Half of this came from the savings of self-help group members; the rest from our own revolving funds and bank loans. This credit, more than any other factor, lifted women's position in society. It freed them from moneylenders, gave them better incomes, made them less dependent on men, improved their self-esteem and status. Many invested their loans in land, animals, shops, housing and children's education. More recently there have been attempts to diversify into non-traditional enterprises.
• Violence against women. This is not easy to quantify. But in each year of the programme we took up more and more issues such as sexual and dowry harassment, female infanticide and domestic violence. In the last year almost 800 cases were documented. There is a clear indication that people no longer readily resort to violence for fear of action by the women or police. Studies have shown a decline in infanticide.
• Panchayat Raj. Our aim was to make the elected village councils work for the benefit of the poor. These were new institutions with the first elections in 2001. We worked to get women elected, and with women presidents to make them more effective. At first none of the 37 women presidents could function well alone. Now almost half can and most of the others are making good progress. We used village meetings to make the voice of the disadvantaged heard. In the last year alone across 42 panchayats benefits to Dalits included 404 new houses, 605 house maintenance schemes, 395 electrifications, 38 roads, 967 toilets, 26 water supplies, 16 threshing floors, 40 drainage schemes, 511 new ration cards (for subsidised food) and 10 burial grounds.

In many ways it is not so much in these statistics, but in the people that we can see real change. Most impressive of all are the people's organisations Network Theni has brought about; the village selfhelp groups and their federations, the positive people's association, the sex worker groups, the Arunthidiyar associations.

And increasingly it is with these organisations that the future lies.

INSIDE VIEW

JOHN DALTON- VST field officer
When I was a student I was a bit of an activist and Network Theni's transition from service delivery to a more rights-based approach has helped that activism to return. It is really exciting and a privilege to be part of a movement for social change. This has come about through the impressive level of activism of the federations and people's organisations. Federations have influenced local government and taken action against atrocities. TDNP+ (positive people's association) has increased the visibility of HIV/Aids, influenced officials and put HIV/Aids on the district agenda. Arundithiyars have demonstrated en masse for the first time and have confronted atrocity and untouchability head on. Organisations of women in prostitution and transgendered people have started to emerge. This has been a major challenge and a struggle but we have made a start.

Another struggle has been to convince people that we should work with Dalits, not just because they are poor but because they are oppressed and marginalised. The other shift has been to realise that there are Dalits within the Dalits - the Arundithiyars. This process is by no means complete but Network Theni has a good record considering that none of the partner NGOs is Dalit-led.

There is no doubt that the work with village councils was some of the best of its kind in the state, and the only project I know of that had such a reach and presence in one district. It is really appropriate that we have attracted major funding to continue and further develop this work.

The project was able to make good use of the betterresourced primary health centres and the new voluntary HIV counselling and testing centres and the new antiretroviral unit. We can now see a way of devolving our medical programmes onto them. It is wonderful to be able to offer something really concrete to positive people in the way of life-giving treatment.

HIV/Aids has been something of a personal cause for me, and Network Theni gave me a good opportunity to learn more and to share experiences. We now have real evidence that people are changing their behaviour and it is very encouraging to know that we are saving lives.

At the same time, Network Theni has not been easy; networks never are. We have all invested plenty of time and effort - volunteers, people's organisations, federa-tions, NGOs, VST, field staff, administrators, accoun-tants. My overall feeling is this - we have started to get something moving and now the time is ripe - for yet more work!

VANAJAA - director of DACT
Networking! It's really difficult. Different visions, different working knowledge, different mindsets. But we've done some wonderful works. We created a model for others by showing that we can work together to achieve our goals even though we were not always united in our thinking. All our partners but one are headed by men. But we all worked together for women's empowerment and towards gender equality. After many arguments gender equality has been accepted by all our partners who all adopted gender policies and made gender action plans. But there's still a long way to go especially on changing attitudes and making the changes endure.

The project equally concentrated on men with the idea that men have to to be part of the process of empowering women. Development cannot be achieved only by women; it needs men's support. Women and men need to work together to achieve our goal. So some supportive men were identified by the field workers and these men were trained on personality development and gender sensitisation. This yielded good results.

Empowerment of women is the key area for Network Theni and it started on this right from the beginning. Tremendous changes could be seen in the villages.

Some examples are

• Women started saying no to violence
• Women started asking questions in public
• Women showed they can work together and achieve things

The project created thousands of women entrepreneurs - some small, some big. This is a great change. Psychologically Woman is empowered when handling money. Money is power! And just because of this Man started respecting women. No wonder that our project led lots of women to improve their status, improve their knowledge and change their attitudes. I could write pages about the changes.

We too learnt a lot. At first we thought the government could not do anything and did not have the mindset to try. But after two years we changed our approach. Instead of regarding government as our foe we became friends - joining hands and sharing resources, helping them to cover more people on the medical side.

TNDP+ helped the public to remove their fears on HIV/Aids, helped them to change their attitudes, and the public got to know that if they didn't care about or give proper care to people living with HIV/Aids, then the positive people's association would respond. Even if this is not so sound as a technique, it yielded good results!

JOTHIRAMALINGAM - chair of Development Action Consortium Trust, which managed Network Theni
One of the outstanding achievements of Network Theni is capacity building of stakeholders that participated in this unique project. The strong professional central team provided inputs in health and enterprise development to partners and federations which enabled them to strengthen and sustain the activities for long term impact.

poorer women and Dalits - the project helped reduce social and economic disparities. Successive evaluations showed how hundreds of women improved their wellbeing after joining self-help groups. This substantially improved their status in the family and in the community. The project played a significant role in making people aware their responsibilities in Panchayat Raj, the roles available through this governance system and the way in which local people can shape how the Panchayat operates. Thus the women have been empowered politically and they are a force to reckon with. The political parties now have to woo the groups by promising special schemes even to win state elections.

The plethora of people's organisations promoted through partner NGOs are becoming independent and gained an identity of their own. Work with people living with HIV/Aids has led not only to increased demands and services but to an increased ability of PLWHAs to speak in public. Aravanis (transsexuals and transgender people) have experienced increasing levels of empowerment.

Network Theni helped partners develop gender sensitive policies and gender action plans. It demonstrated how local organisations can work together to pool resources and expertise and avoid duplication of efforts.

Achievements notwithstanding, the network had its problems such as loss of autonomy felt by some partners and fear of domination by major players leading to lack of enthusiasm by some. Despite these problems, the transparency and openness of Network Theni permeated at all levels which fostered mutual trust and co-operation.

NETWORK THENI HAS A BIG FUTURE IN STORE

So has Network Theni finished? Well only in the sense that we planned a programme lasting five years with funding from the Big Lottery and those five years are now up. But in every other sense Network Theni has a big future. The plan was always to create lasting structures to combat discrimination, ill-health and poverty. These structures are the people's organisations - self-help groups, federations and other associations - making full use of government services and the village council system. The people's organisations will need our support for some time yet before they can function independently. We have a five-point plan to do this.

• For the next five years we will work with the federations and other people's organisations to strengthen the Panchayat Raj programme of village councils that was begun under Network Theni. The Panchayats are a means to deliver services such as health, village facilities, education and welfare as well as an end in themselves in that they offer a way for the disadvantaged - women and Dalits - to gain political power. The Big Lottery Fund has agreed to fund this programme.
• We expect soon to start a new programme working with Dalit activist organisations to fight the castebased discrimination that pervades rural India. The Department for International Development have provisionally agreed to fund this.
• In co-operation with Target Tuberculosis we will work to improve the quality of TB work done by the government's primary health centres in Theni District.
• If we can secure funding, we will work with associations of people living with HIV/Aids, in particular promoting condom use, and engaging with high risk groups.
• Working with Development Action Consortium Trust, VST's principal partner NGO in India, we will ensure that the momentum of Network Theni is maintained, particularly the credit and microenterprise programme. This will be funded from the donations we receive from you - our supporters.

This organisation is so very different

I haven't been involved with VST for very long - just eight months. I began in November 2005 and immediately focused on following up our funding applications to the Big Lottery Fund, the Department for International Development and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. For such a small organisation there seemed to be a huge amount going on in India. But it wasn't until I visited early this year that I became fully aware of the impact VST is making and was able to give true meaning to the words I had been reading on the pages of applications for funding, newsletters and annual reports.

I met a newly formed group of people living with HIV/Aids near Dindigul. The group consisted of 20 or so young women and one man. All the women were widows, their husbands having died from Aids. Many had children who were HIV positive. All described the rejection they had experienced from their families and communities who blamed them for infecting their sons, their sense of isolation and their fears for the future. The one man in the group had come along with his wife. Both were HIV positive, the husband insisting that his wife had been infected through a visit to the hospital.

The meeting was tame at first and the women appeared resigned. It took a long time for them to feel sufficiently safe to express their true feelings. ‘If my husband were alive today, I'd kill him for what he has done to me and my child'.

Howls of laughter. Gone was the resignation, replaced, not by resentment and rage, but resilience, courage and an overriding sense of purpose. These people were going to make the most of the life they have and take steps to secure the best possible future.

To date, my VST is about the many thousands of people our partners work with every day. Women in self-help groups and federations. The Arunthidiyar woman sitting nervously but proudly as a ward member in a Panchayat meeting. The sad and deeply troubling visit to the widow of an Arunthidiyar man murdered for being ‘uppity' enough to challenge his ‘betters'. Women, again, working hard in small businesses to improve the prospects for their families. And the husbands of those women, on the road to being ‘gender sensitised men' in an innovative programme encouraging them to seek harmony in the home through co-operation and sharing family responsibilities.

I have worked in development organisations before. For Oxfam for close to 10 years, Sightsavers International and as a VSO in Bangalore for two years. VST is very different and effective chiefly because of its close relationship with the community it works with. VST responds to the needs of poor and marginalised people with rare consistency and expertise developed over many years.

My VST is also about communicating the work to existing and potential supporters here in the UK. The Big Lottery Fund application for work with Panchayat Raj Institutions was successful and we will soon hear the outcomes of the DFID and Elton John applications.

After eight short months, I already feel a strong commitment to VST and hope to strengthen and deepen that commitment over the coming years.