Ladybug's field notes

Visiting field areas for work is always an exhilarating experience as you get to learn much faster than you can learn from a report. As one keenly listens to people and their observations one tends make more connections in one's head. Many assumptions get challenged. Many new learnings emerge.  I recently visited areas around the Indo-Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh. One of the most interesting insight that I got during this travel is that there is active push-back to adolescents’ aspirations. The Community Developers or the field workers working in these areas found this active push-back as one of the greatest challenges in working with adolescents. I would have assumed it is around getting boys and girls to sit together for the sessions in the villages, which was surprisingly seen as a positive thing by the mothers with whom I talked to.  They felt it was important. However, I heard that the greatest challenge came from the village elders who think by engaging with...

I t's about a year that we started walking (read, leap-jumping) in the path of providing a crucial support to women who face domestic violence. Here is a story to describe the nature of the work. Read on.... Minati* went back to her own home with her 2 months old infant. Her mother informed us. We were anticipating it. We thus get a break from the follow ups at the family court, advising Minati's mother, counselling Minati, looking after her nutritional needs, emotional needs, regular psycho-social support. A break. Which may be long. May not be too. When we met Minati about 6 months ago, she was already in the second trimester of her pregnancy and was living with her parents.  Minati was a 19 year-old when she got married to a guy whom she started talking to via a cross call. The caller must had figured out that she was a young girl, and that was enough for the calls to continue. The man on the other side of the line finally reached her house. Minat...