Lakshmi is eighteen. She’ s still at school. Another year, then she wants to go to university – if possible at Coimbatore, a four hours trip from here. When I meet her the first time in Villoni, a very small and remote village in the surroundings of Valparai in the West Ghat mountains, a very…
Category: Women
A shelter for battered women on time and a marriage
“Eightyseven women have been here since the beginning of this year, and every year more and more contact us via the help line or come directly to the shelter”, H. tells me. H. is an Indian woman who fourty years ago started as s social worker in the surroundings of Mangalore and dedicated her…
Maternal and infantile health in India
Did you know that 60 to 80% of pregnant women and 50% of children in India are anaemic? This is mostly caused by malnutrition and/or under nutrition and it has wide spread effects on the body. You will see many people suffering from dizziness and fatigue, stunted children and adults. A woman dies in…
“Hidden” washing: a toilet key is more than just a key
Before coming to tribal areas in India I was never aware on what it really means to live without any toilet in a village and without any individual washing location. Having a small intimate space should be one of the most normal things in life. But it is not. A life without any sanitation…
Knitting with tribal women in Tamil Nadu, India
The knitting experience I wanted to find out how the intercultural collaboration and interaction “across the borders” works and feels: being in middle of tribal women, who are organized in some selfhelp groups, live in very limited infrastructural surroundings and who are busy with caring goats and providing the basics for their families. How…
Tribal tamil women enjoy proudly their first cooking book – copy wanted?
Some months have passed since two tribal villages invited me for a cooking function. It was an amazing day. They had shown me how they prepare food, chicken and fish, bread, wheat, curries … How they prepare open fireplaces and cook in traditional manner. I had taken a lot of photos and with the…
Sisters, social work and floods in the Gharwal
The way is long and exhausting, it takes more than 10 hours by car: small, broken roads, often deep abysses , endless bends, warning of landslides and rockfall. We, that’s a Priest and myself, are on the way to an isolated village in the Gharwal region. We will visit a social project with disabled children…
Visiting Sanyasi – Religion but also Social work
According to Hindu Mythology in everyone’s life there should be four parts of life, called also the four Ashrams: Vidyarthi, Grihastha, Vanprastha, and Sanyasa. Vidyarthi ashram, the first comprises the first 25 years. From 25 to the age of 50 people should get married and have a family. At 50 then the renunciation phase starts…
Go Future: Health awareness, education, violance – a personal report by a woman living in rural areas
They have electricity just for two hours a day. A mother, her two children, her mother and father-in-law and her husband. Her husband suffers from mental illness. They live in Bihar in very rural areas in a small house. A smokeless chullar with a van that does not work, a solar collector that gives light…
Bihar: a travel through a remote time and courageous business women
When we pass the regional border to Bihar in East India it seems we have done a travel to the past. The NGO driver, a project manager and myself are on the way to Buxar to visit a sanitation project, steered by Healing Fields. This is one of the Indian parts I have not visited…
Go India, go future! 