The Power of the Kalyani Health Clubs

Many of the Kalyani Health Clubs prioritize women’s well being and health. The Springdales Doordarshan Kalyani Club in Durg district of Chattisgarh declared at the time of its inauguration itself that its mission was to end the discrimination against girls.

Kalyani recognizes that all women are powerful; they are empowered in their mission and are committed in going to homes and talking to families. A Community Educator from Bihar speaking to Kalyani has the last word, saying, “We go from house to house to talk about the importance of educating the girl child and tell women why breast feeding is important for the child’s nutrition, the mother’s health and how it is even more cost effective for families. We should not think that women are left behind, we are strong. We will not fail, this is about winning.” Kalyani could not agree more as it believes that women hold up half the Kalyani sky.

The role of women in the Kalyani Clubs movement

With much of the on ground impact of Kalyani being attributable to Kalyani Health Clubs, it is important to acknowledge the role of women in this success, after all, as much as 40% of all Kalyani Health Club membership is from amongst women. If Bandrabhan in Hoshangabad district has become a malaria free model village, it is because of the constant vigil of women. They are the ones who saw immediately how a little preventive effort could help save them a lot of energy and financial loss in the situation of the onset of the disease, and so they took out rallies against vector borne diseases, ensured that sanitation levels were maintained and that sustainable and low cost eco friendly preventive measures were adopted regularly. They burnt cowdung cakes and margosa leaves to smoke out the mosquitoes from their homes and lives. They took to the medicated mosquito net scheme, and organized its demonstrations and drives.

It is believed that Clubs headed by women are distinguished by greater handholding across genders in case of a crisis. Ms. Palibala Brahma, who heads Kalyani Health Club of Kuhuripatna in the Dhenkanal district of Odisha, helped Girdhari Nayak get treatment for his cancer and when his funds began drying up, she even arranged for financial help.

Aishwarya Rout who heads Kalyani Health Club took the help of Kalyani to mitigate the torture and misery of a battered woman of her village. She first used the good offices of the Kalyani Health Club, with the members of the club joining in to put pressure on the wife beater, and then when things became more serious called upon the Kalyani team including stock character Sana Didi. For the future the Kalyani Health Club members have decided to move to the Women’s commission if necessary. The important point to be noticed is that the battered woman and her family members were willing to trust Kalyani confident that Kalyani stood for all that had preached.

Women’s Kalyani Health Clubs

There are as many as 360 Kalyani clubs that are women’s only Kalyani Clubs. In Odisha alone, where the first women’s Kalyani Club took root, there are 210 clubs which are either women only or are headed by women. This is the largest in any state. In Chhatisgarh, the numbers of Clubs that are all women are 12 while as many as 76 are headed by women. Women head 205 of the 261 clubs in UP. 4 of these are all women’s clubs, 9 in Rajasthan, 3 in Bhopal, 5 in Ranchi, 22 in Guwahati and 11 in Bihar are the numbers of all women clubs.

Women joining mobile Kalyani Health Clubs

Ordinary women like Meena Veram are adding their might to the Mobile Kalyani Health Clubs, that go from village to village spreading the message of Kalyani. Although normally, hesitant to step out of the house, Meena is not diffident in this case because she realized that if this work was left only to male members, then on many women issues her sisters would be divested of the benefits of these outreach efforts as they would be too shy to talk to them. So, rather than hope for a miracle she decided to overcome her own hesitance and move forward, breaching the walls of silence surrounding issues like sexual health and HIV/ AIDS.  

Celebrating the fighters from the ranks of the common

• Writing in from Village Vasina in district Durg a young girl, the women of whose entire family are in Purdah, says she feels she can do anything. She signed her letter off as Kuldeepika after claiming that her feeling of high self worth flowed from the encouragement given to girls on Kalyani.
• Gudiya Khatoon, whose story was telecast from Patna had to wage a tough fight be able to study as no one in her family had done o and consequently she received no support. But she hung on to her dream doggedly. Additionally, she had to walk eight kilometers to school every day. But it all paid off for she is today Karate teacher at the same school and is the role model for many including child bride Sarita who looks up to Gudiya as her icon.
• Kalyani featured Priya Ganguly a young media person from Lucknow. She had performed the last rites of her father as his only progeny, thereby breaking the stereotype of women not performing such functions. What adds poetic irony to the fact is that the cremation took place on the even of International Women’s day. Coming across as an ordinary small town girl, the impact of Priya’s sharing was profound.
• Mazda Kahtoon, popularly known as Babli, was like any other young village girl till one day when while returning home after helping her farther, gardner Sajid Hussain, she heard cries for help. On investigating, she found that a cycle rikshaw cart ferrying seven children had fallen into a twenty feet pond. Unmindful of her own safety, she pulled out all the children. She then went on to win the Presdient’s medal for bravery. Her story was telecast from Dehradun on Kalyani.

The reason why the stories of girls like Gudiya Kahtoon, Mazda Khatoon, Priya Ganguly and the young girl who signed herself as Kuldeepika, were telecast in the belief that such stories of achievements of girl children, help tilt the balance to favour the girl child “heroes”. It would help break stereo types. And the hope is that each example of a girl achiever would help others achieve their true potential.

Stars speak up for the Girl child

Media ions and film stars have all added their voice through Kalyani in support of the girl child. Senior film star Waheeda Rahman and young actor Diya Mirza starred  in the “Bitiya Ne Janam Liya” Music video, and speak up at every opportunity they get for the girl child Raveena Tandon, Urmila Matondkar, Priyanka Chopra, Tabu and Faroque Sheikh are part of the Bollywood Brigade that upholds the cause of the girl child. Others who add to this effort are poets Bashir Badr and Gurdeep Khurana, pop singer Bobby Cash and TV star Abhinav Chaturvedi who we all remember as ‘Nanhe’.

Evidence by letters

The spate of letters that Kalyani has received from parents whose only children are girls talking about how complete they feel their family is and endorsements from parents and grand parents about how much they love their girl children and how they aspire for them, is the evidence that Kalyani has of how much of a difference it has made in this land of deep-seated cultural biases against women.

Here are some of those letters:

We are regular viewers of Kalyani. In our family girls are not treated like a weight round our necks but like the goddess of good fortune. We are very happy parents of a daughter and we had always hoped that we would have a girl as our first-born. When it will come to education, for it is too early for that as yet, we will make sure that our daughter gets the best education that any boy would have got, for we want her to grow up to be an independent girl capable of standing on her own feet. We are very glad that the stock characters of Kalyani are so encouraging of the girl child.

Shobha Arvind from Village Tendupara, Sarguja, Chhatisgarh

Daughters can be as much a support to aged parents, as sons. But it is equally important for parents to abandon rigid customs, change with the times, and treat a daughter just as well as they treat sons.

Whether daughter or son, For parents they are one.

Dr. Geeta Gupta, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

I agree with Kalyani and Fikarchand, that girls can become a big support for their parents in their old age. Recently the state government has initiated a scheme to support the rural girl child. It will have far reaching effect. I have two daughters and I am very proud of them. They are the apple of my eye and will surely look after me in my old age.

Pradeep Nayak, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

And finally we refer to a memorable story that was telecast on Kalyani. Lakshmi Devi, hailing from Jamuka village in Uttar Pradesh, was unable to conceive and had to face the unkind taunts of the people. She and her husband decided to adopt a baby. They chose to adopt a girl child. “There is no difference between a girl child and a boy child. In fact a girl child would love her parents a little more” says Lakshmi. She goes on to add that she too like 100% of those who watch Kalyani treat it as a partner in executing their responsibilities as a mother.