CHENNAI: Under a scorching noon sun, young residents of Namachivayapuram, Choolaimedu, gather to clear a heap of garbage a mere two metres away from a house in their locality. The clean-up drive is part of a three-day programme, under project Uridhi, and its aim is to clean the area and spread awareness about proper waste disposal. Uridhi (which means strong in Tamil) is one of the projects by the International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC), a non-profit organisation based in Chennai since 2001.
The Uridhi project was launched in June 2016, in the urban slum of Namachivayapuram, as the fl oods had caused vulnerability in women — stress, violence and abuse. The project principally focusses on womencentric issues in the community of 1,200 families. “From collecting water to disposing of waste, most of these are done by women. This is why we wish to promote gender equality here,” says Surendhar, who has been with PCVC for more than a year. Uridhi concentrates on bringing awareness to women about health, harassment, child marriage, education etc, through workshops and awareness drives.
With a bottomsup approach, the Uridhi project has involved 10 ‘change makers’ or mobilisers from the community to make their voices heard among the masses. “We can’t reach out to all families at once. We’re outsiders, they will not listen to us and we won’t know how to get through to them. So, we identifi- ed about 10 interested people — with good social and networking skills — from each street, who we will train. They will then train the rest of their community,” says Vinodhini Baskaran of PCVC. R Saraswathi, a mobiliser for the past eight years, finds the response from her community encouraging.
“We learn things like self-defence, quilling etc and then teach it to another 20-30 people, sometimes in our own home. We’ve also written and conducted our own street-plays on various topics. It feels nice when people listen to us, and benefi t from us,” she explains. Over the weekend, PCVC held a series of activities on gender equality and disaster management, and also a public forum on sexual harassment wherein men and women were brought together to discuss their discomforts and methods of avoiding these issues.
Another programme, Know your Government, to foster communication with government offi cials, was attended by dignitaries including the village head, area sub-inspector and a doctor from the primary health center. They also had a medical camp and community clean-up drive. Uridhi aims to make the community self-dependent by creating a 10-member committee to manage the community. “We’ll get into deeper issues of gender violence in the community, while this committee can take care of other issues,” explains Surendhar, who feels the community can stand on its own feet this way.