Experiment #7: Anganwadi Ladies

I have met a group of superheroes. Superheroes dressed in sarees.

The Anganwadi Project, under Manav Sadhna's umbrella of service in the slum, is a government sponsored program for child-care. Manav Sadhna has built and restored 79 Anganwadis (pre-schools) in Ahmedabad, to date. The women who run the Anganwadis mostly live in or near the slum, and although they may seem like simple day-care workers at first observation, they are SO much more.

Shitalben is the worker at Anganwadi #5 in Ramapir no Tekro. I visited her this week and spent some time walking through the area around her Anganwadi. Shitalben knew every person we passed. And by "knew", I don't mean that she just knew their name. She knew how many children are in the family, whether the youngest daughter had recovered from malaria, if the father was able to go back to work after hurting his back, and the due dates of all the pregnant women. She makes daily visits to those she is concerned about, to make sure the mother is taking her prenatal vitamins, to scold young boys for chewing tobacco and skipping school. And all of this without any appreciation from the families she takes care of like they are her own. The women who she chases after to put their kids in school are lazy and rude; the young people she offers guidance to are content with their unstructured lives.

After an afternoon with Shitalben, I felt such an outpouring of love and gratitude toward her. I tried to express what an impressive job she was doing, but my gratitude was lost in translation by my broken Gujarati. While organizations like Manav Sadhna are started by those with visions for great change, women like Shitalben do the legwork- connecting with the community, trying to inspire the apathetic and direct the vagrant. For every ten times Shitalben makes an effort to change someone's habits, maybe one of those instances will result in the smallest improvement. But in one week, she can make a dozen tiny improvements that in a lifetime can change the destinies of a dozen children.

The next afternoon, I visited Harshaben's street school in the tekra. In addition to teaching older children in the afternoons, Harshaben is an Anganwadi worker in the mornings. As I was sitting at the front of the classroom, I noticed a girl crying in the back row, trying to suppress her tears but letting out a conspicuous hiccup every few minutes. I recognized the girl from a previous class when I had been asked to teach the students some basic English. I remember feeling hurt by her lack of interest and by the way she rolled her eyes at me when I taught the class to ask, "What is your name?". Harshaben called the girl, Asha, up to the front of the class and asked her to stop crying and tell her what was wrong.

A circle of children surrounded Asha as she explained, interrupted by sniffles, that her Kaki (aunt) had beat her. Harshaben's face was stiff and sad. She explained to me, Both her parents are dead. She lives with her Kaki who makes her do all of the housework. The other students piped in also, telling Harshaben that Asha's Kaki would not let her go to school or play with the rest of them in the evening. Asha's attempts at composing herself failed at that moment, and Harshaben wrapped her in her arms and rocked her like a mother would do. She told Asha to pray to God for strength and that everything would be okay.

The next morning at prathna (prayer) I prayed for Asha and for the Anganwadi ladies. I prayed that Asha would have the opportunity to learn and have a childhood, and that the compassion and strength of women like Shitalben and Harshaben could be universal.