Friday, 17 January, 2025
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Volunteers Transform Women's Lives



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Pallav Ranjan 

Aged just nine, I planted corn, swept floors, carried stones at a village as a volunteer. My education at St. Xavier's Godavari mandated such giving back to the community. Aged 16, I started volunteering at a library and continued this work until I was nineteen. That was when I founded Spiny Babbler where volunteers still play a large role. Over a quarter of a century, more than 750 young people came from 14 nations around the world to contribute to the organisation and its work.
Therefore, I was intrigued by Sunil Sah who is a volunteer for SAHAJ and works to identify and help survivors of gender violence in the Terai plains. A difficult issue to engage in that geographic region, especially when trying to address the issue of violence against women and girls, he opens new thoughts in my mind on how volunteerism can transform the male perspective and the lives and women and girls in a positive way.
Imagine you yourself being a volunteer. It's a hot day, painfully hot. You have heard a horrific tale and have built up the courage to address the situation. You walk into this room in a village, the air pulsates with heat and the noise of insects is omnipresent. A wall of strong smell hits you as you enter the room.
In front of you, in the semi-darkness, a woman lies in bed unable to move, unable to speak, traversing the conscious and unconscious worlds. Burns cover half her body and with chagrin, you see flies have settled on her wounds.
What happened here? She had asked her husband who had returned to Nepal in the middle of the Covid pandemic having worked abroad to quarantine for a couple of weeks. In a great rage, he had poured kerosene on her and set her on fire.
This happened a month ago and she has yet to get proper medical treatment having been turned away by the medical centre after centre due to complications, lack of skills to deal with the condition, and lack of funds for treatment at a specialist health facility. This woman, strong in mind and will, struggled with the pain, the lack of care and treatment, infections and the horror, and came this far alive though, now, she was fighting a losing battle for life.
Think of what you will do. How to get help for her, eke out as much support from your contacts as possible whether they are doctors, hospital administrators, police personnel, the National Women's Commission, or individual donors. You and your friends take her to hospital after hospital, urgently arranging attention, transportation and medicine and buying time. Then she can speak, able to move, and rise to a better life, nestle into the love of her father and mother and an assured tomorrow.
Sunil Sah comes across as thankful, having done this. "As you know that I cannot do this on my own. I have the support of many other volunteers and supporters." He thanks SAHAJ, the project he is associated with, and fellow volunteers for allowing him to make a difference.
He is surrounded by fellow volunteers who go beyond professional responsibilities and obligations. These anti-gender-based violence volunteers are champions. There are journalists, lawyers, psycho-social counsellors, community workers, and survivors of gender violence among them.
Sunil's phone rings. It rings from early in the morning to late at night. A woman calls to ask for help: her husband is involved in multiple marriages. Someone else calls: her boss is abusing her. He looks at his list of contacts and seeks out fellow volunteers who can rescue the victims, help them recover physically and psychologically, initiate police action if necessary, seek legal redress and fight court cases and achieve justice. The support required is extensive.
Because of them, the Cyber Crime Bureau is working on a case of a young girl whose family is devasted – her "fiancé" posted inappropriate pictures of her on the internet. She and her mother are traumatised and socially ostracised (her father has passed away leaving them especially vulnerable). Group counselling, much encouragement, and the filing of proceedings in the Rajbiraj court helped her create a safe distance from committing self-harm.
Renu, a volunteer, walks the villages: sun, rain, and the Covid virus notwithstanding. She is a counsellor with a strong network with the police, lawyers, and journalists. Monahar, another GBV champion, sits behind a features desk for a respected journal. He helped bring four men to justice, their crime? Intimidation of a young girl and her family when she became pregnant through rape.
Going beyond specific interventions, Sunil and his friend's partner with local authorities, security organisations, collect financial help, create legal and socio-psychological linkages and make for plan future.
With SAHAJ, they are setting up a network of youth clubs that will highlight positive masculinity and attempt generational attitude change – they are working with 80 families (320 people) in the Terai helping them appreciate the role of daughters, sisters, wives, and mothers. They are sharing their experiences and knowledge with municipalities and local leaders through meetings such as the one that took place in Janakpur.
Having been a volunteer myself, I find that they offer real help, greater understanding, increase tolerance, and allow for wider perspectives that lead to respect and appreciation. I feel inspired, it is through the work of people like Sunil that social justice can prevail.

(Pallav Ranjan is engaged in volunteerism in the fields of knowledge, arts, and education.)