Indian village run by teenage girls offers hope for a life free from abuse
Nisaa FM:-Each afternoon the men of Thennamadevi leave their village and head for the surrounding fields, many carrying bottles of high-strength home-brewed alcohol. Hours later they stagger back home through the paddy fields of the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India.
Thennamadevi is racked by alcoholism. Most of its 150 male inhabitants participate in ruinous daily drinking sessions. Around 90 women with families in the village have been widowed. The youngest husband to die was 21. However, over the past six months something remarkable has happened to break the cycle of squalor and despair: the teenage daughters of the drunken men have taken over the running of the place. And it’s working.
A self-titled “young girls’ club” has fixed the street lights, completed a health audit of the village and ensured that mobile clinics visit Thennamadevi. A library is being built where well-thumbed books promote the virtues of learning and independence. The phenomenon of teenage female self-help has made aid agencies and politicians across the state sit up and take notice.
In the communal building, beneath the glow of a single light bulb, the girls assembled earlier this month for a debate on further improvements. A petition urging better transport links – no buses pass near the village – has been drafted to be put to the local council.
Debate is earnest, each discussion ending in a show of hands. Only when consensus is reached does the committee move to the next issue. “We are trying to transform our village by this process. We are empowered to be leaders,” said Says Sowmya, 16, president of the club.
Others are focused on more intimate issues, such as shepherding peers through adolescence. “I teach my friends on life skills such as personal hygiene, self-discipline and menstrual issues,” said Rajendhiran Sridevi, a 16-year-old “trainer”.
Sathiya Babu, deputy project director of Scope India, which helps deliver opportunities for the poor, said the gap between the ambitions of the young and the expectations of parents was widening. “The youngsters know that somebody has to do these things for the community. These girls are taking control of running the village. They want change.”
There is another incentive for the young women’s intervention. A sense of hopelessness had taken hold among Thennamadevi’s teenagers, prompting a number to flee in search of a better life. Sridevi and Sowmya have frequently discovered that friends have disappeared, heading towards cities such as Chennai and never heard of again. Local records reveal that at least 150 children from the area have attempted to run away.
Six kilometers from the village, via a labyrinthine network of tracks, lies the town of Villupuram and one of the most crucial rail stations in southern India. Built under the British, five major lines converge at Villupuram junction, connecting the country’s southern tip with Chennai and the east coast.
When Babu began investigating the Thennamadevi runaways, one common thread emerged: every one of them had passed through Villupuram station. He heard reports of other minors wandering platforms alone, their clothing torn and grubby. Some were naked.
One such was Magelier Kural, a shy 16-year-old from Thennamadevi. Kural had wanted to visit Pondicherry, 30km away on the coast. When cleaners found him on platform five, he was in tears and calling for his family. “I wanted to have new experiences and see some sights.”
Kannan Jeevanantham, 16, was spotted on platform one hoping to catch the train north to Chennai to escape his father’s drinking. “I had no plan, no money. I needed to escape,” said Jeevanantham, who is now studying at a technical institute and is among those delighted that the “young girls’ club” has assumed responsibility of his village.
Yet problems endure. Calls to Villupuram’s Childline in the year to this May illustrate the perils facing Thennamadevi’s children. Of almost 4,000 reported incidents, 3,016 involved petty crimes, 552 concerned children forced to beg, and 193 described cases of forced marriage, one documenting a 15-year-old being made to marry a man of 45. A further 39 calls heard claims of sexual abuse and 84 detailed children who had disappeared without trace. Yet the biggest blight remains alcoholism, with entire families fleeing to the station. One such family is the Managattis who lived beside platform 1 for years. It was a fraught existence. Amudha Managatti describes struggling to keep her son and eight daughters safe. Her eldest, then aged 15, was targeted by abusers. “They took advantage of her, many people in the town were involved,” said Babu.
For the teenagers running Thennamadevi it is the possibility of change that inspires them. Senior club member Gowsalya Radhakrishnan said: “By not accepting our fate we will give others the knowledge they can shape the future.”
Source: www.theguardian.com