Ashta No Kai: For a Better Tomorrow

. by Samarpita Mukherjee Sharma

“To awaken people it is the woman who must be awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves, the nation moves” – Jawaharlal Nehru

The economic situation in India today has changed dramatically in the 21^st century. India has been witness to an unprecedented economic boom which has finally started to filter down to the villages also. The price of real estate has more than doubled, and, in some cases, tripled. Many village youth and women are now working in factories located close to the villages. India’s economic growth and the realization of the value of education as a means of upward mobility have also led to a rise in aspirations. Village youth are aiming higher and are more interested in factory jobs than in farming.

With rural empowerment as its mantra, Ashta No Kai (For a Better Tomorrow)  promotes and facilitates the capacity-building of marginalized women, aims to make a difference in rural women’s lives by providing them with the education, vocational skills, and resources they need to become economically independent and self-reliant. Ashta No Kai (ANK) aims at creating long term sustainable solutions to gender discrimination, poverty and illiteracy. ANK assists women in search of their own voices to make the transition from passive acceptance of their fate to becoming vocal and active partners in their own development.

Quipped about the major challenge that Ashta No Kai faces, the founder Armene Modi says – “The promotion and achievement of literacy among adult women in ANK’s target villages is the biggest challenge ANK has faced since its inception. While many women realized the long term benefits of literacy, their need for literacy paled in comparison to the immediate necessities of their daily life. This has been one of the biggest focus areas for ANK ever since.”

Armene Modi recalls, “Do you know that an incredible 61% of women in India are illiterate? This troubled me a lot, and it is with this simple statistic that the journey of Ashta No Kai began.” A chance reading of “May You Be The Mother of A 100 Sons” so shocked Founder Armene Modi, then a Professor of English in Tokyo, that she decided to set up a project to increase women’s literacy near her hometown in Pune, India. Thus ‘Ashta No Kai’ was born – to bring hope, strength and a vision of empowerment to marginalized rural women in India. Today, Ashta No Kai has five chapters in various regions of Japan. Friends of Ashta No Kai provide local support in India.

Ashta No Kai (ANK) was started in 1999, with a desire to improve the quality of life for women and girls in India’s underdeveloped rural areas. In the first decade, ANK has successfully transformed the lives of hundreds of rural women and girls in 10 villages with an approximate population of 15,000, scattered across Shirur District in the Indian state of Maharashtra by presenting them with opportunities that their mothers and grandmothers would never have dreamt of.  More than 2,000 women have been deeply influenced by ANK’s commitment to education, literacy, financial independence, and social justice. Ten years later, in accordance with the recent economical changes, ANK has reinvented itself. ANK feels it is time now to hand the baton over to the women themselves with the hope that they will continue to strive to make an even better tomorrow for themselves. Rather than taking an active part, it now plays a more catalytic role in facilitating programs for the village women.  ANK has made it its mission to create and strengthen pathways for women to ignite and sustain their own development within the village through financial empowerment and raising awareness of gender justice.

Poverty, ignorance, illiteracy, social traditions, superstitions and political pressures continue to hamper women’s progress and improvement in the quality of their lives till this day. In addition, most villages lack skill or vocational training facilities as well as job opportunities for them. ANK is attempting to upgrade the living conditions of rural women by providing inputs in three major need based areas: Literacy, Health and Development to make a better tomorrow for the women from villages.

Armene Modi, the flag bearer of change in today’s society adds, “For the younger generation, education is a vital key to development. ANK vowed that the girl child would have equal educational and developmental opportunities.”  Yes, ANK did live up to its ideology and currently, the enrollment rate for girls in ANK village schools is at 100%. Armene says –“Apart from providing infrastructure facilities in schools; ANK has several programs for the educational and social development of the girl child viz., the Bicycle Bank, Scholarships, and Kishori Mandals”. ANK has formulated many initiatives like dairy projects, backyard poultry project, self-help groups (SHG), exposure visits, solar lighting, skilling rural India, bicycle project for the benefit of rural women.

Wheels of Change

‘Bicycle Banks’ project is a very passionate initiative that Ashta No Kai devised. Many of the girls in ANK’s target villages live over four kilometers away from the nearest high school. This prevents them from continuing their education beyond the 7th standard.  ANK’s Bicycle Bank initiative aimed to increase enrollment by providing high school aged girls with bicycles. Over the past ten years the program has proved extremely successful by preventing early marriages among village girls and also arresting the dropout rate. Over 500 bicycles have been donated to village girls going to high school. The Bicycle Bank has provided a revolutionary model in the field of development for the education of the rural girl child.

Economic and Social Development

Village women always felt that the main hindrance to development was access to capital and income-generating activities. With that in mind, ANK helped the women form platforms from where they could gain credit, leadership training, and confidence.

ANK has been training village level community workers to become self-contained in attending to their own challenges – from resolving water problems to providing basic health & sanitation. In July 1999, ANK began to organize women into the micro-credit model of Self-Help Groups (SHGs). So far, ANK has helped establish over 124 SHGs in its 10 villages with accumulated savings of more than Rs. 4,500,000. Individual members in groups that have been in existence for over five years have saved on average Rs 6,000-10,000 – a significant amount for rural women. The SHGs are now run entirely by village women and act as the backbone for the majority of ANK activities. In addition to providing a platform for economic empowerment, these Self Help Groups act as a pivotal place for social justice to occur. One of the major issues these women face is alcoholic husbands, fathers, and brothers. With strength and persistence, the women in Nimgaon Bhogi, Sone Sangvi, and Parodi have repeatedly managed to ban the sale of liquor within their villages.

ANK also formed ‘Kishori Mandals’ – a space the village women can call their own- provide a platform for girls aged 11-16 to build self-confidence by giving them inputs in life skills and information on topics they would not readily receive at home or in their school curriculum, ANK’s other initiatives like ‘Skilling Rural India’ launched in collaboration with Dr. Reddy’s Foundation creates livelihood for village youth who had dropped out of school or studied only up to 10^th grade.

Merging Cultures to Develop a Globally Oriented Society

ANK came into existence because of a desire to bring people together from Japan and India to work towards a common cause. Through this desire and connection, Japanese students, artists, and scholars have visited ANK villages, generously donating their time, expertise, and resources to the local villagers. In the past ten years, 13 young girls from Pune have been given scholarships to participate in a Study Abroad Program in Japan at Obirin University in Tokyo through ANK. Additionally, more than one hundred students from Obirin University volunteered their time and resources over a ten year period to help build toilets, recharge wells, donate playground equipment, and refurbish schools in our target villages. ANK’s activities, however, are not limited to exchanges between Japan and India. Students, academics, professionals and other well wishers from all over the world have also played an important role in expanding and enriching their activities.

Astounding Results of Change

In January 2004, women of Karajawane village threatened to go on a hunger strike unless the water project promised to their village years ago was implemented.  In September 2005, ANK helped women in Khandale village convict two male rapists, a case that would have never been pursued previously. On several occasions, village women under ANK’s guidance have banded together to force the closure of illicit liquor dens. These voices of village women that were once passive have become vocal. These voices continue to grow and be heard as younger generations of women become active partners in their own development, realizing even more, the importance of education, literacy and financial independence as the means to empowerment.

Awards and Recognition

Armene Modi has been honored for her dedicated work in the field of education for the rural girl child in India with – The Dr. Sushila Nayar award for Outstanding Contribution to Women’s Literacy in Rural Areas awarded by the All India Committee for the Eradication of Illiteracy Among Women; The “Real Heroes” Award by the television network CNN-IBN and Reliance Industries in April 2008.

Wish many more laurels follow on for Ashta No Kai and here’s hoping complete literacy to the girls all over! Let the ‘Women Power’ increase multifold.

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About the author

Karthik Krishnamoorthy – Associated with one of the top MNCs I am a multi-tasker and a major movie buff. A fact difficult to neglect would be the chances of you running into me at one of those theatres in Hyderabad playing a new movie. As a dreamer, I believe in exploring and wearing new creative hats, while also being associated with NGOs. Sales, management and photography are few other things that I am passionate about.

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