GLEITSMANN INTERNATIONAL ACTIVIST FOR SOCIAL CHANGE AWARD

 

Grassroots

 

“Violence against women and abuse of all low-caste people are embedded in the culture of Nepal, where I was born. Because of lack of education and opportunities, women, especially of low-caste, are suffering greatly. They are treated worse than animals. I have seen it and experienced it myself.”

 

Bishnu Pariyar, a Dalit woman from rural Nepal, refused to accept the harsh realities of gender and caste abuse and thus became a grassroots activist and social entrepreneur to fight for change.

 

One of 9 children, Ms Pariyar was born in 1975 into a poor Dalit family in a village without vehicular access, infrastructure, sanitary facilities or access to health care. Her family was subsistence farmers. And her father was caught in the traditional “balighare partha system”, a form of forced labor extraction, where people of low-ranking castes provide free services to upper-caste landholders. The family survived on what the mother and children could grow. Her father, a gentle man of impeccable integrity, was routinely degraded and abused by higher caste people for whom he was forced to work. This had a profound and lasting effect on his daughter.

 

Considered “ritually polluted”, Dalits are still widely subjected to discrimination and degrading treatment in Nepal. Hierarchy and systemic mistreatment is even integral to the Nepali language: special pronouns are reserved just for animals and Dalits. Sometimes atrocities are committed against them.

 

Encouraged by her father, Ms. Pariyar had a strong desire to go to school.  But children, even teachers, teased and shunned her, as the idea of an educated Dalit girl was intolerable. Her parent’s poverty was also an obstacle to education. When after 5th grade they could no longer afford to keep her in school, she decided to earn school money herself: she patiently collected grains of rice and millet from the harvested fields, and sold them by the handful. Determination and diligence enabled her to continue on to high school, but she had to walk two hours each way. After four years, she became the first girl of any caste to graduate from high school from her community.

 

While Ms. Pariyar personally suffered continuously because of her caste, she was deeply moved by the ubiquitous violence she saw committed against women of any caste. Her home was an oasis, but she daily saw women being slapped and pulled by their hair. When she was just 10 years old, she got her parents to shelter a neighbor routinely being brutalized by her husband. This was her first act as a social activist. Ever since then, she has fought for the rights of women and Dalits.

 

First Steps

 

Ms. Pariyar understood that getting an education was key to becoming a change maker and was able to study social work in Kathmandu on a scholarship. Today she holds an MA in International Development from Clark University.

 

Her work as facilitator for a self-help/micro-credit agency for poor women as part of her social work education, gave her two major insights: that the mistreatment of women and Dalits was systemic and endemic to the culture and that the needs of Dalit women were not being met by a one-size-fit-all approach to empowerment. In her work, she observed how Dalit women were mistrusted and excluded from the groups, where borrowing money is based on trust. Nor did they have the required collateral. Ms. Pariyar conceived of a different development model based on solidarity and true inclusiveness as well as on collateral-free loans.

 

The Dalit women she started working with were illiterate, had no sense of possessing “person-hood”, and of having human rights. They needed to acquire a vocabulary to articulate those rights and to build their self-worth. Therefore, human rights education and basic literacy needed to supplement the women’s savings and loan activities.

 

Dalits contend with discrimination not only from high-caste Brahmins, but also from other Dalits, who are divided in a separate hierarchy. And women - shy, ignorant and considered a husband’s property - were friendless and isolated with nothing to call their own. Building solidarity was essential for action and change, and Ms. Pariyar hoped women would bond across castes. Women of the highest castes were also invited into the groups, though only a few accepted. But since, seeing the groups so successful, a fair number of high-caste women have joined the groups.

 

Ms Pariyar’s approach would be savings-based, versus the credit-based model. The groups would be autonomous, and the women beholden to no one: they would choose their own leaders, set their own rules on loan repayments, rates of savings and interest. They would build their common fund through monthly savings of identical amounts, enabling the poorest among them to participate, and loans would be collateral-free.

 

In 1997 several American expat women donated $150, allowing Ms. Pariyar to organize 125 women into groups in her home village. Seeing a great need addressed effectively, she quickly found others to help her. Her sisters, friends and neighbors worked tirelessly and without compensation and funding, swelling the numbers of organized women to 600 by 2003. So many women asked to become organized, that in some communities it grew into a movement. Other women imitated their friends and organized themselves. Later, most became incorporated into the Association for Dalit Women’s Advancement of Nepal (ADWAN), Ms. Pariyar’s new NGO.

 

Because of a chance encounter with an American woman, Ms. Pariyar came to America to study, but made sure her work continued in Nepal. In America she inspired more volunteers, and in 2003 this resulted in the founding of Empower Dalit Women of Nepal (EDWON), which supports ADWAN through fundraising.

 

Impact

 

Considering Ms. Pariyar’s origins, the level of disempowerment and poverty of her clients and a shoestring budget, the impact of her work is impressive: the 53 women’s groups currently being supported have each saved from $200 and $3000 and continue to build small enterprises based on agricultural products. And women also run sewing businesses and small teashops. Self-confidence and a credit history have enabled 23 women to take loans from outside institutions for larger businesses such as raising broiler chicks.

 

11 groups in one community joined their savings into a cooperative bank, which they now run, and which is open to the entire community. Loans are still collateral-free, but are approved or rejected by the women’s groups. In a complete reversal of roles, this situation could arise: a former oppressor in need of a loan having to ask for approval from his former victims.

 

The biggest gains are in the social realm. Domestic violence and caste abuse has decreased as a result of women’s ability to take collective action. The women’s decision power and influence has grown in step with their livelihood development and confidence. Spreading from the women’s groups into the surrounding community caste-discrimination has weakened. Inter-caste friendships are common and people of different castes now routinely share food and water and visit each other’s homes. Objections to inter-caste marriages are met with less resistance now.

 

A major empowerment indicator is that 91 women are participating in civic organizations. These range from school boards, forest and water user groups, agriculture co-ops and youth groups, credit clubs and charities. Most impressively, Dalit women have served as monitors in local elections, while a few have even become members of village development committees, the seat of local power.

 

With an average of $50,000 raised annually by EDWON, Ms. Pariyar’s work has touched 1826 women and 2794 children directly and affected countless others indirectly. 

 

With just 1½ salaried personnel, ADWAN is supporting 1475 women in 53 groups in Gorkha, Baglung, Arghakhachi and Chitwon Districts with educational programs. 24 women’s groups have become independent, no longer in need of support. 1694 women are actively saving and borrowing, taking collective social action and increasing their dignity.

 

EDWON has also funded literacy training (370 women), livelihood training (78 women), assisted 200 women in building smoke-free cook-stoves, founded a cooperative bank, facilitated construction of 7 meeting houses and run a reproductive health workshop.

 

To sustain social and economic change, ADWAN/EDWON is investing in children: 2794 children have received educational support through a school uniform program, a fund for girls’ higher education and a sponsorship program for vulnerable girls.

 

With vision, perseverance and the ability to inspire others Ms. Pariyar has brought hope and positive change to almost 5000 poor women and children, who live in isolation. This award would enable Ms. Pariyar to work full-time on her dream to build better capacity and scale up to reach thousands more.