Scaling Up the Visibility and Wealth of Dalit Women in Andhra Pradesh
In India, the caste system still lingers despite decades of government efforts to reduce discrimination of Dalits, whose traditional livelihoods relegated them as “untouchables.” Dalit women face the double discrimination of caste and gender.
In the village of Shamshallapur, in Andhra Pradesh state’s Medak district, Nirnaya has partnered with two organized groups of illiterate Dalit women to evaluate and plan their efforts to increase labor rights. Nirnaya’s adapted Making the Case™ framework has allowed the women to take small steps to achieve greater financial and social equality.
Recognizing small steps can lead to big changes, the women:
- Received a revolving fund from Nirnaya to secure individual loans for small business opportunities, such as livestock management.
- With the confidence of a plan for income generation, the women went one step further by working in the presence of their landlords with their veils removed.
- The women scaled up these two small victories of income generation and increased visibility by increasing the sale price of milk through hard bargaining.
- After achieving these victories, the women convinced the dairy van to pick up the milk from their livestock in a location most convenient to the women, thus saving money, time, and energy.
- All these steps – planned out, measured and evaluated with Making the Case™ -- have made it possible for the women to negotiate wage labor on their own terms, instead of at the mercy of a landowner or contractor.
- The women are planning to set up a dairy collective and related activity, such as an organic farming cooperative.
