Grassroots women contribute to build a better society (Society Feature)

Last year's Uttarakhand tragedy changed Hiresha Verma's life forever. After witnessing the plight of several women who had become widows in several villages of the state, she decided to teach destitute women mushroom cultivation for a livelihood.

"There were many homes where only women had survived. They were living in terrible conditions," Verma, 45, told IANS.

"Seeing this I decided to sell the call centre I was running and with that money, I

started my Hanzen Interantional venture in Dehradun," she said with pride.

This has helped around 1,000 women in the hill state who are now growing button mushrooms and other exotic varieties and are earning Rs.8,000 ($130) to Rs. 10,000 per month.

Similarly, Vrindavan-based Laxmi Gautam answers the distress call of the widows through her NGO, Kanak Dhara Foundation.

A history professor, Gautam has been helping these abandoned women not just with food, clothing and medication, but also acceptance and affection.

"Out of 2,500 only 700 widows stay in government homes. So most of them end up living on the roads, or in the temple premises," Gautam told IANS.

She has been engaged in this for the past 15 years.

"I have even performed the last rites of many of these widows," she said.

These women, along with several others, were in the capital recently to receive the grassroots women achiever award presented by the Assocham Ladies League.

For Gujarat-based Muktaben Dagli, making blind girls and boys self-reliant has been her sole mission for the last three decades.

Having lost her eyesight when she was seven, 52-year-old Dagli provides blind girls and boys with a room to stay, basic education and skill training through her organisation that is located in Sundernagar, 110 km from Ahmadabad.

"Parents normally do not want to educate their children who are blind. They stay idle in their villages and ultimately get addicted to many vices. That is when I decided I will make sure every young child in and around the area gets education and

stands on his or her feet," Dagli told IANS.

With various educational and skill tools, Dagli has helped many blind persons find a job.

"People with eyes can see and learn themselves, but for the blind you have to hold their hands and teach them. But I am happy that almost 200 girls have been trained so far," said Dagli who had come with her blind husband to receive the award.

But the proud moment for Dagli has been to see these boys and girls get married and start a new chapter.

While these three women decided to cater to forgotten and ignored sections of the society, Jamuna Tudu from Jharkhand chose to stood up for the forest in her village and fight the jungle mafia.

The 33-year-old is popularly known as "Tarzan lady from Maturkham". Tudu, with her army of green women, has so far managed to conserve 50 hectares of forest land.

"I have grown up in this forest, so I thought it was my moral responsibility to protect it," Tudu told IANS.

Having worked in the forest for over 15 years, the fight against the mafia has been life threatening, but this hasn't deterred her spirit to keep the fight going.

"Once in an attack, my husband too was injured," shared Tudu.

So much is she close to nature that during Raksha Bandhan she ties rakhis (sacred thread) on the trees.

"I do not have children, so for me they are like my own kids and I will do anything to protect them," a smiling Tudu told IANS.

(Shradha Chettri can be contacted at shradha.c@ians.in)