A hefty price to pay for an endeavour to alleviate their village

By;Shakti Swarupa Pattnaik,Odishabarta

Koraput: “Nobody gives importance to Anganwadi workers despite doing loads of work madam” says 59 years old Daisy Rani Palaka, an Anganwadi worker of Barigam village that falls under Bhitaraguda gram panchayat of Laxmipur tehsil of Koraput district. She is tired of having a hectic lifestyle, doing her work as a service to humankind with honesty and integrity, and still not getting enough importance from the authorities and the people of the village to make arrangements for her barren Anganwadi center. Despite the difficulties, providing good service has always been her 1st priority.

Daisy has joined as an Anganwadi worker in Barigam village since 1987. She usually works from 8 AM to 8 PM which includes a daily home visit. Involving herself in storytelling and action songs with small children till noon, she starts home visits after 2 pm. The home visit includes; door to door interpersonal communication between the mothers and their children with this Anganwadi didi on how the child is being taken care of, his/her weight, whether proper vaccination has been given to the child, ante-natal and post-natal check-ups, providing vitamin tablets, sanitary napkins to adolescent girls of the village, making people aware on family planning and sexually transmitted diseases and motivating them to use condoms and copper T. Menstrual hygrine is communicated through one to one communication with the girls. According to Daisy, earlier people of Barigam villages refused to go to medical for any health issues and heavily depended on the Disaris of their village, Siba Miniaka and Patra Miniaka who used puja and black magic techniques to cure people. They used indigenous medicines such as a sticky bark of a particular tree that was tied on the broken area of a person to join them. They believed that these techniques could even cure breast cancer and other serious issues and didn’t feel the need to go to the hospital. But the continuous effort of Daisy has mobilized the community from dependency on the Puja path to going to the nearest community health center in the village Keskabadi.

She used to take chloroquine tablets and vitamin tablets in polythene and visit every door to make sure that every child has had them. People did not wash their hands nor wore masks during covid times and argued that consumption of liquor could cure covid. She was diagnosed with typhoid and also as covid positive but couldn’t take proper care of herself as was busy saving others. With hesitations, she mentions “I have got rape threats madam just because I come from Rayagada district and I don’t originally belong here. People said that I am taking jobs that belong to the women of this place and hence have beaten me and given many threats to make me leave this village.” She further mentioned “Now they have seen my work and how it has transformed their lives and their children’s lives and fostered them towards development. They listen and trust almost everything I say” and smirked.

With this sensitive information, she explained her helplessness due to her damaged and barren Anganwadi center which is good for nothing. It’s been barren for 7 years and many complaints had been filed to the supervisor, visits from Block Development Officer and Junior Engineer had been conducted, many news channels had broadcasted the situation, and the criticality of the situation had been informed to ward member Sabita Bidiga and yet no action has been taken by the authorities to improve the situation of the Anganwadi Centre. The complaint has been lying in the collector’s office and the village has got only 1 proper Anganwadi center now. Daisy uses a random place that belongs to her relative to continue teaching the children at her Anganwadi center but the place is not good enough to keep the kinds of stuff like chairs, tables, rice bags, etc provided by the government. It also doesn’t have any blackboard or posters to make children understand anything. Not only Daisy but the children of Barigam do face difficulties due to the barren Anganwadi center and the negligence of superiors to repair it.

The village has a total population of 606 people and thus has got another Anganwadi center with Mrs. Kamalini Khara, 36 years old as Anganwadi worker. Listening to her story had been a devastating experience I had to go through. She joined in 2009 and witnessed the biggest nightmare of her life during the pandemic.

 She said, “I used to put buckets in front of every household and provide soap and forcefully made them wash their hands as a strict permission from the government”. She had to visit homes belonging to her center almost 4 to 5 times a day just to check whether people are wearing masks and didn’t go to crowds or gatherings like hatt. “My younger son used to stop me from going to the quarantine center as he was fearful of me getting infected with the virus and transferring it to them further,” she says. She had to go to the quarantine center at 5 PM which didn’t allow her to cook for her children and husband. Also, she slept on the verandah of her home to stay away from her family members to make them unaffected by the virus. Still, her younger son got affected by covid due to her exposure to people living in quarantine centers. Her husband was also got affected by covid during the same time and got very critical and referred to Vijayanagaram.

 Kamalini had nothing but simply blame herself for the mishaps with her family members. She couldn’t visit her husband as she was a person on whom people in the quarantine center were heavily dependent. Not just the quarantine times give her chills but also the time when her elder son Harisankar got diagnosed with a stomach ulcer and his skin got off his body immediately after taking the medications as a result of side effects and was referred to Visakhapatanam. She got the leaves from her duty which helped her only to admit her son to the hospital and she had to come back immediately after that. She couldn’t stay with her child as she didn’t get any further leave. She said” pua jhia nku kete kana hele bi amaku duty re rahibaku padiba madam” which means” no matter what happens to our son or daughter, we have to stay present at our duty”.

During the implementation phase of Mission Shakti, an initiative by the government of India, the Aanganwadi workers had to make at least 5 Self-Helf Groups(SHGs) with women 18 to 40 years of age who come together to find ways to improve their living conditions. The people of Barigam village have made allegations against these two lady workers that they were taking 20k from the government and making them fools by forcing them to form groups. The workers had no options left but to threaten the village people by saying that the government would cancel their Ration Cards if they didn’t participate in forming groups and their children cannot be put into the Anganwadi school etc. they also explained the benefits and mission of the SHGs initiative but people could only understand what they were going to lose if they didn’t form SHGs. And after struggling hard, the Anganwadi workers of Barigam village formed 4 SHGs.

 Not only Daisy Rani or Kamalini of Barigam village but most of the Anganwadi workers have to pay a hefty price by almost sacrificing their personal lives and mental wellness to give proper service to their village people with a low salary of 7500 per month and no pension policy after retirement. “People think we must do everything that is required and yes we do agree, it’s our duty but only we know what we leave behind us just to be there on duty,” says Kamalini. These hitherto invisible women were not seen doing their door-to-door duty but also played a major role in building awareness on health issues and thus fostering community mobilization by just putting a demand for fair pay and recognition and respect for the essential services they provide.