Introducing Asha

Yesterday we visited Asha for the first time.

They picked us up from the YMCA in a minibus and drove us to Asha's main headquarters which also doubles as a health and resource centre, where we were priveleged to meet Dr Kiran Martin who founded the Asha project in 1988. We were given a brief introduction to Asha's work and provided with refreshments, then taken to see a resource centre in one of the slums which has recently been decorated by other volunteers, to give us some idea of the kind of work we would be expected to produce! It was painted in nice bright colours, chosen by the slum-dwellers and decorated with murals of sea creatures, dinosaurs and I forget what else. Then we went back to Asha for lunch.

After lunch, Asha was visited by a government minister from Ireland. Ireland has an embassy here in Delhi and through the embassy gives financial support to Asha's work, so the minister had come here for himself to see first hand what they are doing. When the minister arrived he and we were welcomed to the centre and afterwards into the slum behind the centre by the members of the Mahila Mandal - a group of women who live in the slum and take responsibility for hygiene, health and community concerns. We were draped with garlands of marigolds, then taken to a resource center within the slum where we met the rest of the Mahila Mandal and were told more about their relationship with Asha and some of the work they have recently been doing.

One of the women told us very enthusiastically (through Kiran Martin who was interpreting), about a serious problem they'd had with illegal alcohol being sold in the slum. Some of the men had become alcoholics and were squandering their families' incomes. One woman at least had been driven to suicide by the pressure on her family situation. Even children as young as 11 were becoming heavy drinkers. The women went to the police station and demanded that they do something about it. The police were aware of the problem but had been taking back-handers from the alcohol sellers rather than taking action against them. The women all sat on the steps outside the police station and refused to move until the police did their duty! The police agreed but said they would need the women's help, so the women showed them where all the illegal alcohol was being sold from and the police dealt with the problem. There is now no alcohol being sold within the slum!

They also told us that a couple of days ago one of the water pipes had stopped working. The women asked the local officials to sort out the problem but they were ignored so they went and sat outside the responsible government office and again refused to move until the problem was fixed. They informed the office that if it was not sorted out by nightfall they would come back with their husbands and all their children and do the same again! The problem was sorted out before nightfall...! Hearing this story made me feel very emotional. I was really moved by the pride that these women felt in their achievements and in having discovered, through the work of Asha, that if they organised and worked together they really could make a difference!