Case Studies

Sunita Ravindra Raut resides in Shindi village of Kaij taluka. She was married at age of 15 years. She became pregnant very next year of her marriage. As part of local culture, her parents took her to their home for first delivery. She gave birth to a healthy boy at her paternal home. Her in-laws did not come to see her after the delivery. Sunita’s father went to check why they did not come to see Sunita and the baby. He come to know that Sunita’s husband was ran away with another woman. Sunita’s parents and her in-laws tried to search Sunita’s husband but they could not trace him. It was difficult for Sunita to stay in her parents’ home further because people are making jeer of Sunita and she does not want to become burden for her parents. She went to her in-law family in hope that one day her husband will come back.

Unfortunately, Sunita’s in-law family did allow her to stay with them and blamed her for her husband’s extra marital affairs with another woman. They said our son is not father of your child. They pushed her out of the home, Sunita returned to her parental home with the child. Sunita started working as daily wage labor. She fell down while climbing a ladder to upload sugarcane in a truck and due to that she had a severe abdominal pain. She was taken to a hospital where doctor said her uterus got damaged in the accident and advised to remove her uterus. She is no more able to do heavy work. Navchetana supported her with Rs 60,000 under APPI Fellowship programme. She invested that money in making a borewell and cultivating vegetable and other crops. She is earning good amount of money that is enough for her survive and take care of her child.  

Rekha Sonvade lives in village Massajog in Kaij taluka, she got married at the age of 16. She stopped going to school after seventh standard. She has two kids, and her husband was a driver. Rekha Sonvade and family were happy overall. They decided to join a sugar factory. Her husband used to drive a sugarcane truck, while Rekha used to do the work of sugarcane cutting. One day, suddenly, he husband met with an accident while he was driving the truck, he passed away in the accident. She got injured in this accident as well, but now the responsibility of the whole family was on Rekha’s shoulders. While mourning her husband’s loss, she resumed back running of the household. She started with her daily job, but suddenly she started feeling a sharp pain in her abdomen.

At the moment, she couldn’t afford going to the doctor. However, after once visiting the hospital, the doctor advised her to surgically remove the uterus. Although after Navchetna members got to know about this matter, she did not proceed with the surgery. Instead, with Navchetna’s help – she visited a better doctor. Along with medical support, Navchetna will fully gave Rekha Sonvane the help of INR 60,000 under APPI Fellowship. With this money, Rekha started a Saree business. Navchetna has around 10 Self Help Groups in the village, and all of these groups started to buy sarees from Rekha. With this help she got a great start, now Rekha Sonvane and her family live a happy life.

Rani Sonvane lives in village Massajog, Kaij taluka. She has two children and staying with her husband. The family migrates to Karnataka for sugarcane cutting work every year. Due to heavy work and insufficient nutrition she fell sick. Her husband took her to see a doctor who advised her to remove uterus and said if her uterus is not removed there are chances of cancer. The couple returned back to their village and not sure what to do. They approached another doctor who also advised the same. Finally, her uterus was removed but the abdominal pain did not stop. They went to see a doctor who told them to do second surgery and a second surgery was done. Pain in back and lower part of her body was still not stopped. He eye sight started becoming weaker, due to all those sicknesses she could not do work and her life has become difficult. The family was now debt ridden and they find it very difficult to repay the loans they have taken from money lenders. Her issue was discussed in the women SHG meeting, where it was decided to support her with INR 60,000 under APPI Fellowship. The family invested that amount in cultivation of flower plants and at the same time they put up a stall near bus stop in their village to sell fruits and flowers. The family started earning INR 300-400 per day profit from it. Rekha uses her free time for sewing clothes that also gives her some income. The family started repaying loan and able to take care of all family members including education of their children.

Ashrubai Yashvant Thorat lives in the Dhakephal village of the Kaij Taluka, Beed district. She got married at the age of 10 and started doing daily wage labour work by the age of 12. Her family owned just around 1 acres of land. Therefore, she was left with no choice but to dodaily wage labour work. She has two children. After a sudden twist in life, her husband passed away after 10 years of marriage. Due to this tragedy, she had to face a great struggle merely in order to survive. The way society looks at widows is very wrong and shameful. The lack of male in an Indian household is a very difficult situation to live in. People used to take her situation for granted and tried cover their wrong intentions with help offers. After not being able to find any jobs in the village, she started migrating to the sugar factory and did the work of cutting sugarcanes.

During her work there, she started facing menstrual pain. She had to consult a doctor. The doctor advised her to go for the surgical removal of the uterus. Having no choice left, she sold her farm land and got the surgery done. Even though she went through with the surgery, she still continued to struggle from pain. Health issues like body ache, back ache, and loss of sight started surfacing. Ashrubai was a member of one of the Navchetna Self Help groups. Looking at her tragic and difficult situation, Navchetna wholeheartedly provided Ashrubai the help of a 60,000 INR fellowship. She bought a buffalo with this money. The buffalo would provide six to seven literes of milk per day, making Ashrubai the income of at least 200-300 INR per day. With this income, she would sustain her household smoothly.  

Mangal Rajebhai Galande lives in village Chincholi, Kaij Taluka in Beed district. She was married at age of 16 year and within three years after her marriage she had three children from three deliveries. She was living a good life with three kids and her husband but things started becoming worst when her husband fell sick because of tuberculosis. It became very hard for Mangal to take care of her husband and the family. They had to take loan from money lenders and thus the family started becoming debt ridden. Her husband passed away because of no proper treatment of tuberculosis. The in-law family started giving trouble to Mangal after death of her husband, they refused to giv  e her house and agriculture land which was supposed to be given her because it was inherited property.  She had no option but to work as daily wage labor in the village. She started suffering from abdominal pain and taking pain killer instead of doing through checkup.

It was becoming too much difficult as pain became intense thus she visited a doctor who advised her for removal of her uterus and it the uterus was removed at her age of 21 year. She joined one of the women SHGs in her village that was promoted by Navchetana Sarvangin Vikas Kendra. She gained a courage to file a case against her in-law family for getting a house and portion of her land. She won the case and got the share in the property on her name. She was still finding it difficult to survive and take care of the children. The women SHG formally equested Navchetana to provide her financial support and Navchetana provided her INR 60,000 under the Fellowship programme supported by APPI. Mangal started a clothe store, there 17 women SHGs in the village and members of all the SHGs started buying clothes from Mangal. The micro business giving her INR 500 profit per day. Now she is able to take care of her and the children.     

Manisha Rameshvar Halge lives Kaij town. She got married at the age of 17. She has three kids, and she has had cesarean surgery all three times. She started facing gynaec problems after her third child. They consulted a doctor and he advised them to go for a uterine surgery. Manisha Tai’s husband owned a small Kirana store. While Manisha Tai used to cook tiffin food for school children. Due to the health issue, she had to stop this work. The store could only provide so much. It got difficult to survive as she could no longer help. But they still had to go through with the surgery. Managing to get money from places, manisha got her surgery done.

Unfortunately, the problems wouldn’t stop, her father in law got diagnosed with cancer. In the process of getting his treatment done, Manisha tai’s husband had to close the Kirana Store aswell. Days of starvation were not far. Looking at their grave and tragic situation, Navchetna provided them the help of a 60000 INR fellowship. From which Manisha’s family would start an Aata Chakki, along with reopening their grocery store. This arrangement started providing them 300 INR profit per day. The family would not have to sleep with empty stomachs and once again started to live a happy life. Manisha Tai and family were very grateful for Navchetna’s help. They said, in times of difficulty and need; even close ones turned their backs on us. But Navchetna gave us immense support in this time of need. With Nachetna’s support they could get the chance of starting again. 

Hasina Navab Pathan is a female who lives in Sonijavla village of Kaij taluka. She was married at 12 years of age. Her husband was a driver. Her first child was born when she was at the age of 14. After that 2 more kids were born. Husband had an alcohol addiction. Husband did not work. Because of this there were constant fights at home. For raising kids, Hasina had to go for hard labour work.  Husband started drinking even more alcohol and his liver failed. To cover hospital expenses, they had to put 10 Guntha land on lease to a moneylender in the same village. Even after extensive medical treatment, her husband could not get better and passed away. After her husband’s passing, responsibility of the whole family came on Hasina’s shoulders. Hasina started going for sugarcane cutting for her 3 kids’ wellbeing and education. She also had to borrow money from her work supervisor. Because of the hard-laborious work of sugarcane cutting, she experienced stomach pain and difficulties during periods. Her health became even worse. Because of lack of money she had to do local medical remedies but her health worsened even more. Upon doing sonography, doctor said she will have to remove her uterus. She did not have money for the operation. Her parents’ family paid for the operation. After this she sold all her gold and started health treatment.

Once while attending a programme by Navchetna NGO, Hasina shared her story to a social worker of the organisation. Seeing her situation, to help her get back on her feet, the organisation gave her Rs 60000 without charging any interest. Hasina purchased a flour mill and constructed a shed. There were 14 savings groups of the organisation in the village. Navchetna asked savings groups to get their flour only from Hasina’s flour mill. The members of saving groups helped Hasina, because of this she started getting 200-300 rupees per day. Hasina’s family’s expenses started getting taken care of with this earning. In the future she aims to get back the land which is with a money lender on lease.

Golan Mule lives in Shindi village in Kaij taluka of Beed District. Golan had 2 acres of land. However, because of lack of water availability, it was difficult to even bear the cost of farming. So she had to go for sugarcane cutting work to earn money.

Sugarcane cutting  work was around 18 hours per day. She had to go out of state 6 months a year. Golan had to work a lot. Because of her non working husband, she had to take care of both her household work, and household expenses, herself. While working she became sick with Chicken Guinia. She started experiencing difficulties even when sitting and standing because of the sickness. Because of her ill health, she could not work and money stopped coming. Family faced hunger due to lack of food. There was no money for hospital treatment. She took money on 7% interest from a money lender and put her land on lease. She got treated at hospital. Golan’s health recovered but the money she owed to the moneylender became double now. She started worrying about how to give back the amount to the money lender. Navchetna had been working in Shindi since several days. There were saving groups in the village. The social worker used to organise meetings of saving groups in the village. Because of this Laxmi Bora was aware about the situation of Golan. Laxmi took 60000 rupees financial help from Navchetna for Golan. With this money, Golan got a water pipeline connection in her farm and started vegetables cultivation. She started a business of vegetables cultivation and selling. By selling her vegetables she started earning 300-400 rupees. From this income, the household expenses started getting taken care of. Now she also has started giving back bit by bit the money she owes to the money lender. Golan also has stopped going for sugarcane cutting work. 

Surekha Balasaheb Gormali lives in Bansarola village, Kaij taluka of Beed district. Her main work was daily wage labour work. Her husband used to do labour work at a big farmer’s farm. Both husband and wife covered their family expenses with daily labour work.

Surekha Tai has 3 children – 3 boys. Even in poverty, they educated their kids and married two of their boys in good families. They thought now the kids would work and their life will be at peace now. But the opposite happened, 2 boys started living at their in-laws home. Surekha tai had to take care of the money share borrowed to cover her boys’ marriage expenses. This way rather than the problems decreasing, they increased and so did the work. Surekha also started experiencing stomach pain issues. She also started experiencing problems with her periods.

Asha worker advised her to go visit the government hospital. She became even weaker. She could no longer work due to the pain and weakness and could not earn money. The doctor advised her to get her uterus removed. She wanted to buy a cow but did not have enough money. Then Navchetna organisation gave them 60000 rupees through APPI fellowship programme and she purchased a cow. The cow gives 15 litres of milk and they earn 500 Rs per day. Removing expenses, they started earning Rs 300 per day and family expenses also now get taken care of.