Shantabens and MBAs

by Dan Morrison

Friday November 14, 2008 at 6:08am, EST

We spent the day at SEWA headquarters in Ahmedabad. At the end of the meeting, Nigarben, a 17-year old who has completed the twelfth grade, approached me and said she wanted to get an MBA. It is the goal of many, but Nigarben is a little different.

In 2002, Gujarat was rocked by communal riots that killed over 1,000 and left behind thousands more widows and orphans, and traumatized a public. Jaidaben was walking with her children to visit her mother-in-law when she witnessed the stabbing death of her husband. She refused to leave the house for months and the children refused to go to school. This is but one story of many where a family lost their loved one and main wage earner, or worse, a child was left orphaned.

Shahinben, a mother of three daughters, lost her husband. Like many women in Gujarat, her husband was the family’s only source of income. Now, she must support the family herself. Shahinben is Muslim. Her job was managing the affairs of the family. The new responsibility of earning an income and taking on a more public life was immensely difficult for her, especially during a time of communal strife and the loss of a loved one.

Enter SEWA. After the riots the government approached SEWA about reengaging and supporting widows (“shantabens”) and orphans. SEWA established peace centers where women of all religions could come to talk about their problems and learn about interfaith collaboration and healing. They also established a children’s program, Hamara Bachche (“Our Children”), that placed children in schools, provided trauma counseling, and ran after school programs and summer camps. Shaminaben, the shantaben and Hamare Bache coordinator says, “our message is that this is our community. We are all Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, etc. and we are all brothers and sisters. Only as one can we be a community. Only as one can we get through this tragedy and prevent it in the future.”

SEWA has a difficult task. Immediately after the riots, many children and women refused to leave their homes for fear of violence and personal attack. However, many had no choice. Their main wage earner was gone. The best worstcase scenario was a child began working, pulled them out of school. Many Muslim women, like Shahinben and Jaidaben, faced the challenge of taking on more public roles for the first time in their lives.

SEWA blanked the most troubled neighborhoods – Banilinfa, Gomtipur, Bapunagar, Vatwa, and Idgah - with “life security teachers” to discuss alternative employment opportunities for women, and “hand holders” to counsel the women and children in transition to a self-reliant life without their fathers and husbands.

Shahinben told me that when SEWA came to her, she knew she had to work, but could not stop crying or muster the courage to step outside. SEWA helped her manage her grief. Now, life is hard, but she is managing and supporting her family through her stitching work. Her daughter is a young, attractive, bright woman that wants to get her MBA. Her name is Nigarben.

Nigarben’s idea is to set up a student exchange where American students come to India and Hamare Bachche students go to study in America. She asked if she studied hard and improved her English, would something like that be possible?