From achieving financial independence to creating awareness about NCD prevention – the top Social Stories of the week
This week, SocialStory saw the inspiring stories of women achieving financial independence and aiding others through their initiatives. We also observed World Hepatitis Day, celebrated on July 28.
Durga and Vijaya are helping women to become financially independent like them, by training them to do house painting, which is largely dominated by men.
Global agency ActionAid, which supports social and ecological justice in 40 countries, is mobilising marginalised communities and saving lives in the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Arogya World is on a mission to create awareness about the prevention of NCDs, especially in India. This week, SocialStory also observed World Hepatitis Day, which is celebrated every year on July 28.
Here are the top Social Stories of the week:
Meet the women who are pioneering change in a traditionally male-dominated profession
Trained by nShakti, Durga and Vijaya are encouraging other women to become financially independent by training them in a profession like painting houses, which is largely dominated by men.
Durga from Mayiladuthurai, Tamil Nadu has been a painter for three years now, and is already the first female contractor from nShakti. She initially would make about Rs 350 a day, but now she makes Rs 650 a day.
On the other hand, Vijaya, who was raising her two children in her village in Marakathur at her in-laws’ home, took to becoming a painter to make ends meet. However, she took a break in the pandemic for the safety of her family, but took to painting her own home in the meantime.
We had to pawn all our gold to bring my brother home from Malaysia during the lockdown
My name is Supriya (name changed) and I am 22 years old. I live with my family in Bongaon, North 24 Praganas, West Bengal. When the lockdown began, my livelihood was among the millions that were impacted across the country, and so many people fell under the poverty line for the first time ever. While everyone talks about the impact the lockdown had on migrant workers, nobody wanted to discuss the impact that the lockdown had on people like me.
He was working in Malaysia and had lost his job during the lockdown there. His passport and visa were confiscated by the agent and he was stuck there. My family started pressuring me to do something to bring him back. He did come home but that was not the end of our troubles. We started facing ostracisation from distant family members and neighbours because we were now in debt. We had pawned all the gold we had as collateral against the loan.
Read on about Supriya’s heartbreaking story.
How ActionAid India is working to mobilise marginalised communities and save lives during the pandemic
ActionAid is a global agency that supports social and ecological justice in 40 countries, and has been actively engaging with India’s most marginalised communities since 1972.
In fact, it is active in 24 states and two union territories where its teams are located. It works with the most vulnerable sections of society. This includes informal daily wage workers in urban areas, landless labourers, small farmers in rural areas, Dalit communities, religious minorities, and tribal communities.
ActionAid has also been working with communities across drought-prone regions in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region, Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region, Odisha, Bihar, and Jharkhand in watershed management, rainwater harvesting, and revival of ponds and lakes.
World Hepatitis Day: Here is all you need to know about the virus
Hepatitis is an inflammatory condition of the liver, commonly caused by a viral infection. We recognise 28 July as World Hepatitis Day each year. The purpose is to raise awareness about this viral disease and achieve a hepatitis-free future.
The theme for this year was “Hepatitis can’t wait”, urging people to take immediate action as over 100 people die of hepatitis-related illness every hour across the globe. According to the World Health Organization, globally, an estimated 296 million people live with chronic hepatitis B and around 58 million live with chronic hepatitis C.
US-based non-profit is spreading awareness about diabetes; impacted over 5M people
India has an estimated 77 million people with diabetes — making it the second most affected country in the world after China. Moreover, the hereditary nature of this disease increases its frequency amidst the various demographics in the country.
In such cases, a controlled lifestyle and awareness of various non-communicable diseases (NCDs) — diabetes, heart diseases, cancer, and chronic lung diseases, among others — could be the only remedy.
US-based Arogya World — a global health non-profit organisation — works towards preventing these NCDs through health education and lifestyle change. In 2012, it touched base in Bengaluru, India as Arogya World India Trust.
Arogya World has created numerous programmes using science-based research to target the various demographics of the Indian population to help them prevent diabetes.
Edited by Kanishk Singh