Puduvai Pengal Pagutharivu Iyyakkam (PPI)

(Women Rationalistic Movement)

           The main aim of the women group formation in the rural areas in Pondicherry is to uplift their socio, economic, cultural development and enriched the women empowerment.

The objectives of the women group formations are

• To give awareness on gender discrimination, exploitation to fight against their imbalance situation

• To impart the alternative education centers to aware about the social, economic, cultural developments and make the roles models in the villages.

• To form the Self Help Groups and through this group to develop the savings habits and impart the education on economic rights to leads their own employment opportunities.

• To strengthen the women movement to bring out the gender balance and concentrate on girl child education and eradicate child labour in our working places.

The main activities and means to form SHG’s and women movement are

•  To meet the women members regularly and enroll them in our group and give identity card and develop their saving habits

•   To conduct the women group meetings regularly according to the need and issues of the women members.

• To organize trainings, seminars, conferences and campaigns to bring them up and to capacitate in health and environment.

• To impart the alternative education centers in their places and give importance for heath awareness, girl child education.

• To organize the meetings and collect the local savings and deposit in the banks and equip them for getting the bank loans for employment opportunities.

Health Awareness
            ADECOM conducted the programme on World Aids Day on Dec. 12^th with the support of Aids Social Center, Pondicherry from 2001 to 2005. In this programme ADECOM arranged a public meeting, cycle rally, drawing competition and campaign on women and children issues at rural villages. Through this programme the importance of women and children health awareness were explained to the women groups. Nearly 500 women participated in this programme and the follow up actions also taken in some villages. The free medical treatment also suggested to the women groups and they organized one medical camp programme in their place.
        The Aids Awareness programmes were conducted for the women groups in three communes during the period 2001-2005. Mainly we covered the Anganvadi Teachers and ANM working in private hospitals participated in our training. This programme arranged with the support of APAC, Chennai and nearly 100 women participated and got awareness about the AID/STD. Through this training all the women can understand the causes of these deceases and the preventive measures also imparted to them. In this training the necessary training materials also distributed to the participants to know about the depth of this deceases killing the innocent women and children.

Awareness on Domestic Violence
             In any society women are the vulnerable section and suppressed in this society in the form of patriarchy, caste, class and gender. The main issues women are facing in their houses are the dowry deaths, harassment and gender exploitation. In the society there is no protection for women in the working places especially in the unorganized sectors. The development of girl children education and health awareness not encouraged in rural areas and child labourers also major issues in many places. For this reason ADECOM had conducted a survey with the support of Labour Commission on 2001-2004. In Villanour Commune the field researchers conducted a study and prepared a document on child labourers in Pondicherry. In the same way we conducted a study on women situation in three communes on Villianour, Manadipet and Bahoor Communes. After this study we identified the main issues of women and started our activities covering 30 villages in three communes.

        In the month of Nov. 2002-2005, we conducted ten days campaign on domestic violence in rural villages. In all the villages women gave cooperation for this action and they participated in the public meetings, observed the documentary films screened by our team and they gave speeches and planned their actions on women issues. This ten-days programme created great impacts within the women groups in their areas and they realized their participation in all the events. The importance of leadership building awareness was insisted through this campaign.

Women’s Day
            Every year ADECOM arranged a programme on women’s day on March 8^th at rural and urban places. We invited other NGO’s and women activists to take part in this programme and organized in a grand level and invite many women members. Most of the programme nearly 1000 members participated and organized rally, public conferences. In last year we organized such a big programme in the center of the town and many women activists participated and demanded the Women Commission in Pondicherry. Through this programme many women known about their skills and talents and prove their talents in the public meetings. We invited the special resources persons from outside and talked about the women issues and problems will exist in their villages. We invited the Govt. officials in social welfare departments and they explained their schemes in this event. We organized the women awareness camp before this women’s day and impart the local leaders to get their leadership quality. For this programme we got support from the Social Welfare Department and other women groups in other states. Through this programme we coordinate the women groups and strengthen their activities at wider level.