Best Lawyers in Chandigarh Khalsa Aid women team reaches out to villagers

arna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Malsian (Jalandhar), Sept 2

Among the 100 volunteers slugging it out day and night to prepare 25-kg relief kits for Punjab’s flood hit at the Khalsa Aid warehouse in Malsian, there is only one woman relentlessly putting in her bit.

An IAF officer, an author/ activist, a model and Khalsa Aid’s own fiesty coordinator are members of the prolific all-woman team which extended relief to women and children during the Punjab floods. The six-member team was constituted especially to reach out to women who weren’t opening up to men even amidst a crisis. It is the only all-women team which did relief work during floods.

While a majority of volunteers and members chipped in during their holidays and have now gone back, Nazia (30), education coordinator with Khalsa Aid for the past two years, who was part of the very first batches of Khalsa Aid to begin relief in Punjab, stays on at Jalandhar. She is the lone woman in Khalsa Aid’s current warehouse team of 100 volunteers. Other members of the team were Assam-based IAF officer Flight Lieutenant Navpreet Sandhu, activist/ author Gurmehar Kaur, model/artist Himanshi Khurana and Mohali-based activist Khemjot. Yelling out “Anyone needs pads?” in flood hit areas — the teams gave many a lesson in “no shame to talk about menstrual hygiene”.

Nazia said, “Boys had been going inside for days but the decision to involve an all-woman team was taken after we realised women were not opening up. Women and children are the worst hit in times of calamities but there is still a lack of awareness and reluctance to open up to men. We formed a team and a whole new spectrum of problems came up. While they earlier stayed inside their homes, on spotting a women team they literally reached out to us. We met women who hadn’t defecated for hours, finding dry places in night. They told us issues — menstrual hygiene, sanitation, not enough clothes to wear, not enough sanitary napkins.”

Nazia added, “With the girls’ team out there, women took 600 pads on the very first day, the boys were giving out merely a 100-150 in a day. We even told the men — you have to give them. There are women involved, this is a crisis situation and it is important, there is no shame in this.”

Flight Lieutenant Navpreet Sandhu chipped in while on a leave at her parents’ home in Patiala. She said, “No one knew of Punjab floods elsewhere and it was here I got to know how bad it is. Women are the worst sufferers. A shout out about pads was met with silence or embarrassment. Amidst a sea of relief and help for floods, the crisis of women is a yet un-talked, hidden aspect.”

In all, 150 women have engaged with Khalsa Aid just for the Punjab Floods across India. At Jalandhar, the coordinating team includes 25 women.

Best Lawyers in Chandigarh High Court