Hands of Shakti x Parivar Seva Sanstha

Experience at Mewat, Haryana 

We partnered up with the Parivar Seva Sanstha to conduct live training sessions with the women of the village Mewat. Parivar Seva Sanstha is a well-known NGO that provides a  range of quality, affordable reproductive health services and products in rural areas. Mewat is a region in Haryana consisting of many rural villages and the village where we conducted our session is called Nuh. Last year, there were many communal clashes in this region making the situation there very volatile and unsafe especially for women and children. On our way there, I noticed a distinct change in scenery from the bustling city of Gurgaon to a quaint village with just fields everywhere. Upon arrival, we encountered a community deeply entrenched in tradition, where most women wore purdah, obscuring their faces, and photography was forbidden for most of the women. Throughout our session, the women, including young children, maintained a quiet demeanor, indicative of their restrained roles within traditional families. Despite initial reservations, exceptions like Poonam Rani and her mother-in-law, who eagerly embraced our project and even requested to be photographed, highlighted the diversity within the community. Due to most of their unresponsive nature . 

I didn’t fully understand if they had understood the purpose of our project and how Hands of Shakti will help them along with the instructions on how to make cloth flowers. But when we gave them the cloth and needle most of them immediately created perfect cloth flowers showing that they had followed through with every instruction we gave.

This showed me how silence can be one of the most powerful indicators of engagement. Our session with them, left us all with smiles because even in the most conservative environments Hands of Shakti would now play a role in helping the women reach a position of financial independence.