Chandrakali Markam - A light of Change
Just like other women, born into a poor Adivasi family, Chandrakali Markam didn't have much choices to live until she took the charge of her own life and set an example in her community through the power of micro-enterprise.
An Introduction
Dindori a small district of Madhya Pradesh bordering Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh, is having a large area which is densely forested where one can find mobile network also with difficulty. Moreover Naxalites also pose a greater threat there. In spite of all these difficulties Chandrakali Markam is visiting many inaccessible and remote villages of the area with a motto to make the women of those areas self sufficient.
Chandrakali belongs to a poor adivasi family of Agariya tribe in Barga, a small village in Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh. Just like other woman she was spending a marginalised ,powerless life with a little connection to the outer world till she joined a self help group run by an organisation "Pradaan" secretly.
Pointing to old days, she reminds" life was actually very hard those days. " She was married at the age of 11. It was just impossible to run the family on low wages of rupees 20 per day. In spite the fact that they had a small patch of land ,still it was left uncultivated because of lack of money to buy seeds. The men travelled for in search of work.
The start of change
Chandrakali left the school at the age of 11 after studying class five. When she protested that she will not leave the school, her father scolded her not to study as she is a girl. When she was 19 years old she joined a self help group secretly. This was the first step towards change. Gradually she started saving Rs 1 every week and also motivated other women for savings.
The baby step
In year 2006,Chandrakali stepped in the field of poultry farming for landless families by making a Cooperative farm with governments assistance. In the earlier stage, 60 people joined the group. Today more than 500 women across 23 villages have joined this business under the expert guidance of Chandrakali. They are doing business with turnover in crores and were able to save 8 lakh rupees in 2019-20.
Chandrakali only knows how to put up signatures but she is running successfully the -poultry business. She has kept accountants and manager for managing the business and the whole business is being done in Hindi. She has even formed Federation by combining 507 self help groups across 23 villages.
Magic of attitude
Chandrakali is now working towards acknowledging the efforts of women farmers and rewarding them with proper wages." Although women farmers are doing more work than their male counterparts, still they are not acknowledged and given credit. " she says. For this purpose she has made one cooperative society with the name "Halchalit Mahila Kisan". She also advocates higher education for women of adivasi regions. To generate alternate sources of income , she motivates mushroom cultivation and kitchen garden also.
Awards
She bagged numerous awards for her excellence in the field of micro enterprise but the prominent one is women Exemplar award in the category of micro enterprise being awarded by confederation of Indian industries (CII) in 2020.
Chandrakali is the face of change in rising India amidst of all the factors like poverty and lack of resources. She is a change maker not only for her community but for entire women as she dared to step out in outer world and made her identity.
