AWWD's field workers

AWWD’s field workers are women with disabilities who come from the slums, and who epitomise the challenges that disabled women face in Kolkata. Every time I meet with them my heart aches – they have faced difficulties in their lives that I can barely imagine, yet they are so brave and cheerful.

The other day I was sorting through some papers with a community worker – the papers were profiles of all the disabled girls and women in her slum. With an exclamation of delight she pulled out her profile, which was two years old, and she asked me to read it as it was in English. Two years ago all she wished for was to complete her education and to ‘learn a little stitching’. The idea that, two years ago the only opportunity open to this beautiful and capable individual was to learn a little stitching made me want to cry.

Imagine an alleyway between buildings so narrow that only one person can pass down it at once. Imagine that there are open drains, it is unpaved, and rubbish adorns the sides. Welcome to Park Circus slum, Kolkata, and the home of Tabassum, AWWD’s blind community worker.
Every day Tabassum is led by her sister through the alleyways of her slum to meet with other disabled girls, to take them to medical appointments, to encourage them to join the self help group, to disburse loans, support the women in their businesses and to help them receive mobility aids. I am following Tabassum and her sister through this slum and I find it difficult to negotiate the open drains and unpaved streets, but Tabassum deals with it all with an unwavering serenity and cheerfulness. I ask Tabassum whether she enjoys her job, and she gives me a big grin. I think that’s a yes then. I then ask why, wondering whether she would talk about having gained self confidence, or that she was doing something very worthwhile. No, she is much more practical than that - she frowns and says ‘money is a big problem’. The families in these slums have no security and are living from hand to mouth, literally. Her family make shoes: Park Circus seems to be the shoe making centre of Kolkata, and I walk past piles and piles of shoes at different stages of preparation: young boys were sanding down rubber for the soles, cutting out heels, or sticking on the last sparkly finish to brightly coloured sandals.

Tabassum was not always blind, and is well educated – but in the last years of her schooling her eyesight started to fail, and in the end she was prevented from finishing her education. Her dream of becoming a teacher collapsed. Just two years ago all that she could hope for was to get a lowly paid and menial job as a cleaner, and even then she was harassed by her employer due to her impairment.

But two years on from her job as a cleaner and not only does Tabassum work tirelessly with disabled women in her area, but she has also attended national leadership training, and is a leader within her community for disabled women. She said that: ‘I have now new hope to bring more light not only to my own life but also to others’