{"id":5740,"date":"2015-01-16T03:04:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-16T03:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/giraffe-heroes-india-jaya-arunachala\/"},"modified":"2018-06-13T18:05:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T12:35:12","slug":"giraffe-heroes-india-jaya-arunachala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/giraffe-heroes-india-jaya-arunachala\/","title":{"rendered":"Giraffe Heroes India – Jaya Arunachalam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nUnder the guidance of Sh. Vijay Saluja, Giraffe Heroes India\u2019s new Director<\/b>, Giraffe Heroes India (GH\/India) aims to bring Giraffe vision, strategies and tools for change to the 1.3 billion people on the Indian subcontinent \u2013 making it potentially by far the largest Giraffe global affiliate launched to date.<\/p>\n
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\nGH\/India will tell the inspiring stories of the country\u2019s heroes, motivating others to become heroic too. GH\/India will also offer practical tools citizen activists need to succeed, as well as Giraffe civic engagement programs in schools, helping young people build lives as courageous and compassionate citizens serving a vibrant India.<\/p>\n

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\nDwarka Parichay being media partner for the Giraffe Heroes India program, starting a series of inspiring stories of heroes in India.<\/b> This will definitely motivate others and more Giraffe Heroes will join the GH\/India brigade.<\/div>\n
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\nCheck for criteria & nomination form for a Giraffe Hero India.<\/b><\/div>\n
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Arunachalam, Jaya<\/b><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Jaya Arunachalam<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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\nJaya Arunachalam carries forward the political tradition of the Freedom Fighters of India, fighting not against colonial rule but for economic freedom for India\u2019s poorest: the women who survive in the margins and on the streets.<\/p>\n

By birth a Brahmin, a member of India\u2019s highest caste, Arunachalam was introduced to what would become her life\u2019s work by the poor women of her home state of Tamil Nadu. They were, she says, her teachers.<\/p>\n

As an organizer for India\u2019s Congress Party, Arunachalam tried inviting these women to participate in the political rallies she was sure would bring about much needed social change. The women replied that rather than listening to speeches, they would spend their time better by earning another rupee or two.<\/p>\n

In 1977, when floods hit Tamil Nadu, Arunachalam and her friends collected and distributed clothing, bedding, food\u2026 After a year of this, she realized that the relief effort was not the solution. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the flood that was the greatest disaster,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was the poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1978 Arunachalam, who was trained as an economist, formed the Working Woman\u2019s Forum, an organization dedicated to giving poor female workers what she perceived they needed most: access to credit.<\/p>\n

Initially, bank executives laughed at the idea of letting female street peddlers even walk into their hallowed financial institutions; they certainly weren\u2019t going to give them money. But Arunachalam set up a cooperative so that middlemen\u2014actually, middle-women\u2014would collect the loan money from the banks for the poor working women, distribute it to the actual borrowers, and take the loan re-payments to the banks on the women\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

Using tiny loans\u2014 “micro-credit” as it came to be known\u2014 Arunachalam\u2019s Working Women\u2019s Forum has brought economic aid to more than 700,000 women in over 3,000 villages and 1,600 slums. But it isn\u2019t a free ride.<\/p>\n

With the financial help, Arunachalam gives Forum members this admonishment: \u201cYour poverty, the number of kids you have, and the treatment you get at home and workplace are of your own making. Swim or sink. Do it yourself. Fight your way out. Bring change in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stories of the women who have brought change in their lives through the Forum could fill volumes:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe gave me courage,\u201d says one about Arunachalam. \u201cWithout being able to sign my name, I earn, have an F.D., a passbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another says, \u201cGetting trained in crafts, like embroidery, keeps a woman like me from being married off early.\u201d<\/p>\n

The social hierarchy of India is not as rigid now as it once was, but in Arunachalam\u2019s childhood, she remembers that when she played with children of a lower caste at school, the teacher would report it to her grandmother and the child had to bathe and change clothes before going home. She says the system always baffled her. After receiving a master\u2019s degree in economics, she married a man who, though educated and affluent, was not a Brahmin\u2014and her parents refused to see her for 15 years. After her mother\u2019s death, her father finally forgave her.<\/p>\n

Now, Jaya Arunachalam has spent her life as an economic advocate for the lowest castes and for outcastes. It is work, and a constituency, of which she is enormously proud, saying that the women have become leaders. \u201cThey have become advocates and lawyers. Out of poverty, they came out to have a collective vision and conscience.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Under the guidance of Sh. Vijay Saluja, Giraffe Heroes India\u2019s new Director, Giraffe Heroes India (GH\/India) aims to bring Giraffe vision, strategies and tools for change to the 1.3 billion people on the Indian subcontinent \u2013 making it potentially by far the largest Giraffe global affiliate launched to date. GH\/India will tell the inspiring stories of the country\u2019s heroes, motivating others to become heroic too. GH\/India will also offer practical tools citizen activists need to succeed, as well as Giraffe civic engagement programs in schools, helping young people build lives as courageous and compassionate citizens serving a vibrant India. Dwarka Parichay being media <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1882,1879,16],"class_list":["post-5740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-update","tag-giraffe-heroes","tag-update","tag-vijay-k-saluja","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51319,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions\/51319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwarkaparichay.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}