Their day starts as soon as the first rays of dawn light up the horizon. Armed with a bunch of pamphlets, the group of 10 women set out with one mission in hand – to make women aware of their voting rights. For the past several weeks, K. Jyothirmai’s daily routine begins with identifying a locality in the city, studying the issues there, getting the pamphlets ready and going out with the women team members of Green Climate, a non-governmental organisation, in the first hour of the day to interact with the women voters in these areas. “Majority of the women in slums and other backward areas do not know anything about their voting rights,” says Jyothirmai. Their team has already visited 20 slums in the city and distributed a specially designed pamphlet highlighting issues that affect women at large.
Not an easy taskIt is not an easy task for the team, they admit. “The group that we are addressing are the vulnerable and illiterate section of society. Traditionally too, women have always been relegated to a secondary role in the family. They stayed out of politics and decision-making issues. We need to explain to them about what happens if a wrong person is voted to power and how it is mainly the women members who are affected most,” says P. Sirisha, another member of Green Climate.
Similar efforts are being made by the women’s wing of Green Climate across the State, who have already reached out to 25,000 women voters and distributed pamphlets to them. Some of the slogans that the members stress on are - ‘Don’t trade the next five years of your life for the sake of petty monetary benefits’, ‘If you are unhappy with the political representatives of your zone, exercise the NOTA (None Of The Above) option’.
“We help them create a manifesto that highlights the issues of their locality. Most issues centre on health, hygiene and civic problems. Once the manifesto is ready, they present it to the political representatives. This exercise is aimed to make the women aware about the issues that should to be addressed and the need to bring to power the right candidate who can work for development and not simply thrive on false promises,” says Jyothirmai.
Not just slum dwellers, the team of women members of Green Climate are a regular sight for evening walkers at the Beach Road and the busy RTC Complex junction where they hand over pamphlets to people and explain to them the need to exercise their voting rights.
