I originally belong to Velluru, a village in Tamil Nadu. I have always been
passionate to work for the society’s development. I am 34 years old and
have studied up until the third standard. I have been married for 18 years,
my husband, Mr. Selvam K., and I have two children - our daughter was
married this year and our son is presently studying in class eight. We
belong to the Nayaka tribe (under the Scheduled Tribe category) and our
family is not that well off economically. We own two cows and half an acre
of land, my husband works as an agricultural labourer and in my free time,
I roll beedis to supplement our family income. When the gram Panchayat
member’s seat was reserved for the ST category in the Panchayat elections,
the community leaders convinced me to stand for it, the leadership within
me gave me the confidence to be involved in politics at the local level.
There were three other candidates who had filed their nomination for
the same post, but the villagers convinced them to back out. After being
elected, I got a chance to take part in the training program organized by
The Hunger Project-BWS. My first step after being elected was to work
towards improving the village’s literacy level. Even though, the community
acknowledges me for my leadership qualities today, I regret the lack of
formal education; therefore, my priority is to ensure literacy and education
for every child in the Panchayat.One of the issues that I worked on was the construction of an Aanganwadi
in the Panchayat. Earlier, children had to walk 2 km in an area surrounded
by rocks and hills to go to their school. The Panchayat worked on this
and deputed a teacher to the Aanganwadi. However, there was no place
to set it up; a rich villager had illegally acquired the government land in
the Panchayat and nobody dared to do anything about this. When I went
to the police station and lodged a complaint, the police threatened me
and asked me to withdraw the case. I politely refused and said that if that
person had the wealth and money, I had the power. At present, the case
is in court. However, the Aanganwadi classes are conducted in the school
building and meals are provided at the school. The previous Aanganwadi
teacher used to come twice or thrice in a week, so I talked to the officials
and we appointed a woman of our own village for the job and the classes
are going on regularly since then.geetha
Ward Member
Panchayat: Emmenatha
Block: Mulabagal
District: Kolar