ABSTRACT

The tarmac stretched just the width of one vehicle, so that each encounter with an on-coming truck or car involved one or both pulling off the road. In houses and bamboo shacks throughout the village were wooden looms where men and women sat for many hours weaving saris. A few years back, women weavers from neighboring houses in one part of the village began meeting together to discuss their plight and came to form a self-help group (SHG), which they call Jeeban Jyoti. Fish seed is not so readily available in western Odisha. Finding out where fish hatcheries are, what and how to buy, was again a challenge for the weaver women of Kandhkelgaon. The women of Jeeban Joyti SHG in Kandhkelgaon Village of Bolangir District of western Odisha, pictured selling part of their harvest from Surjali Kattah, illustrate an example of where facilitated advocacy supported the imagination and lateral thinking of an inspiring and talented group of women.