Right to Information as a weapon of Women Empowerment

“My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest…True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village.”^[1]

Mahatma Gandhi

 

The Gandhian idea of Democracy takes shape from the basis of equality and participation of each and every citizen in the functioning of government. However this thought can only be materialized when the people are educated. This education not only limits itself to the conventional knowledge imparted only to a certain privileged class but it encompasses most importantly knowledge of rights and duties. Such kind of education, which deals with rights and duties is named as Civic Education, that a person and here a women gets when she is a citizen of a country irrespective of her social or economic background. And this is what Hanns Seidel Foundation in collaboration with YWCA of Delhi is currently focusing on.

 

Civic education for YWCA of Delhi is a platform to study and practically apply the global trend towards recognition of the right to information extended to civil society and thus to people. Therefore the uneducated and semi-literate women are provided with the basic/elementary education which will in turn help them to practice their human rights.

 

With the objective to sensitize Women on the rights laid for them in the constitution of India, YWCA of Delhi with an immense and consistent support of Hanns Seidel Foundation has given a new meaning to the concept of Civic Education in the village of Najafgarh and in the urban slums of Mangolpuri in the National Capital Region of Delhi. This meaning can only be unveiled when one could reach these women and one of the ways is by conducting workshops. The most recent exemplification of the same was the half-day workshops conducted together by both the organizations on 28.04.2011 at the YWCA training center in Najafgarh and at the center of urban development of YWCA in Mangolpuri on 27.05.2011. This time the participants were made aware of their human rights, of how this awareness will reflect on the development of their lives and particularly of the role of “Right to Information” in this development. There were two High Court lawyers namely Mr. Pradeep Kumar Saini and Mr. Ravi, who although stuck up in their busy schedules without even taking any honorarium, took out time to educate women on the topic of “Right to Information” and how they can practice it.

 

They started with explaining this right as: Right to Information (RTI), which was enacted by the Government in 2005, has been recognized as the fundamental human right, which upholds the inherent dignity of all human beings and is crucial for the functioning of democracy, for assured accountability and good governance. Then the lawyers cited some case studies to bring this topic near to the women present there. The outcome of this workshop was that the women, who were till now completely unaware of this significant right, feel themselves to be strong enough to fight for their betterment and hence have started empowering themselves. This workshop will be continued in the next session whereby the women would be first asked that what kind of implication they found in the meantime of “Right to Information” in their daily lives. This will be followed by another session on how important are the other human rights in relation to Right to Information.

 

This joint effort of both the organizations has moved center stage in Civic Education by educating the socially and economically backward communities, on how to access information from the Government on the Right to Information. The YWCA is continuing to work on Civic Education with the Delhi Legal Services Association to inform women on Domestic Violence and Sexual Harassment at workplace, which is made possible by the coherent help from Hanns Seidel Foundation.