Korra Radha (45) and Gemmela Shanthi (48) are well-known names deep in the hills of Dekkapuram village in Visakhapatnam. Radha is an ASHA worker in the region and Shanthi is the vice sarpanch of the village—both are tribal women.
The route to their village does not resemble a road, even though political leaders in the region promised a well-developed, cemented road a couple of years ago. So, when there is a medical emergency in the village, Radha and Shanthi come to the rescue of many. In small yet meaningful ways, the women put up their resistance.
“Once there was a pregnant woman who was due to give birth in a few days. We were worried as to how we would take her from her house to a clinic without a proper road,” Radha says. They do not have an ambulance facility nor do they have a vehicle of their own. Both the women (along with others in the image), carried the pregnant women in their arms down the hills. She gave birth mid-way.
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“That is when we decided that enough is enough,” she said. Both the women, along with Samata NGO, protested and demanded a proper road—at least until the clinic. That is when a road was constructed, even though it keeps getting destroyed during rains. The women frequently take pictures of the ruins of the roads and the half-built houses and send them to the NGO who then take the matter to the government.
They attend regular training programmes conducted by civil society organisations in the region which then enables them to be equipped with knowledge to help out other women. “In our village, women are the heads of the home, and not the men,” Shanthi’s husband quips.
