Inde
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The Story of Champaben. (1)
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This is the story of Champaben, a remarkable women living in a small village’s hamlet, two and a half hours South West of Ahmedabad in India. On the edge of this hamlet in a tobacco field there is a small two room hut without running water or toilet facilities. Aside from their labour, the hut and its contents represent the major asset of Champaben’s family. Their life revolves around it and it is a model of efficient utilization. Champaben is approximately 34 years old, married with two children, a boy of 14 and a girl of 8. Out of school after only two years, she recently took it upon herself to learn to read at Self Employed Women Association (SEWA).
Imagine a life where one has to arise daily between 4.30am (when the cow is giving milk) and otherwise at 6.00 am, and finish the day’s work at around 10.30pm, day in day out, just to ‘stay alive’. As Champaben is wont to say, ‘if we do not look after ourselves who will?’. Even the hour or so she has with her family in the late evening is largely devoted to planning the next day’s activities, as every minute counts. The basic objectives of this eternal round of activity are simple – to put three simple but minimally nutritious meals on the table every day and to give one’s children a small chance at a better life.
Rural India relies on its women. The division of labour in an Indian rural labouring household is highly uneven. Champaben appears to produce well over half of the income and does the great bulk of the domestic chores, including all cooking, cleaning, food shopping and caring. Her responsibilities also include an ailing mother in law. The family’s major sources of income are: field labour tending the landlord’s cash crops, the proceeds of one sharecropping field, the part of their cow’s production which is not retained, Champaben’s work as a representative of SEWA’s social protection unit. Approximately half of the family’s gross income goes on food and at least another 20% was allocated to the education of their 13 year old son and their daughter although she doesn’t know how to finance all education fees. Much of the rest of their income is absorbed in input costs for the cow and their sharecropping field, and power costs. Overall Champaben is able to save Rs20 (US50cents) per month, slightly above the average for her peers.
The basic consumption safety margin in a typical rural labouring household is very thin, and risk management becomes the ongoing preoccupation after income production. In a country where more than 90% of the population does not benefit from social protection, Champaben has recognized many of the risks faced by her family and managed to develop a risk management strategy using the available instruments in a largely rational manner. The major recognized risks are health, death of a spouse, crop failure, natural disaster and death of a valuable animal. In the absence of large risk pooling mechanisms covering the informal economy and rural sector workers, micro-insurance mechanisms of various kinds set up by community-based organizations have become available in certain parts of India (2). Nowadays, there is evidence that micro-insurance schemes can play a significant role in extending social protection to the poor population. The STEP programme support those initiatives (among which SEWA) with the aim to build up universal coverage.
In the case of Champaben, she has purchased a comprehensive insurance package, provided by SEWA, for her family covering accidental death (Rs65,000 sum insured), natural death (Rs20,000 sum insured), sickness insurance (a small number of highly relevant interventions and relevant drugs) and property insurance. For Champaben and the other 140.000 members of VimoSewa (the social protection system of SEWA), micro insurance organisations not only provide a solution to their daily financial problems but also empowers the neediest, reinforces their confidence in a better future for their children and constitutes a means to achieve larger social inclusion. This community-based force gives Champaben energy and brings her to assert, «SEWA is like a mother and father to me».
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