Introduction

For most of the 1980s I lived in Pune in Western India. During that time I helped to establish social projects among the Dalit Buddhist community; people who had converted to Buddhism to escape the caste system and the extreme stigma of untouchability. As a nurse and midwife, I was involved in setting up primary health care work in the slums. We chose to focus on women and children because at that time many children were dying from malnutrition and easily preventable diseases; the work included training local, often illiterate women as health care workers.

As the needs became clearer– and we gained the confidence of those around us- we established kindergartens, women’s literacy classes, tailoring classes and créches. These were the first projects to be funded by the newly-formed Karuna Trust. I was especially keen to see what could be done for girls and women as I could see that the realities of daily life were even harsher for them, and so I played a small part in encouraging them to create a brighter future for themselves.

Women have a large impact upon the next generation

Memories of those times, and the connections made, have never left me. So I was excited to be invited back to India last year to visit some of the current work focussing on girls and women. Over the past twenty years, Karuna’s work has grown and expanded. In recent years the Trust has started giving even higher priority to projects that enable women from the poorest communities to secure their basic rights, recognising that when women are empowered, the benefits can spread throughout entire communities.

I was very heartened by what I saw. It is clear that women from Dalit backgrounds still face huge and complex problems arising out of poverty and discrimination. But, as I hope you will see from this newsletter, the projects funded by Karuna are giving many of these women the chance to move towards lives of greater dignity and freedom.

Hilary Blakiston

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