International Women’s Day is celebrated every year in Rakkar Village on 8th march . This year the programme was held at the village hall near Nishtha clinic and Community Centre. All the member of Nishtha celebrated this day enthusiastically . After long hours of preparation, they were excited to do their performance. So at 10:00 a.m. our program began.
First of all our host Radha introduced the event and warmed up the crowd with some special slogans and chants on the subject of women’s day. After that the performances were presented one by one, some entertaining, some with a moral and some with guidance regarding our health and living in society.
The first entertaining program was a folk dance performed by a group of little children from Khanyara village. Everybody enjoyed seeing the children perform. They then sang a folk song about their Ghaddi community.
Next followed a Drama about hygiene performed by some of our stitching ladies and some of the single women. The story told how an old lady encouraged her daughter-in-law to get up early in the morning but she was ignored. In another scene a mother preferred to cook food in an iron pan , but again her daughter in law refused her advice. Then a grandmother wanted to give her grandson homemade medicine (kadha) which would be light and good for him but again her daughter in law refused and went to see a doctor. In the last scene we saw that some naughty kids were brushing their teeth, bathing, and throwing the waste and dust from their home onto the side of river, where some ladies were washing their dirty clothes. At the same time a lady took water from the river for drinking and even used the water as offering to the gods. An educated girl came there and forcefully she sent all of them to Dr. Kusum who is serving at Nishtha Health Centre for proper advice.
Dr. Kusum answered the all the ladies questions, providing advice about the need to keep water sources clean, clean water, that using an iron pan is healthy as it is full of iron, and about careful garbage in order to keep our environment clean and green. She stressed the importance of Nishtha’s clean green Rakkar programme, encouraging everyone to take part. She said that getting up early morning is good for the health of both your body and mind and finished the drama with the slogans:
“An intelligent and a peaceful soul lives in a clean body, with a fresh mind.”
“Be Good, Make Good, Clean your Area and Create a beautiful Environment.”
After that another drama was presented by the same team in which they were showed some of the recent problems facing rural women. When a lady was appointed as a Pradhan of the village, some women were critical while others accepted the idea. They pointed out that the government had decided that women should be enabled to take up positions in the village and all women should support it.
Dr. Kishwar then addressed the crowd, talking about the importance of kindness and love. Being respectful and caring towards others will help to instil unity and kindness within our society. It is believed that whatever you do, the strength of love and kindness will help you and will ensure your receive the same in the future.
At last the time came for everyone’s favourite program: the Gaddi folk dance presented by the Nishtha scholarship students dressed in Nishtha’s set of traditional costumes. At the end of the program refreshments were offered to everyone and by 2:00p.m. everyone had left in order to go to one of the many local weddings taking place that day. Everybody really appreciated the program and we were very happy that everyone had performed so well and the weather behaved properly too ensuring that the whole event went off successfully.
