Community Correspondents

Neeru Rathod

Neeru Rathod is the 8th child in a family of 11 girls born to a Dalit construction worker in Surendranagar district of Gujarat, one of the most feudal and caste-ridden regions of India. Circumstances were difficult growing up but she found her path in 2006, when Video Volunteers and the NGO Navsarjan selected her to be part of a Community Video Unit. As part of the Community Video Unit, Neeru found her vocation and passion. She became an expert producer and committed video activist, seeking to set right the social issues that she was highlighting and leading hundreds of people in protest. She has conducted hundreds of village video screenings, speaking into a microphone in front of a huge screen late in the evening to thousands of men, shattering their ideas about what a woman and a Dalit can do. Her work has brought water, roads, electricity – sea change to villages in her district. She has also made videos on sensitive issues like the AIDS epidemic and single women in rural India.

Videos from Neeru

Missing doctors & Infrastructure at a PHC in Gujarat – Video Volunteer Neeru Reports

 
/ November 23, 2015

At Doliya Primary Health Centre, Surendranagar District in Guajarat, the absence of doctors, nurses, sanitation and equipment means that pregnant women as well as other patients who come in suffer. Residents of the area say that no deliveries take place at the PHC due to a shortage of doctors and...

Success: A Women’s Self-Help Group Gets Justice

 
/ July 10, 2014

Self Help Groups (SHGs) are village-based programs usually with agendas of empowerment, development of leadership abilities, anti-poverty agendas, using financial intermediation as a starting point to these goals. In this interview, Community Correspondent Neeru Rathod speaks of how she inspired 11 women in Sonpari village in Gujarat to speak out against...

Impact: Corruption free meals in one village in Gujarat!

 
/ June 23, 2014

The Mid-Day Meal Scheme is a government-sponsored scheme meant to provide food to children in schools. This scheme was launched to check malnutrition & to encourage attendance in schools. In this interview, Community Correspondent Neeru Rathod describes how she & her community in Kanpur, Gujarat united to ensure 30 children...

Free From Fluorosis

 
/ January 29, 2013

In July 2012 IndiaUnheard published a video from rural Gujarat which documented how people in Kasipara village were suffering from Fluorosis an ailment that could easily be avoided. Says Impact Manager Tania Devaiah "This was one of those videos which moved people to take action." Over 2300 people signed an...

Untouchability: Dalit children excluded from temple festivities

 
/ September 21, 2014

Untouchability steals the right of children belonging to Dalit community(considered untouchables)to be included in temple festivities unlike all other children, in this village. As per Article 17 of the Indian Constitution, untouchability is a punishable offence. However, that doesn’t stop the many social atrocities committed against the Dalit community across...

Omnipresent Corruption

 
/ August 6, 2014

A couple of months ago CC Neeru Rathod was able to eradicate corruption in Kanpura Primary School, where the organizer of the MDM was swindeling rations and funds. With the help of the community and the school staff, Neeru was able to end this corruption and get the the children...

A New Generation Scarred by Untouchability

 
/ July 24, 2014

What does one say about a cultural practice that it forces young children to sit apart at a school lunch? At the Primary school in Limli village Gujarat Untouchability is scarring a new generation. It is illegal to indulge in any practices of untouchability and you can help stop one...

Denied Special Education

 
/ June 16, 2014

The Right To Education Act  2010 (RTE) guarantees free education for disabled children.  The Government is meant to provide a special teacher for children with disabilities as well as specific learning material.  However, for partially sighted Rekha Gishbhai this is not the case.  Her mother explains how: “She sits on...