Rohini Pawar is a feminist, self-help group leader, onion farmer, juice stall owner, ASHA (health) worker, and a Community Correspondent. This woman of boundless passion and open-hearted courage dreamed of becoming a doctor, but her dreams were curtailed when she was married at 15. “I felt like all my dreams would crash and end there,” she says. “I was scared,…

Rohini Pawar

Devadasis, a community of women who are given away before the age of puberty to the local temples for religious service, are struggling to survive in the lockdowns imposed since March 2020. Devadasis traditionally earn by performing religious duties at the temple and dancing at functions that are organised at the temple.

However, as people have been holed in their homes and no one visits temples as often, they have no income source to feed themselves. Our Community Correspondent Rohini Pawar identified 70 such Devadasis and distributed ration kits to them.