Celebration Of Empowerment

Stories of Change
Stories of Change
Deepthi, Anitha, Ajeena
Onampilly Center
Prasana P.B.
Alleppey Beach Center
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Deepthi, Ajeena and Anitha are graduates from the Fabric Painting course and have always been active when it comes to LEE. The issue they
feel the most proud of themselves for solving is: a community wide power outage problem. The trio led the effort to file a petition with the
Kerala State Electricity Board, which included some suggested solutions. Later the KSEB Engineer replied that a transformer was required to fix
the problem, and would be impossible due to the lack of sufficient space. The group refused to take “no” for an answer and took their petition
a step further. The graduates sent a copy of their petition to the Kerala Chief Minister stating the problem and how much it meant to society.
The issue was solved thereafter.
Prasana P.B says that the LEE course gave her the courage to address social programs in her own community. “There was a man in our
neighborhood who drank heavily. One day a few of us women got together and spoke to him when he was sober. We told him that if he
continues to drink and harass his wife, we would have her lodge a complaint against him. He said no matter how much he beats his wife, she
will never complain. When he started beating her again, we complained to the Residents Association. People came from there to counsel him.
But he soon went back to his old ways. He used to beat not only his wife, but also his mother. One day she came to us crying and showed us
the bruises from his beating. I took my daughter, and some of the neighbors and went to his house. We called him out and told him that we
would lodge a complaint with the police. After that he has not caused any trouble in the house. Now when I see his mother, she’s really happy.”
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