Kalanjiam

I went to a Kalanjiam meeting last week and it was really great to see.  The kalanjiams are something like a credit union or club and run by women.  They're relatively new, started by DHAN and over half a million families are involved all over India.  

Since many people in India are very poor the Kalanjiams allow them to borrow small amounts of money for things like purchasing a cow, even though they wouldn't normally be able to take out a bank loan.  They also are active in community development, they had a few speakers at the meeting who were talking about trying to increase accessibility to water and toilets, and offer services like insurance.  It's really a great idea and wonderful to see how well the women are doing with it.

There are several levels, from small local areas to large federations.  The meeting I went to was one of the larger ones and there were hundreds of women packed into the building.

The meeting was organized partially for the film crew so they ended up having students from the school dancing as well. 

Many of the women had brought children with them.  I was surprised that the meeting was in the middle of the day because it would seem to exclude anyone with a job but perhaps they're normally in the evening.  Or I guess if Nilakottai is any example, maybe most of the women don't have full time jobs.