SI was privileged to take part in the Commonwealth’s ‘Women as Agents of Change’ competition, launched to celebrate the theme of Commonwealth Day 2011. Although we were restricted to only 3 nominations we received many fantastic submissions. This week, we will be running a special blog series to celebrate all the nominations – a fitting close to a month where women have been celebrated across the Commonwealth!

 Matilda Mathias – India

Matilda spent 35 years working in the corporate sector. When the company she worked for closed down, she felt it was time to give back to society. Having joined Soroptimist International of Bangalore the previous year, she felt she had found the perfect platform for her to do what she had always wanted to do – touch the lives of the poor and the underprivileged.

Matilda has been one of the main driving forces behind a project in the

Lambani
Tribal
Village, 85 km from

Bangalore, to build 62 toilets – one for each family, since the 270 people of that village, of whom 130 were women and girls, had not a single toilet!  With the support of Soroptimist clubs, this project has vastly improved the health of the village. Matilda also wanted to improve the infrastructure of the village so she pursued the local government and the local councillor to get the road improved so it was wide enough for a bus to gain access to the village. She then lobbied the State Road Transport Corporation to get a mini bus service extended up to the village for the first time.  

To help the women and girls gain some economic independence, she organised tailoring classes and arranged for a group of volunteers to teach handicrafts to the young women – skills from which they can generate an income.

Matilda continues to work for the improvement of the

Lambani
Tribal
Village. Other areas which are being worked upon include the provision of clean drinking water, solar heating and lighting, availability of medical services, improving the quality of education available to the village children and lobbying the Government for new homes for those families whose houses are uninhabitable. She is also working on initiatives to ease the problem of alcohol dependence. Matilda and the Soroptimists of Bangalore continue to support the

Lambani
Tribal
Village. It is hoped that by creating awareness, and with education, the whole village will be lifted out of poverty.

Matilda has this to say about her work:

"Work in the

Lambani
Tribal
Village has been very challenging. We needed to give them the confidence in their own abilities to help themselves and their community out of poverty.  It is our duty to raise awareness and to show that money is not everything, that hard work and perseverance, together with knowledge, is what will make a successful project, and therefore they must educate their children. We believe in teaching them how to fish, not giving them the fish itself, or perhaps give them the golden goose, rather than the golden egg!  Besides, at a distance of 85 km from home, the village is also very far away.  In the mornings it entails a driving time of 2.5 hours, which could extend to 3.5 or even to 4 hours in the evenings on the return trips, due to heavy traffic and congestion on the roads.  However, it is precisely these factors that also make the project worthy, the work more enjoyable, and there is a greater sense of achievement when we taste success.  

Besides, the feelings of the people are expressed in their remarks “You have restored our dignity to us”  (with reference to the toilets built for them). Our work has brought about a change in their lives.  When there is a large gap between our visits to the village, many of them want to know why I didn’t visit them for so long !

The apathy of the Government and the Politicians in delivering the goods and the difficulties we encounter sometimes dampen our spirits, but with our eyes set firmly on our goal and with our mission in mind, we carry on, undeterred by the minor hurdles along the way.  The greater the difficulties, the greater  the sense of achievement and satisfaction."

We will continue to post our Commonwealth Agents of Change stories for the rest of the week. If you haven’t had a chance to read the stories so far, please take some time to do so. Soroptimists are doing amazing things!