Survivors taking new responsibilities at Destiny

 This week has been an absolute roller coaster at the Destiny center. Over the last few weeks, it's come to our attention that several of the women are consistently late to work. And I don't mean 5-10 minutes late, I mean a good 45 minutes late. And many of them bunk work without informing us. So over the weekend, Smarita and I decided to enforce a small fine for anyone who arrives more than 15 minutes late to work. We thought this would be a good way to motivate the women to come on time, and use the money to buy sweets for everyone at the end of the month. 

Monday I went to work and explained this new rule to everyone. They seemed a little uspet by it but didn't give me any grief. Tuesday most of the women arrived on time, but two were 45 minutes late. I pointed out that they were very late and asked them to put the fine money in our late fees box. But they refused, saying that it was impossible to reach by 10am. They were upset, and I got pretty angry. Then one girl told me not to be mad and that they would explain everything later. At this point I sort of lost it and closed the door, saying I didn't want to look at them anymore. I left the office soon afterwards to go to the fabric market, and since the days are now over 100 degrees, it didn't help to cool my temper. So after taking all the materials back to the office, I told the women that I was still upset and was leaving. We would discuss it the next day. 

Wednesday morning I was called out to one of the shelter homes, where we outsource all of our blockprinting orders, to collect the finished items and give the next order. By the time I got back to the Destiny center, it was late afternoon and Smarita and I felt that we should have the meeting the next day. So we planned for the meeting and decided that in addition to just discussing the tardiness and absenteeism that were becoming routine, we should discuss overall work ethic. We feel that the women should be more involved in the running of the business and charity. Some of them don't understand what going to the wholesale market is like and why I refuse to go more than once a week. Or they don't understand that when they make a mistake cutting fabric, and we can't use it, that we've just lost money on wasted fabric. We want them to take more leadership in running the production unit, so that Smarita and I can focus on other things. So we came up with a list of various roles that we wanted the women to select from and start developing their business skills.

Thursday at noon we all gathered around and as soon as the women settled down the power went out. Great! So not only would we be discussing some pretty touchy subjects, we'd be doing so in 100 degree temperature without any fan. Luckily Smarita is a very gifted social worker and manages to talk about serious things in a tone that's stern but understanding. To be honest, I was a little impatient with their excuses as to why they're always late - "the train doesn't come on time," "I have to cook breakfast for the family," "I have to do the laundry in the morning." I told them that everyone has household chores to finish in the morning, but that all offices in India start at 10am. Smarita explained that if you come late, it means that you can't do as much work and the whole business suffers. In this same token we discussed absenteeism, and that if you miss 5 days in a month, the whole team suffers because it means that our order can't be completed on time. After agreeing on a small fine for tardiness and absent days, we moved on to the business development. Our new roles included stock procurement, stock register, local sales, quality control, machine maintenance, work distribution, wastage and cleanliness, and charity work. Smarita explained what each one meant, and after some hesitancy, the women spoke up and selected which ones they wanted. 

Friday morning I was a little nervous that some women would be late, but to my pleasant surprise everyone was on time! They were being very productive and I did some sketching work in their stitching room so that we could chat. We were joking about work, the crazy volunteers that have come through Destiny, and (as always) boys. At lunch time, the woman in charge of cleanliness went to monitor the kitchen. I saw her sitting in there and asked what she was doing. "I'm watching to see who cleans their plate and who doesn't. I don't want to be stuck washing everyone's plates!" I couldn't help at laughing - they're starting to get it! After lunch, a group of interns from International Justice Mission came to visit. They wanted to buy some of our products and so I called the woman in charge of local sales. This woman has no education, she didn't even know how to write her name in any language until one of our rockstar volunteers taught her. So she was a little nervous about taking this role, but we convinced her that it would be an excellent way to practice both handwriting and mathematics. So as this was her first time recording a local sale, I helped her out. I wrote the name of the item, and then asked her how many pieces the customer was buying. "Ek" she replied, "one." I pointed to the line and she wrote 1. Then I told her to write the price, which was listed on the product. At first she wrote "2050" and then I told her to cross out the first 0 so it became "250." Ok, so the hard part - change. "He gave us 500 rupees," I told her, "and it costs 250 rupees. So how much change does he get?" I could tell her mind was racing, but she looked up at me and pronounced, "250" quite confidently. I think I jumped a little and said "Yes!" 

 Saturday morning the group from the Sunderbans came to discuss the children's coaching center. So I called the woman responsible for charity work to come meet the teacher and help me write the profiles of the children. I absolutely love this particular woman because she's my Bengali - Bengali translator. She takes what Bengalis say in super fast, idiomatic speech and tells it to me in slow, simple Bengali. So the teacher spouted off "This child absolutely adores drama and is constantly acting in different characters. It's actually a hilarious representation of the absence of excitement in our village but makes it rather arduous for me to properly teach him." Destiny woman tells me "This boy loves acting. He is very funny. Life in the village is boring, so his drama makes it better." Nice! So after we finished updating all the profiles of the children, some of which were very sad, we talked about the teacher and why she enjoys teaching the children. I think it was really good for the Destiny woman to hear about the children's lives and the teacher's motivation for working with them. Many of the kids are orphaned because of last year's cyclone, and even more have only a mother raising them. The Destiny woman who's taken the role of charity work is herself an orphan and was raised in a shelter home, so I think she's especially sensitive to this group of children. The rest of the day I could tell she was saddened by the stories she had just heard and kept asking me what we could do to help. "Now that's the spirit," I thought!  

So all in all, the week was a rollercoaster, but I managed to get off with a slightly stronger stomach. And I think the women are finally starting to take some leadership in making the production unit more efficient. Let's see how next week goes...