New Skills, New Lives: Kerala's Women Masons

Mathew, Thresiamma (1998)
In: Waterlines, vol. 17, no. 1, p. 22-24

Socio-Economic Units (SEU), Kerala, was established in 1988 to implement W&S projects in Kerala through community participation from planning to monitoring. SEUs have been involved in the construction of 53,763 household latrines, 253 institutional latrines, and two pay-and-use latrines with full community-group, local government and user participation. To meet the shortage of skilled masons for such construction work, the Jeevapoorna Women Masons Society (JEEWOMS), an offshoot of SEU, was formed in 1989 and trained the first group of 12 women from Thrissur, one the panchayats in Kerala. As these women began to marry outside their villages, they dropped out of the programme and therefore in 1990 the second group of 14 women had to meet certain criteria; namely, that they had to be married, below 45 years of age, from below-poverty-line households; that their children should be more than 3 years old; that women in greater need of extra income were preferred; and that all candidates should have previous experience as a mason's helper. The women learned such skills as cement-block making, bricklaying, reinforcing steel work and how to construct low-cost twin-pit latrines.

In the beginning what proved difficult was persuading women that they could learn masonry, and overcoming their fears of violating the cultural norm. A participatory training programme was developed to build up women's confidence that they could become skilful masons, to strengthen team-building so that women could face opposition, and to awaken the women's obvious but latent potential. To reinforce this, trainees and the facilitator formulated the "Ten Commandments" which included participating attentively, being determined, persevering, being confident, co-operating, working hard, and being honest and loyal. Training also involved savings and money management, and hygiene so that the women could be agents of change within their communities. The women were trained by male master masons and gained experience in different panchayats. Once trained, they earned equal pay to men. Over the next few years, the women of Thrissur became a crucial component of SEU's sanitation programme. Despite some local problems and opposition, they also received publicity and appreciation. In 1996, JEEWOMS ventured into machine-operated hollow-block production, which developed their skills and boosted their earnings, 12 masons completed one month training courses in house construction, and some trainees became trainers. Seeing this success, more of Kerala's district panchayats are training women in masonry as a main plank of their women's-empowerment initiatives. The women participants have gained confidence to speak in public, leadership abilities, managerial skills, dignity, and an improved status in the community.