Laila Majhi, Community Health Worker, WRA Nuapada District, Orissa
People have lined up on both sides of the road to welcome their heroine, Laila Majhi, just 18 years of age, wearing a pair of chhappals (sandals or flip-flops) and riding a cycle. An eighteen year old riding a cycle would not have raised a whimper in ordinary circumstances, but Laila has broken tradition, not only by riding a bicycle, but also by wearing a pair of chhapals. 

Laila has many firsts to her credit. She is determined to make her presence felt in the community. She comes from a traditional tribe called Bhunjia. She lives inside the Sunabeda Sanctuary in Nuapada district. Sunabeda Sanctuary is a wildlife sanctuary located 900 metres above sea level and is one of the finest grasslands at such a high altitude. 

The Bhunjias have a very strict set of rules governing women, where males go scot-free on all counts, said folklorist Dr. Anjali Padhi. While women are not allowed to eat food from outside, there is no such restriction for men. Wearing of chhappals is forbidden for the female members of their community as they are not supposed to tread on the sacred earth where the Bhunijas principal deity, Sunadei, lives, explained Bhujbal Majhi, a local. However he was not able to say why the same rules do not apply to the men. 

Laila's school atop the plateau only goes up to the seventh grade. Once she finished seventh grade, she had to drop out of school, as traveling 30 km down the hill everyday to attend the high school was virtually impossible. Three years back Gurukul Ashram started a high school for girls like Laila, but they were asked to wear a two piece dress uniform. Girls in Laila's community are not allowed to wear anything other than a saree, as per their custom. Bhunjia women even today are not allowed to wear blouses and petticoats. The village elders of Gatibeda , Sunabeda etc. sat together to decide the fate of these girls, to decide whether to allow the girls to wear a two piece uniform to school. Laila and her friends won. They were given special permission by the village elders to wear a two piece dress to school for higher education. 

All this was not without a price. These girls have been now ostracized from their community. Laila and her friends who wore two piece dresses for studying at the high school are not allowed to enter the kitchen of their respective houses. A Bhunjia considers his kitchen to be most sacred place and burns it if any outsiders even touch it. Girls who are married off are also not allowed to enter the kitchen in their mother's house when they visit. 

"There is remedy to all this though. We have to sacrifice a goat before her marriage ceremony," said her father Bhujbal. "She will be taken back into the community, after which she can marry". 
Laila has now been appointed as a community health worker by Banjari Askyam Seva Kendra, and Tarbod, an NGO. Laila is going to augment reproductive health services in the plateau. The NGO has been entrusted to work in under served areas of the district under the RCH - II programme of the government with the support of the Mother NGO of the district. 

To enable her to get around and go door to door delivering services, Laila was presented with a bicycle by the Nuapada chapter of White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, an international alliance working to make motherhood safe for all women. The CDMO, Nuapada Dr. G.R.Padhy presented the bicycle in a function at Khariar today. "It is a noble effort that a member of the community has been involved in service delivery and I wish the organization, particularly Laila, well," said Dr. Padhy.

"With the villages and hamlets very scattered, I will be able to reach more pregnant women and mothers to deliver services now that I have a bicycle," beamed a confident Laila. 

By Biswajit Padhi
West Zone Coordinator
White Ribbon Alliance Orissa