Setting an example for others

HYDERABAD: When Rafiya Begum first started teaching embroidery and tailoring, except for her father-in-law, rest of her family members were against it.
"Even today, my sisters-in-law are against me going out to work in the bastis," 39-year-old Rafiya Begum told The Times of India.
Social work was something that was looked down by a number of people because it does not bring much money and we have to work with people in bastis, she said."But all that opposition did not deter me from going ahead with what I wanted," she said. After completing her Class 10, Rafiya Begum was married, and now is a mother of four.
"It was when all four of them started going to school that I had a lot of time on my hands and started tailoring and embroidery classes at home. Since then there has been no looking back."
She became a coordinator with Akshara Jyoti and began teaching Hindi. The tailoring and embroidery classes evoked good response and Rafiya Begum took classes at her house in Yakutpura and in Imanwada. "It just not kept me busy, but brought me a little money which I saved for my children," she said.
It was in 1997 that she got an opportunity to join the Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA) and a chance to interact with more women and do more work.
"At COVA, I train adolescent girls in health, hygiene, literacy, hold classes for women on family planning, tell them about the need for skills and education - not just for these women but the need to educate their children - and I am also involved in a number of adult and child literacy programmes," she said.
Rafiya Begum tells the women with whom she works the story of her own life and how different it would have been had her parents educated her.
"Education of women is important because it is they who run the family and will be able to do a better job of it if they can step out of the house with confidence," she added.