The changing face of India on the move
What does India look like to ultra-marathoner Samantha Gash as she runs 3,200 kilometres across the country visiting community projects? Well, she sees poverty and problems, but also hope.
By Patrick Wood
Trekking the width of India by foot in just 77 days while visiting programs designed to help those most in need wasn’t supposed to be an easy project for Sam.
Physically, it was an almost impossible task, but at least she could prepare for that part. The emotional strain, however, was another thing.
As her run progressed, Sam was exposed to the trials faced by many in the country and the sort of questions confronting government and aid agencies trying to help. Such as, how do you deal with the health risks? The population strains? The access to services and the urban-rural divide that creates the haves and have-nots?
In short, what version of India emerges on the ground over two-and-a-half months on the road?
A focus on education
Sam had been planning this trip for more than two years and as the start date neared the nerves mounted.
She had partnered with World Vision for the run and the plan was to raise awareness for community projects designed to help those most in need in India.
It was a success on that front: the lawyer-turned-runner raised more than $150,000 from donors who were inspired by her trip and the stories she shared on social media as it unfolded.
“I realised the power of endurance running as a vehicle for change,” she told ABC News Breakfast before the run began.
“I get to run across one of the most diverse countries that is incredibly contrasting the whole way across it.
“What I think is important is I get to experience how these contrasts affect not just the development needs, but the development responses.”
And experience the contrasts she did. After setting off in late August, Sam visited 16 World Vision projects that ranged from medical clinics to school programs in rural areas accessed by camels.
It was the educational needs that were particularly close to Sam’s heart.
World Vision estimates that in India today, 4 per cent of children never start school, 58 per cent don’t complete primary school, and 90 per cent fail to finish high school.
And given more than 67 million Indian youths live on less than $1 a day, the barriers to education are immense and complex.
On a visit to a remote school near the city of Barmer, in the north-west pocket of India, Sam was struck by the challenges that faced the students.
“The issue [is] not just education, but particularly the quality of education as the remoteness of this community can mean they are limited in what they can access,” she said.
“There were just four teachers with more than 100 students at times.
“[I] wonder whether they’ve encountered many Western white women considering how remote this community is.”
The real effect of malnutrition
Even before the educational needs of millions of children becomes a consideration, they must first deal with chronic levels of malnutrition and related health problems.
UNICEF data shows that in 2014, 87 per cent of children aged under five in India experienced some form of malnutrition. In Australia, that figure sits around 2 per cent.
In a stripped back medical clinic in the north of the country the cries of sick babies can be heard through the corridors.
This clinic in one of the lucky ones. It has benefited from investment in scales to weigh babies, refrigerators to keep the food safe, and even bedding and wall paint to provide a more comfortable experience.
Even so, its impact is somewhat limited. The distance between rural communities and the clinic means a long trip for parents with sick children. And long trips mean less work (read: income) so sometimes they just aren’t possible.
Sam was overwhelmed.
“We were entering a very primitive medical clinic — dozens of small children and babies were being held in their parents’ arms, lining up in organised chaos to be seen by the medical staff,” she said.
“We walked into a room with six beds with babies and children under three.
“They were either severely malnourished or had pneumonia and a high fever — some as a result of the recent monsoon flooding.
“Seeing sick malnourished children is heartbreaking and I can’t get these children’s faces out of my mind.”
Challenges start to mount up
Despite the best efforts of a medical support team, and access to clean food and stable accommodation, Sam and her support crew faced their own struggles on the road.
Still, it paled in comparison to what they saw around them.
“I’ve never experienced the degree and frequency of sickness and death that I’ve seen as I run,” Sam said.
“A crippled man struggling to move forward on the highway; children with swollen bellies going to the toilet on the road; and women vomiting out the windows of the car.
“This environment is so harsh and despite all our efforts my own team have gotten sick as well.”
Community projects offer hope
As Sam progressed from West to East across India an idea was coming into focus: that bottom-up change from within communities could be the real benefit.
That small initiatives, once adopted by the people, might be the most practical way of bringing about positive change — at least in the short term.
And there were enough grassroots programs on offer to give Sam hope. From self-defence classes for women to fresh water initiatives and even the opening of a new toilet block in Pauri, in the north of the country and a good 300km from “nearby” New Delhi.
“[Opening a toilet block is] an experience that I may have thought was odd to do before I started this project, but I now feel so passionately for,” Sam said.
“Every day as I run I see children and adults defecate in the fields and roads — sometimes with a bottle of water beside them to wash afterwards, often with nothing.
“No country in the world has more open defecation than India, where one in two people defecate outside … [it] is a serious health and safety risk.
“If you can introduce two or three initiatives, and really simple initiatives, and get them to accept them and make them their own, the change can be massive.”
Changing a culture
India is a country on the move, and on most measures it now has the seventh largest economy in the world, but this progression has not been equally felt.
In particular, the gender divide can be stark and the statistics make for grim reading — it’s estimated that on average a woman is raped every 20 minutes in India.
Many of these go unreported, and if they are there’s a chance the woman herself will be blamed.
In response to the high-profile gang rape and death of Jyoti Singh in 2012, a group of women in New Delhi formed their own self-defence classes to fight back.
“Now whoever harasses us needs to know that we girls cannot sit in fear,” group leader, Mohini, told Sam.
“They need to know that if and when they harass us they will regret that decision.”
Two hours south in Agra, a town made famous by its proximity to the Taj Mahal, another community program is challenging gender imbalance.
A men’s group is aiming to change the attitudes, behaviours and opportunities available for women and girls within the community. And it’s having an impact.
A short time ago, local father Ashok agreed to give his 16-year-old daughter Rajkumari away to be married to an older man. But after seeking advice from the men’s group he broke with tradition and brought her home.
“There was a lot of anger, lot of rage in community when I took the bold step to bring my younger daughter back, but I’ve made the decision,” he said.
“People have come to my home and tried to persuade me to send her back because it’s not a right cultural practice, but I say to them, ‘You can impose that culture on your daughters but I’m not going to jeopardise the future of my daughter’.”
Rajkumari has since completed a beautician’s course and hopes to open her own business.
Where to from here?
Stories like these paint a picture of incremental change in India, but Sam is an optimist and saw enough on her journey to think there is reason things could change for the better for the many more currently struggling.
“I’m hopeful. It’s easy to think things are hard, so where do you start, but the simplest things can help so much,” she said.
“It’s about patience. I think the community change is the first step.”
Aid organisations and government programs play their part, but Sam sees change coming from within as well.
“I was told, ‘You will never ever see an Indian standing alone, they will always be together’, and it’s true,” she said.
“In our culture we sometimes recharge on our own, but you learn that you can recharge among other people, you come together.”
Photos by Lyndon Marceau, Bruce Viaene, and World Vision
