# Servicing the COW

story of a workshop

During the course of this project period we had tried ways to involve and encourage the community members to participate in the maintenance of the network. The main target was youth from the village, the tech comfortable work from home people, college going youngsters and even the higher secondary school kids for replay on the mesh for their online education. Although they were using the network they were not fully involved in maintaining the network. We had to instigate them to help attend or join us for any kind of maintenance. They would not be proactive, nor would they complain of the network failure even as they were relatively the more active of the users.

Now, slowly, schools and colleges were opening after the Covid lockdown period. The kids had to go to school physically. That means the resulting expenses became much higher than during the Covid times due to books, uniforms, travel cost, school fees, mandated “donations” for schools, additional demands from the kids asking for phone and pocket money, etc. The men in the family usually declare that they are already working the max and cannot help with additional expenses. This makes the women in the family look for work that could bring in additional income - within the village.

Roopa and Sridevi are two women who conducted cooking sessions in their neighbourhoods during the last Anthillhacks event which was well received by the participants and the villagers. Later they had wanted some regular income and started as a cook and kitchen help at the Iruway farm. They would update us of the stories, issues and struggles on a regular basis. This included issues with the mesh network and very often they would inform us that a node is turned off as the owner of the house has cut off power to the node in spite of us sharing the power bill. We heard their struggle of getting admissions for their kids in the colleges. Stories of women who lost jobs because of the pandemic, even the struggles of getting daily wage jobs in the field during summers and heavy rains. They came asking us to do something that provided them additional income.

We introduced them to a textile designer who did a training workshop for the group of women at the craft center. We noticed another familiar face, a young woman we know, at the workshop. She had just completed her highschool with high scores but her family patriarchs had banned her from attending college. Her older sister had eloped and this girl was punished. Girls are kept busy in the village with jobs that are mundane and earn basic income for the family. She is discouraged to participate in learning new skills or to express their creative aspirations. The group of women at the workshop empathised with her. She sneaked in often to learn and observe whenever she could get away. Also as the craft center space encouraged women to bring their kids along, we noticed that “taking care” of her cousins' kids who come to the craft training was acceptable by her family.

We noticed that some of the young women from the FTP space in a more dalit village were able to engage with creative activities. Women were expressing their aspirations to their parents and neighbours on their street and at the same time boys were not hesitating in exhibiting their artistic and storytelling talents! Some of their work was exhibited at the craft center for parents and villagers to see. Craft center node is used by women for learning about designs, colours and watching videos of how things are made and marketed. FTP space included regular engagement by Open Studio and Ambedkar Community Computing Centre mentors who helped bring out a strong validation of the individuals in spite of their historically oppressed “caste” experiences outside their village. Most people near the craft center will not eat in a plate if that was used by people from this village. We now experienced young women from this village also participating in the block printing workshop.

A natural activity that resulted after each day at the craft center was that the women video recorded the activity. The women learn from each other and talk also about how the video was made, they admire video editing and the music or voice they added to these. They shared these among the village community and also to their friends outside. They also realised that the portal page was useful for “publicly” sharing their work with the village community. There were women from different villages in COWMesh who were now not identified by caste but by their creative abilities. This was positively affecting the women as they got feedback from the villagers which in turn got other women interested in block printing activity - some of them are tailors too. It was not all positive in terms of feedback from the fellow women in their neighborhoods. Sridevi is taunted for having gone to the other village to help with kitchen work, wearing a long dress - "the nightie" - when they watch her in the videos. They question their values as they explore the possible avenues for additional income.

Sridevi is Ramya's mother. A few years ago Ramya was known in the village as the girl incharge of Community Radio work and became infamous when she one day disappeared from the village. She had run away with a young man from another town. She was just about 18. Police searched them down and brought her back to the village. The family married her off to a distant relative. She now lives in another village and has a baby. Many in the village pointed their fingers at how the Community Radio work had given her the freedom and were upset with the CR being in the village. We had to shutdown the CR activity before COVID - about 3 years ago. Family of Ramya never blamed the CR for their "misfortune". They kept in touch with us. Ramya's mother and grandfather were active supporters of mesh network and the CR work. Sridevi's son is one of the students who relied on COWMesh for online education during COVID. Roopa family is a relatively new entry to the village and is active in finding ways to earn their livelihood through cooking activities. Her daughter is the first in their family to have gotten admission to a graduate college. They are proud of her but are faced with new expenses.

We then noticed that they were not complaining about network failure as they did before but became proactive in maintenance and when necessary they got their youth to climb and fix power wires, align antennas and to update us of network issues they could not handle.

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