Sandhaya Roy (Bangladesh)


 

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“I started my career with a dream-that I will work for the people and bring about a change in society. I still believe that change is possible. I work hard for that change.”

Sandhaya Roy (born 1954) was only 17 when she left home to help soldiers wounded in the 1971 Bangladesh war. The end of the war found Sandhya far too immersed in her work to return home. Instead, she joined Gonoshasthya Kendra (which means people’s health center-GK), an NGO working to establish a people-centered health system. For more than 30 years now, she has been challenging gender stereotypes, fighting fundamentalists who wish to keep her down, and working toward her dream of a holistic health system.

Sandhaya Roy was a young women when the 1971 Bangladesh war for liberation from Pakistan began. In response to a call from some doctors, she left home and school at age 17 to join rescue and treatment operations. The end of the war left Sandhya with the realization that she was way too deep in her work to return home or complete her studies. In 1972, a group of doctors set up GK. Impressed by GK’s vision of a people-centered health system, Sandhaya decided to pitch in. It was implicit to the GK team that trained paramedics were needed to get healthcare to the people. Sandhaya was part of the first batch to receive paramedical training. Her work with GK has been pathbreaking in several ways: she came up with the idea that women should train to be drivers and operate broilers-both jobs that would challenge prevalent gender stereotypes. Her work is also driven by her conviction that the impoverished and the disempowered can be agents of change, and not merely passive recipients of aid. While the decision on what kind of work she wished to do came easily to Sandhaya, living the life she chose did not. In addition to almost mandatory threats and violence, Sandhaya has also had to brave people’s prejudices against a single woman in a nontraditional profession. She says, “After independence, I started my career with a dream-that I will work for the people and bring about a change in society. I still believe that change is possible. I work hard for that change.”

 

Update from 2015:

When you enter the vast area of Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK) in Savar, it strikes you immediately: in almost all positions which usually are occupied by men in Bangladesh, you see women. There are female guards, there are female students riding bikes, there are women hammering and welding metal in the training workshops.

This, to a vast extent, is the merit of Sandhaya Roy.

Sandhaya Roy has been working with and for GK for more than 40 years now. GK has become her family, her life: « I feel this is my home and my family. We are a very big family. My own family mostly migrated to India. But I don’t feel alone. »

In 2015, as Executive Director, Human Resource and Women Development, Sandhaya’s responsibilities are vast and manifold. Over the years, they became more and more.

The Nari Kendra: centre for women’s vocational training, still lies closest to her heart. It was approved by Bangladesh government. The Nari Kendra played a pioneering role in training for women in non-traditional occupations. It offers training in motor driving, shoe making, carpentry, welding, plumbing, boiler operation, book binding and printing, making of fiber glass reinforced plastic products, sewing and handicraft.  If necessary, women are also provided with literacy classes, as many of them are illiterate. A new extension to the training centre are the training courses in computer, which are open for women and men.

Sandhaya’s dream of helping to make the society a better one, is the driving force behind her work. “We are working for all. We expect the society to remember the poor people. We train poor people and show them how to develop humanity. They will then help other people.” She continues: “After the liberation of the country, we were relieved. But as women, we still suffer in many ways. Educated or non educated women suffer the same way. Women get beaten by husbands or by their families. Traditionally, women are still considered to be lower in the society.”

Sandhaya Roy had to fight against many prejudices and all odds to enable women to get access to jobs which are traditionally considered men’s jobs. She had to discuss, she was threatened, they denounced her by writing on walls, saying she was against social order. But despite all this, Sandhaya never gave up. She says: “We have to face the critic of the society, but we do not care about it. We go on. It will be appreciated one day.”

Today, she can proudly look back to many success stories. The first woman driver in Bangladesh, who was trained by GK, is now working for the director of UNICEF in Bangladesh. Other women drivers managed to open their own businesses, like Maleka who suffered at the hands of her violent husband and the local transport association. These stories give Sandhaya the strength to not give up.

Looking into the future, Sandhaya is convinced that GK will go on.” There are good women and men here who will run this project nicely.”

 

South Asia | Bangladesh