The Reliance Foundation and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) have joined hands to come up with a book, The First Responders: Women Who Led India Through The Pandemic, to celebrate 25 women who showed immense leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic by working at the grassroots across India. The book was launched during a special panel at the Raisina Dialogue 2022 event, held in New Delhi, in the presence of international delegates from over a 100 countries. The panel, titled The First Responder: Women Leadership and the SDGs, consisted of illustrious speakers like Smt Smriti Zubin Irani, the Minister for Women and Child Development; Ms Kwati Candith, Deputy Minister, International Relations and Co-operation, South Africa; Ms Waseqa Ayesha Khan, Member of Parliament, Bangladesh; Dr Vanita Sharma, Advisor, Strategic Initiatives, Reliance Foundation; and Mr Shombi Sharp, Resident Coordinator, India, United Nations.
The First Responders documents the untold stories of real-life heroes, 25 women whose stories have been sourced from across the Reliance Foundation and the Observer Research Foundation’s ecosystems and NGO partner organisations spread around India. The book makes a significant effort to draw the spotlight on the achievements of these women, which have unfortunately remained under-reported.
The publication highlights their relentless efforts towards ensuring the welfare of their communities during what has clearly been the most tumultuous and devastating global issue in recent years. While sharing their stories of bravery and resolve for public service, the book also draws your attention towards key political, developmental and policy lessons that can be gleaned from these stories. The practices, methods and tools used in the book can also steer policymakers and development practitioners towards better capacity building for women leaders. It also exemplifies the outcomes envisaged in the fifth goal defined in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Covering six regions of the country, the book showcases some major areas of work—governance, education, skilling, health and nutrition, entrepreneurship and livelihoods. Here are some key lessons learned from the book, that activists and policymakers should take note of:
• We need to build ecosystems of awareness that incubate women’s intrinsic ability to lead, which in turn can materialise into local development and ensure much higher degrees of replicability.
• We need to promote sustainable livelihoods for women, especially through self-help groups which have proved to be impactful models of economic independence.
• We must collaborate at the individual, group and institutional levels, simultaneously and harmoniously, to create more women’s collectives and multi-level collaborations to everyone’s benefits.
• We need to build trust-based relationships within communities with the help of these women leaders to heighten information-sharing, effective communication, stakeholder engagement and dialogue at the grassroots level.
• A major highlight of these stories is the fact that these women were frontline workers who helped communities with their humanity at a time when the human touch itself was considered dangerous—which in turn highlights the need to improve the healthcare system. This can only be done through positive action and active communication with the communities which have been hit worst.
• We must ensure women’s right to live with dignity, the lack of which is a major challenge all these women first responders encountered during their own journeys and that of the communities they were working with.