Women Healing Women: A Model of Hope for Oppressed Women Everywhere

As I opened the first pages of the book I was in the “literary critic” mind-frame.  It wasn’t long before I had left that mind-set and became caught up in the shocking and deeply inspiring content of the story the book tells us.  By the time I finished the book I was totally engrossed in the horrible and wonderful conditions and events portrayed throughout the book.  And I kept thinking of person after person whom I wanted to read the book.  William Keepin and Cynthia Brix are not professional writers but the stories they tell don’t require any literary polishing to make them compelling.  The dramatic impact is inherent in the simple facts of the story they tell.Though I have long known of the caste system in India, I had not been aware of how cruelly barbaric the patriarchal culture has been and still is.  It is made clear in the Introduction where the authors state, “Every year in India thousands of women are doused in kerosene and set ablaze.  Unwed mothers are abandoned on the streets to starve and often commit suicide.  Teenage girls are brutally raped and forever banished from their families.”  The legal system does not help these women.Sister Lucy joined the Sisters of the Cross convent some years before but had not felt fully satisfied with her service.  After a transfer to the city of Pune, she met Sister Noelline Pinto who had established a small project called HOPE Center (Human Organization for Pioneering in Education), which helped low income women to gain modest employment.  Sister Lucy was inspired and, following some resistance from her own superiors, was eventually allowed to join project HOPE.  A couple of years later, during her evening prayers a loud scream came from nearby.  She rushed out to find a young woman just doused with kerosene and set afire by her angry husband who had then fled.  She was a woman who had come seeking help a few days earlier.  Sister Lucy had embraced her and told her she would seek help for her.  The woman soon died, with burns over 90% of her body.  Filled with both horror and remorse, Lucy soon thereafter made the decision that would result some few years later in the creation of Maher, which is an Indian word meaning “Mother’s Home”, which opened it’s doors in 1997.  If some elements are left out the story of how Maher grew from that miniscule beginning to the point where a group of its children who had become skilled dancers    had a glorious trip to England where they thrilled huge crowds with their exquisite rendition of beautifully intricate dances from ancient India might seem one grand and glorious success story.  Similar highly touted trips were made to high class theaters in Mumbai and to 7000 local people in their own neighborhood of Pune, where they were all also fed.  But Maher exists in the real world, and in that world Lucy and the great crowd of people who became caught up in her vision and who helped her in countless ways had to struggle again and again against what appeared to be insurmountable odds.  The obstacles included religious people who were confused and bothered by her policy of complete openness to persons of all or no religious faith.  Another barrier has been her absolute refusal to provide any of the many bribes expected for the approval of her many projects by local government agencies.  Indian society is highly corrupt, and bribes are just part of the normal process of getting things done.  But not for Lucy!.  Not for Maher!Women Helping Women is also useful in some degree as a reference book, listing data in the Appendix that would not occur in a book written just as an interesting story.The authors have written a powerful book about a subject very pertinent to our present world, one that needs to get a wide audience.  It is a story that very much deserves highly professional video treatment, perhaps including what could be a thrilling movie.