(she is presently associated with Chintan International Trust-India)
She is an illiterate but highly educated and intelligent woman. A woman with real leadership qualities and is an inspiration for everyone. She is a single woman. Her husband died last year after a long illness. She has been working for the past 30 years saving seeds, protecting community forests through her sheer grit, determination and courage. Despite facing lot of challenges, she has not left cultivating her traditional crops and varieties and has played an integral role in creating the first traditional seed bank in her area. She is in the process of creating her second seed bank now, involving women of her village and nearby villages. According to her, she, along with other woman in her village, are protecting their invaluable seeds, for present as well as posterity, “without seeds we are no where”. “seeds represent our culture”-she says (she still has the rare millet seed called- cheena and shared it’s seeds with save seed campaign leader-jardhari ji). She is protecting them, most importantly by cultivating them in her fields and consuming them. She has been advocating protection of these seeds, not only for their high level of nutrition, but also because they help in responding better to climate vagaries and most importantly, according to her ,people have a right over these resources and with out them, they will become dependent on market and other powerful forces and would end up becoming puppets in their hands- she strongly believes..