On 15th February, Thamari Kalanjiam celebrated its 18th Kalanjiam birthday by promoting a new Kalanjiam with new generation members. When the new women went with the plate containing vermilion and the sacred ash to the existing Kalanjiam members, one of the elderly women satirically said, ‘Are you going to seek our blessing?’ The instantaneous reply from the new member was, ‘It is worth seeking the blessings of the Kalanjiam members.

The Thamari Kalanjiam is one among hundreds of Women Kalanjiams of Karumbalai Vattara Kalanjiam, a Federation of Women Self Help Groups in Madurai Urban Region, Tamil Nadu. Thamari Kalanjiam of Kizhakku theru cluster, was promoted in 2002 in an area where 15 poor families resided. The area shares its neighborhood with the upper class communities like KK Nagar and Anna Nagar. All these 15 families were ultra-poor, where the men in the family worked as wage labours and women worked as domestic workers in the adjacent upper class neighborhood KK Nagar and Anna Nagar.

Every family has their own unique miserable poverty stories that they have shared while they joined in Kalanjiam. But today i.e., after 18 years, their persistent hard work and the timely financial services availed through Kalanjiam has reaped the benefits. Now, four families are having their own individual houses. Fifteen had collectively purchased individual plots near Kamaraj Engineering College, Vellakulam in the outskirts of Madurai. They availed one of their bank loans for purchasing the plots and they purchased collectively so that the plot price can be negotiable. Few members who are in a position to afford additional plots, had purchased two to three plots additionally.

Two decades before, if you have asked them, did they have ever imagined to buy a plot in their name, to live under a house of their own, the answer would have been NO! This is just one example among the thousands which shows how Kalanjiam has been transforming the lives of women members.