Salpai Majhi, a proud and confident tribal woman leader, has a wonderful story to tell, “Since ages, we have depended on the forest to run our homes.We have been collecting grass from the forest and making brooms that have been a valuable source of income, particularly when our men cannot find work as labourers on the nearby farms. But, until some years back, we were compelled to sell the brooms at a meagre price to the middlemen and petty traders who came to us. Then we decided to take things into our own hands and we fought hard to get our due recognition and secure our rights. This became possible only through Ama Sangathan.”

For generations, men in the adivasi families living in and around Kashipur block in Odisha’s Rayagada district have worked as labourers while the womenfolk have trudged into the dense forests to collect grass which they use to make brooms. Until a decade ago, the women quietly did all the back-breaking work and then simply handed over the finished product to the exploitative middlemen and traders who offered them a pittance whilst making good money themselves.

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