Mumbai: With Women’s Day being celebrated across the world today, stories of their achievements, trials, and tribulations, will remain a point of discussion.

Though many women journalists play a significant part in making these stories happen and bringing them to the limelight, their perspectives remain unheard especially if they are formed outside the limits of major Indian cities.

Three women journalists, who have been covering India’s rural landscape across different states, through an online news platform Village Square have turned this scenario into an opportunity.

Monika Marandi, a former journalist with DD News, belongs to the Santhal tribe in Jharkhand. Born and brought up in Delhi, Monika witnessed that the national media was not covering tribal issues to the extent it should be and decided to do something about it.

“The internal issues of tribal communities, especially women, were not being focused upon or talked about so I left my job in 2017 and decided to meet with different communities across India. I have covered almost every state in the country and it took me around three years,” said Monika, who apart from contributing to Village Square is also the Founding Editor of Sakhua, which offers opportunities to tribal women to write their own stories.

Others like Aishwarya Mohanty, who worked as a reporter for a national newspaper in Gujarat and Odisha before the making shift to freelance journalism, feel the change is rather refreshing and enables women journalists to explore varied issues.

“I have always been interested in covering issues of Gender Intersectionality, Climate Change, and rural India. In Odisha, where stories often fail to grab national attention unlike Gujarat, UP, etc, I realised that it’s important to amplify the things going on in the state. As a woman, I only believe that I am adding to the perspective of marginalised communities and helping in making the voices more diverse,” stated Aishwarya, who has covered over 22 districts across Odisha and believes freelancing allows her to do in-depth research articles about various problems and aspects concerning the state.

Though Ladakh’s strategic location has often been significant to India’s defence and trade needs, the Union Territory’s failure to figure among a priority for Delhi media has made women journalists like Dawa Dolma take matters into their own hands.

“I was born and brought up in Ladakh and worked with a local newspaper before taking the route as an independent journalist because I understood that unique stories from the region can only be explored once I have more freedom in covering them,” asserted Dawa, who added that though some people in Ladakh have reservations about sharing their stories with reporters, they are welcoming and peaceful which makes talking to them easier.

The Village Square Journalists are rural media fellows under the Rural Media Fellowship Program. Youth Hub is a part of Village Square and together they fall under the umbrella of the Transforming Rural India Foundation (TRIF).

“The Rural Media Fellowship has been designed to empower and encourage young journalists to explore and write about rural India. Six out of our 10 media fellows are women from across the country. It is reassuring to see that more and more women journalists now want to represent India’s unheard majority. The fellowship provides an opportunity for these reporters to bring a fresh, inspirational perspective into rural lives.” – Sanjana Kaushik, Manager, Youth Hub.