Ramsakhi Ahirwar- Khamaria Village, Jaisinagar Block, Sagar District, MP Born on 1 April 1980, Ramsakhi has fought many social and administrative foes which have always plagued her community.She is a hardcore feminist and works on women empowerment and gender issues. She works with the NGO SRIJAN Society to promote grassroots initiatives that help people become self reliant.She has travelled to various parts of the country working with NGO’s empowering women. She makes 2500 ‘bidis’ per day to earn her and her family’s livelihood. She is the only earning member of her household of five people including her three kids. She makes 1200Rs per month by Bidi-rolling and a couple hundred more in overtime. Irrespective of all the hardships, she keeps her time off to work for the community. She’s the Secretary of the Sagar Shree Mahila Mahasangh that aims to empower the community women and help each other by taking joint action. With SRIJAN, an acronym for Self Reliant Initiative for Joint Action, Ramsakhi has been working on developing and promoting the grassroots initiatives bringing the community together in a co-dependent scheme that leads these people self reliance. Ramsakhi says that development is almost stagnant in rural areas and even if there is any it takes a very long time for the government schemes to be implemented. Except that development can not only be promoted by NGO’s, foreign grants or charity, they need a larger frame on a smaller level, hence the joint action initiative which she supports. She is very dedicated to her work and believes in development of the society as a whole instead of the more preferred self-development option. The decision to join Video Volunteers was not hers and she was led by her community women to see what it is about. But after the training she says that it was one of the most comprehensive training which ended in her acquiring the knowledge to operate a video camera and to present the stories and the issues in the deeper and unknown parts of the country to the world. Empowering herself and her community with the new means to fight injustice, discrimination and other issues in her region, she hopes to put development in a steady motion and create a better future for their coming generations. About the Partnership: The Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) Programme and Video Volunteers have come together to create the Community Correspondents Network. The videos generated by the network will be able to highlight voices from the margins, providing skills to social communicators to provide advocacy tools to community based organizations.