P. Viji, the State president of Asanghatitha Meghala Thozhilali Union (AMTU), has received many awards in honour of her work to uphold the dignity of women. She is a renowned name in the field of social work and women upliftment. She hails from the Kozhikode village and is the State president of Asanghatitha Meghala Thozhilali Union (AMTU).
WINGS (Women Integration and Growth Through Sports) Kerala, an organization that is a fellow fighter of P.Viji, decided to gift Ms. Viji a house, as she did not have a roof to keep a large number of mementos and awards.
“There is no better reward for the woman who was at the forefront to uphold our rights to have toilets and also the right to sit at our workplaces,” said Deepa P.M., former secretary of WINGS Kerala.
In 2018, BBC had selected Ms Viji as one of the 100 women to bring about substantial change in the world, in their list of ‘BBC 100 Women’. She was one of the three Indian women included in the honoured list.
She is a tailor by profession and a social activist with a grassroots background. She hails from a nominal family. Her father was a bus driver and her mother worked as a house help. In 2018 she was associated with Penkootu which is an organisation working on women’s rights.
In her major fights to uphold women dignity, she had worked towards building toilets for women, allowance of female sales workers to sit in the office and ensuring reasonable wages for community organisers of Kudumbashree which was initially 1500 INR per month and is currently 28000 INR.
With the efforts of WINGS, A civic committee was formed with Preman Tharavattath as convenor and Sudha Haridwar as treasurer in order to construct a new house for the lady.
Two years ago, a piece of land near Palazhi costing about 10 lakh INR was bought. A lot of public funding contributions filled the cost for the organisation.
The house is will be handed over to Viji on October 27 by WINGS Kerala president N. Vinaya in the presence of secretary Prasanna Parvathi and well-wishers from all over the State, including Father Augustine Vattoli and poet VM Girija who played major roles in realising the project.
