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Bezwada Wilson (born 1966) is an Indian activist and one of the founders and National Convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), an Indian human rights organization that has been campaigning for the eradication of manual scavenging. He is well known as one of the leading figures of the Dalit movement in India. His work at SKA, a community-driven movement, has been recognized by the Ashoka Foundation which has nominated him a Senior Fellow.〔http://www.ashoka.org/fellow/6012〕 == Early life == Bezwada was born in 1966 in the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) in Karnataka in Southern India. He is the youngest child of Rachel Bezwada and Jacob Bezwada, both members of the Thoti caste, one of the historically discriminated and untouchable castes of India. His father began working for the township in 1935 as a ''safai karamchari'', also called a manual scavenger, manually removing night soil from dry toilets. He attempted to find other manual labor, but was unsuccessful. His eldest brother also worked as a manual scavenger in the Indian railways for four years and then ten years in KGF Gold mines township. Bezwada went to upper primary school in Andhra Pradesh and stayed in the hostel for Scheduled Castes. He went to high school and intermediate in Kolar and Hyderabad. In school he was teased by the other students, who called him ‘thoti’, which meaning 'scavenger'. His parents told him that he was teased as such because of a “thoti” (a huge garbage bin) beside their house. When he discovered his parents' true occupation, he contemplated suicide.〔Buncombe, Andrew, The 'untouchable' Indians with an unenviable job, The Independent, Oct. 15, 2010, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-untouchable-indians-with-an-unenviable-job-2106970.html〕 Bezwada graduated in Political Science in (R Ambedkar Open University,Hyderabad ) Bezwada became involves in community service, especially youth programs. He saw that many children dropped out of school and then took up scavenging. He believed that if he helped the children complete school and take vocational training they could keep away from scavenging. During this period his brother took him to the employment exchange to register. The government officer filled in the desired occupation as “scavenger” without even asking him. This was his first personal experience of discrimination. In anger, he refused to submit the application and tore it up in front of all the employment exchange staff. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bezwada Wilson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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