Empower 100 Girls in Asia's Largest Red Light Area

Outreach: 

Our outreach team is the first and usually preferred point of contact between Apne Aap Women’s Collective and the community inhabiting Kamathipura and Falkland Road, the red-light districts of Mumbai. With the aid of our dedicated outreach team, this quarter saw about 15 new members joining our Udaan program.Upon enrollments, these beneficiaries have access to formal and informal education, all forms of assistance with their health (ex: referrals, camps, nutritional support, etc.), awareness activities, counseling and therapies, vocational training, life skills sessions, rehabilitative measures like night-shelter house and boarding homes, etc. amongst other general support.

 

Education:

This quarter, we have emphasized more on fun education activities than tuitions as the beneficiaries were having their summer holidays. We designed special timetable and allocated additional time for the children to be involved in interactive and fun learning games.From essay-writing skills to understanding newer concepts of Math, this quarter involved developing the existing understandings of the beneficiaries through extremely intrresting and playful formats. 

Along with this, multiple English classes and computer sessions were undertaken during the same tenure. While the spoken English classes concentrated primarily on developing the grammar and social skills of our beneficiaries, the computer classes were aimed at enhancing their understanding of Microsoft Word, Excel and Paint tools. One of the most interesting activity of our spoken English classes was the usage of newspapers to teach the written and oral nuances of English. All our beneficiaries have been enjoying this activity the most, especially since the chosen articles are often fun and relatable.

Since this quarter, we have also introduced regular GK classes for the beneficiaries. They have been having a lot of fun during the same, and can been often see questioning each other about the fact they learnt that day. This also helps them with confidence building and developing a health competition amongst themselves.

 

Health and Nutrition: 

At AAWC, we place utmost importance on the health and nutritional aid provided to our beneficiaries. Acknowledging the fact that all of our members are from a highly vulnerable and marginalized community, and live in environments that often trigger ill health- our activities range from spreading awareness on general hygiene, sanitation, and required medical support to holding quarterly health camps targeting specific ailments. We have also arranged periodic supply of sourdough breads, healthy salads and sandwiches, which complement the beneficiaries’ daily meals with varied tastes.

Along with this, we aid our beneficiaries with specialized awareness programs (ex: puberty and the ensuing bodily changes, gender and sexual education, medical treatments for contagious diseases, seasonal healthcare, etc.), routine medical referrals, nutritional aid provided through a well-designed diet chart, multivitamin and protein supplements, following up with hospitals and doctors, etc.

This quarter, about 60 of the Udaan girls (and other community adolescents) had the benefit of attending our health camp and around 80 medical referrals were made. Due to the timely intervention, multiple cases of general fever, common cold and skin infections were averted from developing into bigger health issues.

 

Counseling: 

‘I love attending the art classes, especially because we have a meditation time and the didi talks to us about how we are feeling. We also draw and color according to our moods, which is what in find most fun! I can literally draw anything based on what I’m feeling.” 

As part of her art therapy, one of our regular volunteers holds such simple activities to help our children process their feelings better. Especially considering the difficult backgrounds of our children, these sessions are highly beneficial for them to recognize their own emotions and work on them accordingly.

We have also collaborated with external mentoring organizations like, the Light House project and the Mentor Me India who conduct weekly, monthly and quarterly activities of various forms to target the various needs of adolescents. This quarter, our mentors held both indoor and outdoor sessions. From discussing behavioral changes like the ill habit of stealing, to introducing the children to a celebrated art festivals of Mumbai (Kala Ghoda) - these sessions were highly beneficial and important in supporting our children emotionally.


Night shelter: 

We also run our own rehabilitative night shelter for the most vulnerable toddlers and adolescents of women in prostitution. We recognized the need for such a space, when we assessed that a lot of adolescent girls of Kamathipura were lured into the flesh trade by the brothel owner/other close-knit community members that their mothers (and the girls themselves, often) were living under. Especially since the brothel owners would find it easier to trap a young girl already living in the community, than to traffic girls from other parts of the country- such a phenomenon has become rather common in the red-light districts of Mumbai.

Thus, we run a night shelter with a capacity for almost 35 adolescent girls and approximately 25 young toddlers. Our night shelter members participate in all our educational, health and empowerment-based activities along with the usual extra-curricular, recreational visits and celebrations held at the center.

This quarter, we enrolled around 7 new night shelter members, with 5Umang beneficiaries graduating to Udaan night shelter.

Empowerment: 

Along with recognizing the fundamental need for better health and education, we also work on empowerment in terms of vocational activities, identity-based documentation aid, life skills sessions and development of leadership skills through various extra-curricular. This quarter also- like in the earlier months, we helped creating a few Aadhar cards, birth certificates and Bank accounts as part of our documentation aid. Bank accounts, especially, are important in preventing the beneficiaries from being taken advantage of by their peers, community members and often their own fathers or mother’s partners. We realize that the Achilles heel of this community is the greed of money, and financial security is imperative for our Udaan beneficiaries to be saved from further exploitation.

We also held multiple vocational training activities, and one macro life skills session. This quarter, our senior Udaan staff attended a certified training course at an external organization; at this training, they were introduced to the many life skill sessions that could be arranged for the welfare of adolescent girls. Since, we have introduced daily life skill sessions titled ‘Senior Shakti (Hindi word for Strength)’ that work on creating bold and courageous girl children.

This quarter, we continued with our life skill sessions on on the themes of ‘personal safety and touch’. Multiple interactive discussions, one-on-one talks, and even a small ‘box of thoughts’ have been created as part of these sessions. The ‘box of thoughts’ is a safe space for the children to write down their concerns on their body, safety and touch anonymously. It has proven to be a great resource in providing timely support and intervention to the children.

One session took place with the younger girls of udaan, where a story of a farmer was shared to educate the children on farming and the importance of water and solar energy. This session also included teaching the beneficiaries about the importance of not wasting food and other hygienic behavior. We also screened the famous film, ‘I am Kalam’ which all the beneficiaries enjoyed deeply.

 

 

 

Meetings:

Adolescence is a complex phase, wherein a lot of external parties often have the scope to affect the process and further development into adulthood. Recognizing these intersections between the individual, familial and societal expectations and yardsticks- we hold regular meetings like the mother’s meeting, tuition teachers’ meetings, meeting with Udaan girls, and Udaan-Umang sessions. 

It is a cyclical design, which is aimed at providing a holistic support system to our adolescent Udaan girls. While the mothers’ meetings are targeted at bridging the gaps between the mothers and their children- who are sometimes left at the mercy of AAWC, the tuition teachers’ meetings are designed to grasp academic developments and challenges of the beneficiaries; the Udaan girls’ meetings are then held to discuss and deal with the outcomes of the mothers and teachers’ meetings. Upon this discussion, we work towards creating Udaan-Umang sessions, which tackle specific issues, led by the Udaan girls towards the Umang toddlers. 

Usually, we experience some challenges on this front with a few mothers unwilling to attend the meetings due to constraint on time, being unable to leave their brothels, sickness, financial priorities, addictions etc. Often, this is the largest gap in our beneficiaries’ lives-with their mothers being unable to give them the required affection and security. Hence, in our Udaan meetings and our subsequent Udaan-Umang sessions we prioritize to create a space of comfort, and further the emotions of care and responsibility amongst our Udaan girls towards our Umang toddlers. 


Extra-curricular activities: 

This quarter, we held many extra-curricular like theater classes, computer classes, English speaking sessions, and music classes. Though we understand the need to involve our Udaan beneficiaries in these activities, we also realize that overburdening them with the same is not a healthy practice. Hence, with consultation with our Udaan girls- we decided upon the above five activities for the current tenure. 

We have collaborated with Clowns Without Borders who hold weekly theatre session with our beneficiaries to teach acting skills, plus they also hold their own events wherein clowns from Sweden and India hold comical shows. Such shows often lead to respite from the everyday stress of adolescent lives. Theatre and music sessions work upon the self-esteem of our beneficiaries while being highly interactive; it also acts as a space for our adolescent girls to release their anxieties, repressions and excess energies. 

On the other hand, computer classes and English-speaking sessions are more academic in nature. This quarter, our beneficiaries revised the usage of Microsoft Excel, Word and Paint tools in the computer classes while they learnt of social skills and holding conversations in the English-speaking classes.

As this quarter was mainly summer time, all the beneficiaries had a great time playing indoor games, going to visit various museums planetarium, theater shows, garden visits, skill sessions etc. This quarter, the Udaan beneficiaries highly enjoyed investing their time and skills into quilling and made wonderful jewelry as part of this art form. Many of the visiting volunteers and other associates expressed their awe towards these pieces. They also had a great time learning fashion designing, wherein they are currently learning embroidery of various levels, baking, easy cooking and other summer-time activities like handwriting and drawing competitions.

 

Celebrations:

The highlight this quarter has been the felicitation ceremony held for Udaan beneficiaries.

Udaan Felicitation Day was celebrated this month with great pomp and show. Girls planned and performed various activities. Every year, this activity is observed before the beneficiaries start with their new/fresh school year.

This time, the girls started with a welcome song and then presented a role play of all the activities they were engaged in during the summer vacation, followed by mimicry and presentation all four leaders of the house on duty groups. 6 Umang girls who graduated to Udaan were welcomed and gifted school bags. They will be joining school in Sr.kg from this month.

Apart from this, we also held a Hindustani musical concert wherein our beneficiaries performed many beautiful raagas. This was held after being trained in it for 2 months by a trained singer and one of our volunteers.