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. There are many beneficiaries who are in need of our services, thus in the last quarter we have had a maximum strength of around 75 Udaan girls at our two centers.

There have been 5 new enrollments in this quarter. These enrollments open up the path towards improvement for our beneficiaries. Being part of the Udaan family, our beneficiaries have access to the shelter home and night barding facility as part of their rehabilitative measure. They also have access to both formal and informal education, overall health assistance, life skill training and vocational training. We also focus on the overall development and stability of the beneficiary hence we provide them awareness about various issues.

Education:

This quarter, we have continued with our new classes the “Friday Sessions” where the tuition teachers have a discussion on various subjects. The objective of these sessions is to clarify fundamentals of the subjects every week, so that the base becomes strong in those subjects. This is a group activity, where all the beneficiaries of that group can be made aware about each other’s weaknesses and help each other to overcome these weaknesses.

This quarter we have covered the sessions on benefits of mediation, girl empowerment and writing. We have also emphasized more on tuitions, where we have conducted regular monthly assessments of 75 beneficiaries. There were special timetables made in order to support girls for their studies. We also conduct tuition teacher’s meeting on weekly basis in order to get an overall view about the performance of students through the assessments conducted and to discuss the regular plans of the teacher.

During this quarter the girl’s focus have been on studying for their mid-semester exams that took place in the beginning of November. Regular school visits and follow-ups have been done in order to get new admissions done along with assessing the beneficiaries’ performance and to motivate parents to continue sending their girls to school.

Multiple spoken English classes and some computer sessions have taken place at the center. While the spoken English classes concentrated primarily on developing the grammar and social skills of our beneficiaries, the computer classes aimed at enhancing their understanding of Microsoft Word, Excel and Paint tools and Internet search.

 Health and Nutrition:

At AAWC, we place utmost importance on the health and nutritional aid provided to our beneficiaries. Knowing 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 health related issues , providing medical support by conducting 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. The team also regularly records the height and weight of the beneficiaries through a growth chart, which helps them understand the level of physical development of the beneficiary. As part of our Nutrition Aid, 5 times nutrition and 1 time multivitamins are regularly provided to more than 63 Udaan beneficiaries.

Lions Club organized a health camp in association with AAWC where almost all of our 75 beneficiaries took part. In addition, this quarter, with their help, we conducted monthly medical checkups and it was noticed that the beneficiaries mildly suffered from cold and cough. A few health issues were detected during the health camp. However, none was of major distress.

Night-shelter:

When our outreach workers did an assessment it was made evident that, the brothel owner /other close-knit community members lured many adolescent girls of Kamathipura into the flesh trade. These brothels are the spaces where their mothers (and the girls themselves, often) are 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. Hence, we recognized the need to provide a safe and secured space for our beneficiaries.

Thus, we run a night shelter where 39 adolescent girls avail this facility. Our night shelter beneficiaries participate in all our educational, health and empowerment-based activities along with the usual extra-curricular, recreational visits and celebrations held at the center during the day.

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, we helped in creating 17 Aadhar cards (social security number card) for the beneficiaries.

To inculcate a sense of responsibility, we have a system of weekly “house on duties”, where different groups of girls are made and these groups are assigned to monitor and implement different chores of the shelter on a weekly rotation basis. This includes maintaining their own spaces, sorting and organizing the materials that they use, ensuring sanitation & personal hygiene etc. The duties keep on shuffling on a weekly rotation basis. These different activities help them in building their confidence in organizing and understanding the importance of different duties in life & preparing them to be independent in future.

In this quarter, regular Udaan girls’ monthly meeting was conducted, wherein discussions about the various rules, do’s and don’ts’ for the day and night activities were discussed with an aim of developing a more learning and role-modeling conducive environment from big Udaan girls to younger beneficiaries. They were also told about the assessment of their subjects and what improvements they need to make in order to perform well.

Regular mother’s meetings took place in order to discuss the Udaan beneficiaries’ performance in the school and in the shelter home and discuss the parent’s involvement in the beneficiaries’ education, motivation and morale.

During these meetings, we have helped mothers to get identification documents for their children, such as the Aadhar Cards. During the November’s mothers meeting we had a volunteer visit from Public Awareness for Healthful Approach for Living (PAHAL) he presented about Hepatitis B its causes and the vaccination for it through which it can be prevented. The elder Udaan girls were a part of this meeting.

Life skill Sessions / (personal safety education):

Sessions were conducted on the topics like  The Indian Constitution and life skill which was conducted by our intern Hila the sessions covered the topics of self-love, friendship, decision-making, body image etc.

Regular Udaan- Umang sessions were also conducted where the group of Udaan beneficiaries would conduct a small interactive session with the Umang beneficiaries, in order to develop a healthy peer-relationship. They would discuss about good behaviors and respecting elders. In order to make the sessions more creative, we conduct different activities such as activities to understand facial expressions, teach patriotic songs etc. This would develop their peer-relationships better.

Junior Shakti sessions are being conducted for girls in the age group of 6-10 years of age. These sessions comprises of stories with animate characters, which the children find funny, and interesting through which the main objective is to talk about moral values, identify skills in one self & personality development of the girls. In this quarter, the stories that were covered were “Sundarban ki Ek Raat” “Murga Aur Suraj” “Ru Ru Raag”. The girls are enjoying these sessions and are able to identify the morals & learning’s being imparted through these sessions. There are also activities conducted post the sessions, which help them, remember the morals better.

Senior Shakti sessions are conducted for girls who are in the age group of 11-16 years. These sessions comprise of Seema-Raja story which discuss about the risk and challenges that a girl has to face in her adolescent age and how to take the right decision, which will ensure their safety in the long run.

These sessions emphasize on empowering the girls and help them make their own choices about their life by providing them information about the pros and cons of it. The girls have also completed various post session activities through which they have created their own safety plans, which include identifying their trusted adult in times of need, having emergency contact no & recognizing safe spaces in unsafe situations. They have prepared career plans and steps to achieve them. The girls also get in role-plays where they take different roles of the child and different stakeholders and discuss about situations in their daily life and how to overcome them. The girls have started enjoying these sessions & keep looking forward to it.

This quarter we had a visit from a group of students from the Center for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies (CERES) in Melbourne who came and took a session with the girls on having fun with technology. They had brought different technological gadgets such as laptops, I pads, radio-controlled toys, cellphones and VR-glasses, which they showed the girls on how to play with. The girls really enjoyed this session, especially the VR-glasses that took them out to space to experience the solar system.

 Extra-curricular activities:

“I love karate class and I do not want to miss it.” – Udaan Beneficiary

This quarter, we have held many extra-curricular activities like theater classes, computer classes, English speaking sessions, music classes, fashion designing classes and dance classes. Theatre classes were conducted under the topics of: Story Building, reading of play and trust games. In music class, the girls have been singing the song, which is a classic Scottish folk song “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean”, and in design class, the girls are learning different embroidery designs. Girls really enjoy the dance and karate classes on Saturdays and Sundays.

In this quarter, we also had a visit from our partner organization ‘Gilbarco’ who came along with their staff and volunteers to perform a magic show.  They also made paintings for the children. They brought tasty snacks and donated clothes both to our Udaan girls and to Umang toddlers.

During their Diwali break, 6 Udaan beneficiaries visited National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) for a craft session on photo-frame making. The results were stunning and the girls enjoyed their excursion a lot.  Theatre Act presented a comic show on 12^th December, which was enjoyed by our Udaan girls.

On 29^th December, our Udaan beneficiaries were taken to the ISRO Centre for an exhibition as part of their exposure visit. The exhibition exhibited Satellite Aditya, which will soon be launched, as Satellite Aditya will be the closest satellite to record Sun's croma.  The main aim of this exhibition was to attract kids and children towards science and space studies. Our beneficiaries tried their best to understand the models but they did face challenge in understanding the language used for explanation.

The girls also had their annual sports day in this quarter during which our girls received awards in forms of medals & certificates in various activities in school.

 Additionally this quarter, all staff at both of our centers had participated in session on the Juvenile Justice Act 2015 and a POCSO session where the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence Act from 2012 was discussed. Both these trainings were very successful and staff gave positive feedback and requested for more such trainings in the future.

Celebrations:

Many lovely celebrations have taken place this quarter. In October, we celebrated Navratri and Dusherra wherein we celebrated Navratri by playing garba and Dusherra was celebrated by performing various plays. In the month of November, we celebrated Diwali where elder girls had prepared a wonderful show from things that they have learned in their extracurricular-activities. They performed several stories in form of plays, they did dance performances, and they sang and had organized games for younger Udaan girls and toddler in which the Umang children participated.

Girls also attended a Diwali festival celebration on 3^rd of November organized by “Salam Mumbai” at Mahalakshmi Race Course. There they were given gifts and enjoyed the singing and dancing competition. After Diwali celebration and mid-term exams, they all appreciated a three-week holiday from school.

Children’s day was celebrated on 14th November; an activity was conducted wherein a video screening of moral stories took place teaching the girls about child rights. The videos were based on child labor and its ill effects, importance of education, nature, good behavior and habits.

We had Christmas celebration in the month of December, wherein the older beneficiaries explained about why Christmas is celebrated, they sang Christmas carols gave dance performance and played Secret Santa. The beneficiaries were provided with snacks. The entire program was entertaining and full of information about Christmas. At the end of the celebration, our older Udaan beneficiaries presented the votes of thanks.

 Pictures of Udaan beneficiaries’ activities and celebrations: