Despite India's push to guarantee education to all children (RtE Act, 2009) only 33% of girls complete Class XII (Ministry of HRD). Education is one of the key areas for girls/ women empowerment. We, at VRDS, have been promoting girls' education, to prevent child labour, child marriage and other abuses, and promote gender equality as part of our holistic effort towards community development in Haveri district of Karnataka. We seek your support to educate 100+ girl children through our project.
Girls face multiple barriers to education caused by poverty, cultural norms and practices, lack of access of quality education services. The communities that we work with traditionally restrict girls to domestic work, giving little or no importance to sending girls to school. This manifests as girls engaged in child labour, besides doing household chores, taking care of their younger siblings, eventually leading to child marriage and early pregnancy, and various forms of gender based violences.
At VRDS, we understand that education is a basic human right and girls' education is a strategic development priority. We ensure not only enrollment of the girls but also completion of school over a multi-year interventional approach. We will provide basic necessities like school supplies, toiletries, etc to encourage them to go to school. We will also campaign to remove barriers like child labour, child marriage and poverty by giving awareness to parents and enhance their economic status.
A girl's education is an essential starting point in establishing equality in a nation. Girls from underprivileged and vulnerable communities are not receiving equal access to primary education in India and therefore are not achieving equality. We, at VRDS, hope that by giving education to these girls, they become informed citizens, leading the way not for their own development, but also improvement of their families and empower the nation as a whole.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
