By K.R.Renuka | Director
Centre for Women’s Development and Research
Education to Empower 500 Women and Adolescent Girls
The final Report
‘Education to Empower 500 women and Adolescent Girls’ is a rich learning experience for us and of course for the women and adolescent girls. India has the largest youth population in the world. But adolescents particularly the girls are the most neglected group in India. For us being a women’s organization we see adolescent girls as tomorrow’s women. These generations of adolescent girls are the first generation school goers, most of their parents are illiterates. These girls also belong to the modern information technology world, and they are open for change. Working with them helped us to energize ourselves; it gave us lot of hope and confidence that it is possible to achieve gender equality and just society. On behalf of the women, Adolescent girls and our organization we thank each and every individual who supported our effort through global giving to educate and empower women and adolescent girls.
Education and income generation programme for women: This project was the continuation of our Tsunami rehabilitation work. We have tried so many income generation activities to increase the income of women because we believe that the first step towards women’s empowerment is economic self-sufficiency. After so many unsuccessful attempts finally learning from our experiences we had introduced bio-kitchen gardens as an activity to increase the income of women. That worked because women already had the skills, they do not have to go out of home, they can do it at any time. Even if they are not able to sell their produce they can consume their produce like vegetables and fruits that helps them to improve their family members health and also save money on their expenditure. Actually we have planned to help 500 women but we could able to exceed the target and could able to help nearly 900 women that is 900 families out of that nearly half of them are women headed families. Initially we organized income generation programs like palm leaf product making, food processing, and handicrafts. 500 women were given training and small loans were given to start new business or to strengthen their present business activities. But in the midway from our experiences and learning’s we changed the activities and introduced bio-kitchen gardens and trained women in raising kitchen garden, backyard poultry, beekeeping and that really worked. Nearly 900 women were trained and all of them have created kitchen garden in their homes. Most of these trainings were organized in their villages, some interested women were sent to other trainings organized by the Agricultural University extension centre, and other farms. We have organized beekeeping and vermi-compost making training in our training centre. We have also created model kitchen gardens in our centre so that women can visit and learn. Now we are in the process of creating a producers company to help them further.
Life skill, sexuality education and vocational skill training for adolescent girls: This also we have planned for 500 girls and but we could able to train nearly 1000 girls. We have organized weekend workshops on lifeskill and sexuality education for adolescent girls. We have initiated ‘Snehidhi’ an association for adolescent girls and this programme is implemented through them. They were also provided computer skill training, folk arts like dance and songs. They were motivated to involve in their village development activities. Most of them helped their mothers to create kitchen gardens in their homes. During the last 2 years we have also started providing lifeskill and sexuality education for adolescent boys nearly 300 boys benefitted from this programme. We had also provided life skill and sexuality education in schools in our working area nearly 1500 girls and 500 boys benefited from this activity. Almost all the girls who are member of ‘Snehidhi’ were continuing their education without dropping out from schools. Earlier they used to drop out mostly when they reach puberty. This year 5 girl started attending college, out of that 2 have joined for bachelor of engineering course, earlier they were not send to college because there is no college in their area. Now the girls are sent to colleges and they study by staying in the hostels or relations houses.
This successful experience motivates us further to continue the process of women’s and girls empowerment. In fact all these were possible because of Globalgiving’s support and each and every one who donated for this project. Once again we Thank you for your support. We could able to collect 95% of our target funding for this project so we are deactivating this project from global giving project. But of course our work with women and adolescent girl will continue.
As a next step we have created a new project “ Lifeskill and Sexuality Education for 1000 girls-India’’. This project in addition to provide life skill and sexuality education for girls also help 1000 girls to become graduates. So that they can postpone their marriage to the age of 21 years and also find better employment. We also work with the mothers of these 1000 girls. We request all of you to visit this project in Global Giving site and continue your support for us in our attempt to educate and empower women and girls. Please visit: http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/life-skill-education-for-1000-adolescent-girls/
By K.R.Renuka | Director
By K.R.Renuka | Director
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