Empower girls like Priti in slums in Pune, India

The project has reported back on progress for the second half of the year’s activities. The team has reported good progress. Below are some bullet point highlights from the report. 

Programme Manager's Summary

In November Karuna’s new programme manager, Lizzie Guiness visited the project to carry out a series of interviews with beneficiaries. She reported that the girls interviewed expressed clear understanding of child and women’s rights and had a clear sense of their future life direction and career options. Many girls expressed an interest in working in sectors that would support the transformation of women’s lives such as the law and the police. The girls also shared that they had been challenging views within their family around education and early marriage. Some of the young women, predominantly from Muslim families, shared that previously they had been forbidden by male relatives from leaving the home. Through the support workers engagement with the family, trust was developed and the girls were able to access training and support (particularly in sewing skills) and were keen to use any earnings from dress-making to support their own education in the future.

The project operates a successful volunteering program with links to the local international girl- guide centre and local companies. As a result of a series of volunteer placements the Trust received a donation of around £3,000 from a local tech company.

In November two members of the team participated in a Karuna project planning workshop in Nagpur focusing on project planning using a logical framework model. Over the next few months a new Programme manager based in Pune will be taking over grant managing the project. She will be working closely with the project managers to review the project plan and help them improve their systems for evaluation and reporting.

Major Achievments Towards Project Goals 

• 90 out of the 119 women trained are in paid employment following training.
• In a strong display of confidence two girls involved in the project filed incidence reports with the local police station against young men who had been verbally harassing them in the slum district. The girls were supported by 20 of their friends who went to the local police station with them to demand that the police end the verbal abuse. As cat calling and intimidation is one of the major reasons girls stay indoors in India it is positive that girls involved in the project have taken a stand against this using the skills they were taught from the project team. The girls faced some social backlash from taking the action. The project is now helping them with this.
• The team started study sessions for boys. The project came to the decision that they needed to work with young boys to address their attitudes to women from an early age. Boys had also requested they join activities when they saw the benefit to their sisters.
• 10 girls have agreed with their family to postpone their marriage so they can continue their education. This shows girls engaged in the project are developing enough confidence to start shaping their own futures. This is unusual in the project area.