Empowerment of 200000 Adolescent Girls in India

My name is Pallavi. I live in Wadigodri village. I attended Life Skills Education conducted by Institute of Health Management Pachod in 2019, in my village.

 During our Life Skills Education we had a discussion on what “Empowerment” means to each girl participating in the course. I too wrote down what ‘Empowerment” means to me and would like to share my perceptions through this letter.

I believe empowerment is related to knowledge, imagination, critical thinking, status, money, etc.My understanding of empowerment means one’s ability to do things.

Participation in the Life Skills Education completely changed my thinking about gender. I don’t think about girls being at a disadvantage as a result of discrimination any more.

Since I am a girl, I want to talk about girl’s power. I think a girl is a special creation of God that makes her different from others. A girl’s power is that she can handle every situation, she knows when to talk and when to remain calm and silent.

As a girl I use my power to keep my mind focused on my goal. My journey from a village to a nearby big city for higher education could happen because of my self confidence that if I decide, I can definitely do it. I could use the communication skills learnt during Life Skills Education to convince my parents to send me for further education. My parents have full confidence in me that I will be able to manage on myown in a big city.

As a girl today, I have a desire to learn and the ability to apply my knowledge and skills to the challenges in my life. I developed this power of positive thinking after attending Life Skills Education. My thinking is that a girl can do anything if she is able to identify her strengths and abilities.

I also feel the girls in my village felt greatly empowered when a Girl’s Collective was established in our village by the Institute of Health Management Pachod. We were able to do so many things as a collective, which we could not have imagined doing alone.

Hundreds of girls in our villages have undergone life skills education. I am sure they too share my perception that “Positive thinking combined with positive action results in success”