End Child Marriage Through Education

India is a country where women are worshiped and also silenced. Practices have been in place since long ago that a girl can never be an equal to a boy. Even a girl cannot see big dreams, already always pressed, laid silent and crushed under their feet. Yes, we all believe that the times are changing, the thinking of people is changing and the attitude of people is changing towards girls, but do we really think so? Are girls getting equal opportunity? Are they getting respect? Are they really independent? the answer would be no – but they are trying. Still girls are behind, they aren't getting opportunity to make their own decision, to choose, to talk, to sit, to laugh, to go out. It's society and family that are controlling them every time and everywhere. 

It is so strange how people are worshiping a lady god and aside they are harassing a woman, beating her and always accepting that women are just made to use and throw. 

Maybe everyone is now thinking we should have started raising our voices long back, but you know, the reason it didn't happen is because of lack of education. Women never got the chance to educate herself, to get to know her rights, to know about how equal she is, how important a role she has, they always try to stopped her from empowering and becoming independent. Such a cultural tradition, like child marriage, its that there is this only option for girls that if girls are getting married in early age it is a good sign of good parents. In the age of going to school she was preparing for marriage and house hold chores. Now if we are looking in India specially in the village side or in uneducated families, girls after 10th grade are getting married even if they are just waiting for 18 years, so between her education they try to fix marriage. Marriage is not only the option for girls, apart from marriage they have their career, goals or to be something and to achieve something in their life. 

There are girls who are facing and dealing with many challenges every day. In fact, every moment, with their household chores, taking responsibility of their home, involving in online lectures even with their talent they are helping their parents financially from taking tuition of children at home, taking sewing and henna design classes at home and in many more ways. They are always telling themselves that they aren’t scared of people, they know they are doing right, they are doing for themselves and for their family and even if their parents aren’t able to understand something they try to explain in a polite way and make their good relation with their parents.

In a world of new normal life, they are proving themselves and making every possibility to learn from everything. Now we need to encourage, to motivate and to create an atmosphere where every girl feels safe and stands on their own feet. Still there are girls who aren’t able to raise their voice or are facing violence so there we need to create awareness and support them, so that, “When she leads change follows”.

The world is fighting with COVID-19 and the situation is getting worst day by day. In India, COVID-19 positive infected patients crossed more than a lakh. Due to this situation, India has started to be under a lockdown from 24^th March and this lockdown is still going on today.  It may extend for a long period of time, the future of this is uncertain. To prevent people from contracting this virus, a lockdown is one of the best ways for the 1.3 billion population of India. Through this lockdown only necessary things are open like grocery, medical, hospital, bank/ATM.

In India, from March to May is the months of exams in school, junior college, and degree college. Due to this pandemic most of the schools have announced that they will pass all the students and after this they will re-open school.  In degree college, those who are in their final year, they must give their final exam after lockdown.

COVID-19 is affecting finance, poverty, health, and the education system. All the schools and colleges are closed, but teachers and professors are trying to teach via online classes. The Education system in India wants that, however students must learn from online classes in this lockdown.

If we are seeing these virtual classes from the student’s side, do they have proper internet connection? Especially all the young women Shadhika works with, are they getting time for their virtual classes? They are at home, so they must do lot of household chores in addition to their schoolwork. I am personally seeing in my neighbors and when we talk to our Shadhika scholars that they are facing more inequality, they don’t get  time to use their mobile phone and because of lockdown, family members are getting hungry in every hour so young women have to work in the kitchen and become busy with household chores like cooking, washing utensil, dusting etc. If they get the chance for online classes, they will get disturbed with family members, because the lockdown is going on and everyone is at home, so it is difficult to attend any call or classes at home.

Shadhika scholars are participating in so many virtual classes because they do have internet, laptop and mobile. Yes, they are facing some challenges because their home is not big, but they have made schedule and trying to use time in a good way. We are appreciating all the scholars who are doing and managing all the assignment, classes, courses in this difficult time. One of our scholar Parvati from our grantee site Vacha, is attending so many virtual classes about financial quiz, mock Interview session, knowledge of COVID-19 and many more topics. Parvati got 28-30 E-Certificates. We are proud of her and the rest of the scholars who are managing time, utilizing on their skills, and learning and trying to make the best of this situation.

We do have eight scholars who are in their final year, their exams are postponed but they are learning and revising their subjects via virtual classes. Some of the scholar’s portion haven’t completed due to this lockdown so they are completing syllabus with teachers and focusing on what they are learning. It is so difficult to focus because now our daily time routine is different. Our sleep time, mealtime, and study time. When I talked to the scholars, they said they are facing some issues with feeling stressed about thoughts in their minds about the pandemic, future, money, and the responsibility. They say because it’s their final year they were thinking after their graduation they will be doing job and taking responsibility towards family, but everything has changed due to COVID-19 virus. Even they don’t know when it will finish, when they will give exam, when they will get a job. It is a very serious topic, but we feel so proud that they are giving their best in this time to learn more skills and preparing their self for future.

We are trying to connect more with our scholars, and we have planned for their virtual activities so they can learn with us and still feel connected to each other during this time.