Ending Child Marriage in the Thar Desert

Dear Supporters, well wishers and donors,

Like the lasts, this quarter (October-December, 2015) was also highly exciting and full of challenges. As we all know that child marriage is a widespread limiter of child rights in the society of western Rajasthan. To eliminate this chronic we endeavour hard with an integrated and inclusive approach. In a highly participatory approach we thrived the project by going door to door, hamlets to hamlets and village to village and raised the awareness about the child marriages harms and it’s disasterous social, physical and intellectual effects on early married children.

We organised events with the key leaders of the villages, elected representative, religious leaders, key influential people and the wider community, in particular, with the family having children at risk of child marriage. Government and government officers play the key role of monitoring, implementation and punitive actions, hence we asked for their cooperation and called them in, in this movement. Intensive advocacy through events at the district worked very well, and we also got good support from child rights agencies like UNICEF, elected representative and government officials.

Illiteracy is a key function in poverty and has its sure impact in the poor decision making by people under pressure; education, however plays a great liberating role in this. We emphasised on this argument and put a lot of effort working with dropout kids to re-enroll them in the school.

We worked hard to train, educate and teach the front line workers (Aanganbadi workers, Accredited Social Health Activists, Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) on the issues of child marriage and its harms, so they could play the multiplier role in knowledge sharing by conducting meetings at the hamlet level in their field area. It gives us immense pleasure that our efforts delivered tangible impacts and inspired several villages to call themselves Child Marriage Free.

On the behalf of Urmul Trust, I extend my heartfelt thanks to all our donors, supporter, well wishers, national and international community and media for the constant support in multiple ways. We are thankful to our local community and different local stakeholders for the consistent support and encouragement in our campaign to end child marriage in western Rajasthan, India

We look forward for continued support and thoughts…

Arvind Ojha      

Urmul Trust, India.

A sum up of activities undertaken during this quarter

‘Child Marriage Free’ Panchayat

In this quarter, with round the clock endeavours of the team, total 3 Panchayats (Panchayat consists of average 4-6 villages in this region) were declared child marriage free by the Panchayat members and the people. This way Gram Panchayat Naneu became such first Panchayat declaring itself ‘Child Marriage Free’, in the Jodhpur district. It was never an easy task and it took months and great positive effort in changing the mindset of people. Initially people were very rigid and strongly opposed messaging taliking of how Child marriage affects badly the life of victim in multiple ways. We approached the community door-to-door, and gradually mobilised them using different strategies. , brought them out from home for the trainings on harms of child marriages. We organised the participatory sessions with the elected representatives, key influential people of the villages, religious leaders and different stakeholders on the issue of child marriages and its long term worst impact on the victims lives. In a very participatory way we formulated out the villages and panchayat wise strategies to eliminate the child marriages.

With the help of the villagers, government officers and Unicef, Urmul trust organised such three big events where villagers themselves declare them child marriage free panchayat and took oath not to do child marriage in the future.

After taking oath in, all the villagers, elected representatives including members of legislative assembly and guests from the Unicef and other organisations signed committing no to child marriage in the future. Following by the signing campaign a poster saying, ‘We are proud of our Child Marriage Free Panchayat’ was inaugurated by the guest and villagers.

Enrolling the girls deprived of education.

The girls dropped out or always devoid that opportunity are more vulnerable to the child marriage. Parents consider them as burden and want to get rid of as soon as possible. The neighbours and villagers play a very critical role in it and provoke the parents to marry as soon as possible. Hence, as a strategy, we have been reaching out to the girls who are deprived of education opportunity, to enrol them in school and help in continuing the study. In this quarter, we enrolled 40 girls in the schools from the 28 villages.

Organising Inter School “Girls Football Matches” at the village level to breach out the gender prejudices

The Thar region is one of the most patriarchal regions where girls rarely get the opportunity to express their self. It is considered that some areas are specially for the male members. It shows the masculine thoughts of the society and directly leads to the gender based discimination. An Inter-school football series for the girls was organised with the idea of challenging this thought. We organised several football matches in schools and prizes were distributed by the villagers and by the members of School Management Committee.

Linking people with the government welfare schemes-In this quarter, under the project ‘Ending Child Marriage in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan, India we have linked the total 61 beneficiaries (32 girls and 29 boys) with the government welfare schemes.

Training to the Adolescents Girls on the issue of Child Marriage - In this quarter, we organised the training sessions with 1246 Girls in the 54 villages on the issue and harms of child marriage in the life. The girls were imparted the knowledge on worst impact of child marriages and its long term worst impact on their lies.

Information dissemination through Puppet Show

To disseminate the information on the issue of child marriage we used traditional local songs and combined them with the puppet show. It has been very effective and impactful in generating the awareness among the distant villages.

Girl Child birth celebration at the Panchayat level.

In line with trdition, communities practise clinking plates (Thali Bajana) to celebrate birth of a boy in family. We wanted to challenge it arguing why this symbol of celebration exclusivly for boys. Urmul started the campaign to celebrate the birth of the girl child using the same tradition of clinking the plates (Thali Bajana). We took the campaign to the Panchayat heads, members and villagers., and got very encouraging support. We took up celebration of the girl child birth in campaign and organised celebrations in more 10 Villages.

Follow up meeting with ‘Child Marriage Free’ villages-

Urmul has been following up with the villages previosly declared child marriage free through our efforts. These meetings play a critical role in avoiding the relapse of child marriages in the villages already declared ‘Child Marriage Free’. In this quarter we organised 27 such meetings in as many villages.

Building capacity of the Panchayat representative-

In preventing and eliminating the child marriage practise, Pachayat representatives have played very important role. To build the knowledge and skills on the issue of child marriage we have been organising the capacity building training and workshops for the Panchayat representatives. In this quarter we worked with 120 Panchayat members from the 20 Panchayats through one day capacity building training.

Life skill training to the Adolescent girls - In this quarter we organised the life skill training attended by over 600 girls from the 27 villages.

Short film Suman – Another achievement of this quarter was the film shot on the theme of of child marriage a featuring one of our village girl Suman. A new York based film group read about our work and reached us to collaborate. We met Suman from our project area, and she agreed to tell her story. Suman shared how she resisted her child marriage and now motivating other girls in the village to not submitt to the pressure to marry before the legal age. The film shall soon be finished and we’d be organising a screening in our project villages.

Links:

• Urmul

Dear Supporters and Well-wishers,

It gives me immense pleasure to present you all the fourth quarter report July2015-September, 2015 of Girls Not Bride: Thar Extension of Global Campaign to End Child Marriage in Thar Desert of India. This quarter remained highly exciting as well as challenging for all of us. As we all know child marriage is deeply rooted in our societal norms, traditions and religion fuelled by masculinity. Poor socio-economic conditions of women and girl’s child, abysmal literacy, patriarchy and masculinity have been the most prominent reasons of the child marriages in our society. Child marriage not only impacts the children who are married but also the surroundings which leads them to low standard and undignified life. It causes far-reaching health problems and affected badly the quality of their life. We believed that child marriage is one of the most prevalent problems of the current world and a serious violation of human rights. Thus, we are highly committed and determined to eliminate this ill from our society and social milieu. As a grassroots organization with high democratic values and ethics, we imperatively believe in participatory approach, community participation and advocates for the internal positive and attitudinal changes in society. Our integrated strategic approach like building the capacity of Panchayat functionaries, government officials, village community, campaigns to mobilise the local communities and dissemination of information on harms of child marriages have delivered the tangible impacts not only in our specific project area but also beyond that. Thriving with an integrated approach like formation of youth groups as a advocacy agents, training of the village representatives, teachers, front line workers (Aganwadi workers, Accredited Social Health Activists, etc.), regular sessions in the schools with the adolescent girls and boys, counselling of the families prone to the child marriage have led to several villages declared themselves free of child marriage.

We are grateful and extend our sincere thanks to our donors, supporters, media, national and international community, and government for wider recognition of our efforts. We are thankful to the local community, different stakeholders and partners for their consistent support and encouragement in this India’s most harsh, scars and distant region of the Thar Desert.

We thank you all for your support and valuing our work in making positive impacts.

Warm regards,

Arvind

Following are some brief activities, events and intervention performed with the communities –

Training of youth groups-

As we know that Child Marriage is the most prevalent problem deeply rooted in our societal norms, traditions and religion fuelled by poverty and masculinity. In this situation, we build institutions and mechanisms to promote young girls and boys to build their capacity, equipped them with information on harms of child marriages and its effects. This strategy worked out very effectively and has been a very critical force in preventing child marriage in the project area. In this quarter, we have promoted and trained the 518 youth group members in 24 distant villages and consistently build their capacities on the issue of child marriage. During the trainings, we equipped them with legal knowledge, procedures, legal process and strategy to prevent the child marriages.

Training of village representatives, socio-religious community leaders at the grassroots level.

Our field experiences revealed that most of the child marriages are taking place in the societal, relational and neighborhood pressure which were influenced by the so called key opinion, religious and social leaders. These key influential people pose the most legal potions in the society. Hence, training these village representative, key influential and opinion leaders has been a major activity under this project. Sensitizing them around the issues and harms of child marriages and its worst impact in the society, apprising them with “The Child Marriage Prevention Act-20016” has been very helpful in changing their mindset and accomplishing our goals to eliminate the child marriages in the Thar Desert of India.

Meeting with the School Management and School Development Committees

Meeting with the adolescent girls:

Formation of adolescence girls group in the project areas at schools with regular meeting has been a very important activity under the project. Promoting adolescent girls in institution has given strength as well as a platform to discuss the problems and issues to the girls where they can cherish and share their feelings, joy and emotions. These groups have been nodal platform for us to interact directly with them and sensitising them on the harms of child marriages, The Child Marriage Prohibition Act-2006, child rights, POCSO Act etc.

These groups have been very crucial in preventing the drop out especially of the girls. Through these groups from 51 villages, 169 dropped out girls who had never been school were re – enrolled in the school which is a remarkable achievement under the project.

Declaration of Child Marriage Free Gram Panchayat (groups of village):

In the last quarter (July-September, 2015) seven Gram Panchayat council (each gram panchayat is a group of 4-5 villages) namely Lakhasar, Hamira, Sodhakor, Basanpeer, Kadout, Dewa Chhatrail, Bada Bag declared themselves “Child Marriage Free Gram Panchayat” in the warm and dignified presence of their habitants, local leaders and government officials. Urmul Trust team efforts and their work was appreciated and recognised immensely by all. The Gram Panchayats took the oath not to perform and practice child marriage, protecting the rights of the children, strengthening the education system and creating the opportunity to receive the qualitative education for the all children.

During this event the Panchayat took pledge to keep their villages clean and successful launch of the Total Sanitation Campaign.

Life Skills Residential Training of Adolescent Girls.

Under this project, for the engagement of the adolescent girls at the intensive level a two days life skills residential training for adolescents girls was organised by the project management team. The main objective of the training was to build the capacity of the adolescent girls on the issue of child marriage, child rights, child marriage prevention act and enhancing their personality. In this quarter, from 21 distant village a total of 490 adolescents girls undergone the life skill training program.

Open interactive meeting and sessions with the students (Adolescents girls and boys):

Under the project, open interactive sessions with the adolescent students on the issues of child marriage and child prohibition act, child rights, POCSO, were being organised continuously. This kind of open discussions along with the students in the presence of their teachers have been very crucial in coveying the message on the most prevalent problems centering around adolescent students.

These open discussions are pre-fixed where the project management team invites even the children parents. Organising such sessions have rendered helpful solutions in preventing the child marriages and protection of the child marriages.

Thank you

Urmul Trust, Bikaner, India.