By Anshul Ojha | Project Manager
As the scorching sun of the summer give space to some clouds and these intense sandstorms settle down with the rains, we say THANK YOU!
At the onset of the monsoon rains, we warmly extend our deep gratitude to you, for choosing to invest in the children of this desert. A big thank you, on their behalf! Your support means a lot to us and to the hundreds of children and adolescents. Your support may have already changed the course of their life for a better future.
The real meaasure of any impactful project is when the community elders accept it and eventually starts taking the lead in continuing the efforts. When the locals become the custodians and the torchbearers. We can now proudly say - our efforts of last eight months have started showing the change! People believe in us and have started coming off the ages!
In one of the most excluded regions on India, where the Child marriages have been part of the tradition, this project has been a critically challenging initiative. It is directly challenging the traditions and asking for the attitudinal changes towards a better, secure, healthier and educated future. We have ascertained, throughout the project, that we bring together all the stakeholderes of communities into discussion and share the de facto projections of how child marriage affects the life and future of an adolescent.
Urmul started by regularly visiting the Gram Panchayats (Village administration units)and undertook an exhaustive survey in the project area, to map out the children who were out of school or were vulnerable to child marriage. The intent was to have a comprehensive database to monitor, especially girls, who stopped studying. This database also helped in devising strategy of persuasion, legal action and awareness to prevent marriages at an early age. Households were constantly monitored by Urmul workers and in the case of any suspicion or hearsay about a possible child marriage we intervened with panchayats, school teachers, local bodies, women groups as well as legal authorities.
With the help of panchayats (the Village Governance body) Child Protection Committees have been formed to regularly monitor villages and intervene to prevent a child marriage through counselling or legalenforcement. There is an extra emphasis given to out-of-school or drop-out children to bring them back into the schooling, and where schools are not operational, arrangement have been made for special classes.
This modus operandi has been adopted in all the project villages in the two districts - Bikaner and Jaisalmer.
The impact of the project is quite visible. In the perioid of 15 January 2015 to 15 June 2015, ten villages in the Bikaner district, have decelared themselves ‘Child Marriage free’. As of now, a total of 61 villages in the two districts of Bikaner and Jaisalmer, have come forward and are now doing away with child marriage. Villages which have become ‘Child marriage free’ are continuously holding monthly review meeting of Child Protection Committee, and are focussing on child education, health and equal opportunities for both the genders.
With this narrative, we are attaching, the previous quarters report file; two case studies and few photos from one of the event, for your perusal. In the coming days, we'd be further enhancing our communications.
We'd greatly appreciate your suggestions, comments and queries. It'll also be thrilling to host you in one of the project villages, if you plan a vacation or travel to this part.
In the coming days, we're going to strengthen our reporting and communication systems - which is a massive challenge in this remote desert, and shall be sharing more regular and in- depth updates.
On behalf of the entire project team - from the two districts of this largest state of India, I once again thank you for your thoughtful donation to this project, and kind patience with us , while we were off the communication for a little while.
A revolutionary poet from Indian, Paash, wrote : The most dangerous of all, is the death of our dreams...
Rest assured, there are some changemakers in this desert, who are living a just dream...
many thanks...
with warm regards,
anshul
By Arvind Ojha | Project Leader
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