Every 4th girl is a child bride. Help change this

Dear Donor,

Hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy!!

Mentioning below some of the key highlights of our work between April and July 22.

Success Stories- That’s what we look for!!

18-year-old Shahnaz Parveen (name changed) of Pasai village of Jharkhand has completed class 10. She wants to pursue higher studies and become self-reliant. In one Taaron Ki Toli (Legion of Stars) session her mother listened to the discussions with interest and shared that no organization before Breakthrough has told them about ill effects of early marriage. She was married early and early pregnancies and abortions spoilt her health. She requested our community developer to talk to her husband as he want to marry their daughter off and is not in favour of her further education. The community developer and Shahnaz’s mother tried to convince the father to change his mindset. At this time Shahnaz also assured that she would study sincerely and not give any cause of complaint. Shahnaz later completed class 10 with very good marks which aided the changed the mindset of father’s. Now Shahnaz Parveen has taken admission in college. Both the mother and the daughter are happy at this turn of events.

Neha (name changed) is a Roshan Tara from Bedam village of Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. Most girls of her village drop out after class 10 as there are no educational opportunities in her village beyond class 10. Subsequently, most drop out girls were married off by their parents. Initially Neha too believed that girls should get married as per wishes of the parents. But the TKT sessions brought awareness on rights and ills of early marriage. Neha discussed such messaging at home with her mother and sisters too. The discussions gradually transformed her mother’s views and she said, “I will support the education of my daughters as long as they intend to study. I will not marry them early”.

These are just two stories from several such cases reported from our intervention areas in UP & Jharkhand where girls are negotiating successfully at home to stall their marriages. We have been working with adolescents through an umbrella program idea namely, Adolescent Empowerment Programme (AEP) since 2012. Our goal is promoting girls’ leadership so that girls are able to challenge gender discriminatory norms and gender based violence and negotiate for the rights of self and others.

Consistent efforts have been made to inculcate leadership traits, communication, negotiation, collaboration skills among the adolescents and Team Change Leaders to help them successfully negotiate against early marriage and for their rights to education, health, choices and aspirations. Breakthrough does this through the ‘Taaron Ki Toli’ sessions with adolescents.

Video Van Shows and Theatre of Oppressed Shows

These shows focused on education and aspirations of girls. Education is leveraged as a plank to delay marriage. Through Video Van and Theater of Oppressed we reached 31728 people in 153 Villages and 16290 people in 90 villages respectively. Other themes like gender based discrimination and violence and intergenerational communication were also woven into the script. The script had several songs depicting issues through emotionally appealing lyrics and scenes included - A girl negotiating for her education; early marriage of a girl to comply to wishes to an ailing grandfather; a woman struggling from the violence, a brother becoming the voice for her sister, a mother soaring high with her daughter's inspirations and aspirations, a woman not having control on earnings and the husband taking over the authority on how to spend her earnings. 

The video van shows and “Theatre of Oppressed” broadcasted the messages and were instrumental in sensitizing the community members on need to support the education and aspirations of girls.

Jan Samwad- Dialogue with the Community

In the deep transformation gram panchayats, after conducting PRA and getting information from communities through discussion with different groups/cohorts, Breakthrough initiated a community led process through facilitating group formation processes with adolescents which helped them to prioritise their issues to start getting into action. During the process, one of the groups named “Shakti group” identified lack of transport in Devipur village as a barrier in their education. with the facilitation of Breakthrough team, they organised Jan Samwad where they shared their problems with the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Karnal Ms. Jasbir Kaur. As a result, CJM madam understood their concern and ordered the General Manager Transport Department and the very next day Bus service started in their village. Breakthrough intervention strengthens the capacity of Girl Youth which has been captured by The Quint and Punjab Kesari Print Media.

Collaboration with CJM on Implementation of CSP

In order to institutionalize the concept of Child Safeguarding Policy in the school of Haryana, the Breakthrough team approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Karnal district in the month of June. After affirmative response, they invited us to demonstrate the presentation on the necessity of CSP implementation in the schools. The training was held at the CJM office in the presence of CJM Madam Ms. Jasbir Kaur of Karnal district. District education office Mr. Rajyapal, BEO Mr. Jaypal, Principals and teachers of approx. 6 Government schools participated in the training. The training was supposed to deliver with two main purposes i.e. To create a conducive environment for students in the school and to reduce the Child Drop-out ratio from school. We are initiating this by Integrating Child Safeguarding in education system to create a safer school environment for children to learn and grow without being fear of abuse and discrimination.

On request of CJM madam Breakthrough trained the selected teachers and principals on Child Safeguarding Policy and So far we covered 40 schools of Jhajjar and Karnal district of Haryana and aware them with good school indicators and need of CSP in govt. schools.

Barefoot Counselling Training for TCLs

In the ongoing series of our Barefoot Counselling Training in Haryana, Field team of Haryana facilitate 2-days Barefoot counselling training in Faridabad district of Haryana in the month of May for exploring their self-strength and to cope up with their own selves, trauma and challenges. The training covers three major areas of micro skills of counselling, self-care & resilience and community wellbeing. It has been provided by a mental health and wellbeing expert and reach out to 5 TCLs to elicit information from others and to communicate in an effective manner, to improve interpersonal skills, to identify problems and solve them and to recognize about themselves, Analysing themselves during the field How to create a good and safe environment, how to behave and control yourself during stress etc.

This all work is happening because of support of DONORS like YOU. We would request you to continue your support and if possible recommend our project to like-minded people.

 

With Hope and Gratitude,

Aman Chhabra.