By Susan Haynes | Project Assistant
Room to Read’s Girls’ Education program in India had an exciting past few months. Girls in the program participated in field trips to New Delhi Metro Museum, Nehru Planetarium, Dolls Museum and National Bal Bhawan (a state-sponsored center featuring an exhaustive array of recreational learning activities), all of which exposed the girls to locales quite different from their own neighborhoods. At The Lady Irwin College, New Delhi University, they learned about consumer rights, sexual harassment, ovarian and breast cancers, food science and nutrition. A particularly noteworthy event was a meeting with New Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit. During this coveted time with the Chief Minister, the girls shared their views about girls’ education in India and also their personal experiences with our Girls’ Education program.
Over the last 3 months, community and parental co-investment remained a strong focus in the program. The GEP team in India hosted several parents’ meetings, which covered content such as family-centered challenges to girls’ education and promoting attendance for tutoring. Parents also received examination criteria and benchmark overviews to further inform them of the details and progress of their daughters’ educations. Other workshops raised awareness about HIV/AIDS, gender-based discrimination, domestic violence and holistic female empowerment (educational, economic and spiritual).
Looking forward, our teams anticipate facilitating regular tutoring sessions in math, science, business, remedial tutoring, and life skills workshops that cover adolescence, reproductive health and career plans. We are also excited to begin personalized venture enterprise plans for girls (where they brainstorm and devise business plans), development camps, and more enriching field trips and alumnae meetings.
Thanks to your investments in our work, the Girls’ Education program in India has raised $1450 – the equivalent of a year of education for almost 6 girl or 29 bicycles for girl scholars. With your continued support, we will be able to continue providing girls in India with the educational tools and support they need; we look forward to updating you on our project activities in the next report.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
