Lifeskill,Sexuality Education for 1000 girls-India

Centre for Women’s Development and Research
Life Skill and Sexuality Education for 1000 Girls-India (14480)
Update- September 2016

During the last 3 months our focus was more on career guidance and college admissions. In our working area 105 girls passed 10^th standard board examinations and are continuing their education. In 12^th standard 90 girls passed their board examinations but only out of which only 18 girls could able to continue their college education.  Many of the girls could not go for college because of their low marks and poverty.  Because of low marks they could get only admission in private colleges, there the fees are very high Rs.30000-50000.   So in the coming years we are planning to focus on supplementary education support so that they can score high marks in their 12^th standard examinations.  In fact, we were also educating about the different short term skill trainings that they can finish it and get employment easily, but since the training centres are slightly far away from their homes and most of them of first generation school goers somehow they want to become a university graduate.

Selfie of Spoken English Class by Loyola college students

We could able to provide full scholarship supports for 3 girls, one joined for B. Com, another B.Sc.(Bio-Chemistry) and another in B.C.A.  In addition to that we have given Rs.3000 as motivational scholarships for 10 girls who joined for degree courses. During this period, we have opened 3 recreational learning centres in city area.  In Ezhil nagar slum the slum clearance board had allotted a place for our training centre. This is a recognition for our work with flood affected people shifted to Ezhil nagar.  These 3 centres helped us to reach out to more girls.  We have been conducted weekend, life skill and sexuality education workshops for adolescent girls. In both rural and urban area 365 girls participated in these workshops.  Usually we conduct tuition classes for 10 and 12^th standard girls from January to March that is 3 months before their board examination.  Since we have 3 new centres and 1 rural centre we have decided to conduct supplementary education classes on regular basis.  We have bought text books and books related to their syllabus and kept it in the centre.  Our field workers are also motivating them to use online resources to learn further. We are also continuing out school based sexuality education programme.  During this period, we have organized sexuality education programme in 2 schools nearly 300 girls and 150 boys benefited from these programmes.  In rural are we have also organized organic kitchen garden programmes for adolescent girls and motivated them to have kitchen gardens in their homes.  45 girls benefitted from this programme and created kitchen gardens in their homes.  In addition to this we have organized painting, drawing workshops, folk dance and street play workshops.  68 girls benefitted from these programmes.  We have organized spoken English classes in Mylopore centre with the help of 2 Loyola college MSW student 35 girls benefitted from this programme.

Girls meeting in Mylapore

We have also organized parent’s meetings in 32 slums and 15 villages mostly to discuss about the girl children’s education.  Most of the parents are disappointed that they could not able to send their daughters who had passed 12^th standard to colleges.  Since most of these girls are 17-18 years of age, if they sit at home parents would immediately think about their marriage. In fact, the cost of the one-day wedding function would be more than that of the three-year degree course fees. So We are trying to educate parents about this and the importance marrying the girls at 21 years or after that. We have also provided information about the government schemes and scholarships provided by government and other organizations.  We are also exploring ways of creating a saving scheme or some finance scheme particularly support girl children’s higher education.