By Sonal Shukla | Director
Dear friends,
Our team is deeply thankful to you for having supported our work for empowerment of girls from poverty affected families. We had originally expected to cover 300 girls but your generosity made it possible to reach out to hundreds more. It also enriched other ongoing programmes with girls. Here is one of our last reports before we move on to another project to cover many more girls provide opportunities for them to grow and become active and productive citizens.
Newsletters: A newsletter was published by girls in 15 of the 17 bastis (‘slums’). Boys were actively supportive in four of the areas. In some cases newsletter no. 12 was being published by the youth. Girls’ editorial collectives, fund raising and sales groups, typing volunteers and others in each ‘slum’ area worked excitedly to bring out their special newsletters on August 15, the Independence Day. The next issue will appear on the Republic Day on January 26.
Photography Exhibition: Documentation of their reality by kids themselves is encouraged. A group of girls decided to work on the issue of safety in public spaces for themselves for this. They photographed places where they feel uncomfortable, insecure or scared held an exhibition. Pictures of male hang outs, gambling spots, broken street lights, paving and gutter tops were displayed and received good media coverage. A newspaper cutting appears at the end of this report. Boys hang out near a public toilet for women and girls were removed consequently. Vacha was also selected to be covered on International Girls’ Day by the prestigious Times of India.
Health Issues: Vacha’s health related activities cover two aspects. One is a course in health through sessions and the other is visits to health centres and public clinics and hospitals and sanitation departments. Unfortunately, the spiraling food prices are increasingly depriving the poor, and especially girls among them, of adequate nutrition. The costs of small nutritional inputs that Vacha gives during workshops etc. have also climbed from INR five for a packet of peanuts or fruit to ten and now fifteen. It is beyond the organisation’s capacity to cover hundreds of girls in this matter. The inputs are now occasional on special days.
Vacha girls are strong on sanitation issues. They work actively with Right to Pee (demand for clean and adequate number of public toilets) campaign. Girls had organized street plays on issues of sanitation in bastis and highlighted their problems. They also worked with local leaders and sanitation department to have garbage removed from their areas. Such initiatives contribute towards raising their self esteem.
An Appeal
Your Support to the project of Life Skills Training of 300 Girls in Mumbai has helped us create resources for trainings and campaigns. Many organisations approach us now to learn our strategies and appreciate our initiatives. We even received a major award for our work on life skills for girls. In this work, we had to surmount traditional prejudices against girls’ education and leadership to form safe spaces in their neighbourhoods where sessions could be held to facilitate them in active participation in civic life. Girls learnt to use computers, cameras and even Right to Information (thru supportive adults) as well as developed some capacity to speak English. They visited area resources and sources of Life Long Learning. Over 98 per cent of girls have remained in High School and over 60 per cent have even joined junior college/ Higher Secondary centres. But India is a very large country. We need to work in many more slums and develop further resources and replicable models for empowerment of adolescent girls, the future good citizens and workers. This is essential for women’s empowerment in India.
The current project is coming to an end. With your support and good will, we wish to work with more girls in a new centre for girls’ training in life skills. It will assure continuity and regularity in trainings and workshops for girls who are poor and live in slums in Mumbai and nearby places. We request you to contribute generously to our new project ‘Girls Centre in Mumbai for Life Skill Training’. The link is http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/life-skills-training-annually-for-poor-girls-in-mumai/
Links:
By Neeharika Tummala | In-The-Field Rep - India
By Medhavinee Namjoshi | Chief Project Coordinator
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