"Nayantara" a Girl Child Sponsorship Programme

A training programme on ‘Life Skill’ was organized for the adolescent girls by ‘Sabuj Sangha’ from 22.04.2019 – 25.04.2019 at the organisation premises in Nandakumarpur village of Mathurapur II administrative development block of South 24 Parganas District, West Bengal.  

The training was imparted into two groups of adolescent girls enrolled in ‘Nayantara’ programme from Nandakumarpur, Mahabatnagar & Naranpur villages. Also a few adolescent girls from the nearby located Jaykrishnapur village participated in the training programme. Each group was given a two-day long training. The first was on 22.04.2019- 23.04.2019 and the second batch on 24.04.2019-25.04.2019.

The training programme was facilitated by Social Expert Dr. Ashis Kumar Das. On behalf of ‘Sabuj Sangha’ Mr. Arup Kumar Bhunia, Assistant Coordinator, Health and Mrs. Barnali Giri, Supervisor of ‘Nayantara’ groups, supported the training sessions.

Overall objective of the training was to improve the understanding of the adolescent girls between the ages of 13 to 18 years on concept of child rights and child protection and also to sensitize, educate them on various pertinent core issues, to ensure their own protection against all odds of exploitations   and also to raise awareness on child protection among their peers.

Topics discussed:

-        Child Rights;

-        Various forms of child abuses;

-        Issues pertaining to Child Trafficking and Exploitation;

-        Needs of Group formation for resisting the ailing practices pertaining to women and for girl child protection

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) method was followed with an approach for learning and involving the participant adolescent girls with issues in discussion. The participants were encouraged to explore their creative minds and understand proper utilisation of the team spirit. Exercise was done through interactive sessions while boosting the spirit and confidence on taking deliberate decisions whenever required.

Outcomes:

-     Lessons on child rights and child protection in general learnt by participant Girls;

-     Awareness developed on National Child Helpline- ‘Child Line’-Call No. 1098;

-     Understanding developed on factual consequences of Child Exploitation, Child Marriage And Pertinent Laws;

-     Village & centre wise formation of peer groups for-

• Selection of Group Leaders and confirmation of responsibilities by all team members;
• Developing Group wise Rules and Regulations;
• Creating Code of Conduct and Charter of Responsibilities;
• Ensuring resolutions on regular meeting and must  Do-able activities;
• Addressing Child Protection issues like Child Marriage & Trafficking. It was decided that a member from each group will track 15 neighbouring girls below 18 years age every day. Thus 300 girls will be tracked by 20 members of a group every day.
• Developing Child Tracking System for vigilance by newly formed Groups;
• Each individual member from a single group will track other members and if require identify the areas of vulnerability.
• Developing mechanism to ensure calling Child Line- 1098 (the national helpline for Children in distress and need) immediately during requirement;

-     In order to create awareness among community each newly formed group will organise rally, street play on various pertinent issues like child marriage, social exploitation etc.  

In order to ensure percolation of messages and raising awareness on various forms of Child Exploitation including Child Marriage, Trafficking etc. stakeholdership needs to be developed among the community at large. For this a Village level Child Protection Committees (VLCPC) may be formed with local citizens who in turn will support the causes and initiatives of the newly formed peer groups by the adolescent girls.