Provide Indian Girls with Leadership Development

by CARE

Project Report | Jun 20, 2013
Girl Power Helps Girls in India Succeed

By Patlyn Gamble | Program Officer, Join My Village

Part of the Ekta Adolescent group

Thanks to the Global Giving community for your generous support of girls’ education in India. On a recent visit to the Lalwi village in Bahraich, India we met a group of girls barely into their teens that are talented, enterprising and confident. This may seem like nothing ordinary to most, however in parts of India girls are seen as less than in society. These groups allow for girls to come together and mentor and encourage one another.

One of the girls in the group also serves as a mentor to some of the others, Rohini, whose father runs the village ochestra, that many in the group are also a member. Rohini is a talkative girl, but she is also a great singer and dancer who hopes to one day own a beauty salon. Not long after joining the adolescent group, Rohini was able to stop two child marriages and delayed one in her own village, as well as one in a nearby village.

Before joining the group these girls were all in the same village and same school, but hardly spoke to one another. Now that this group has started they are all very close to one another. Their unity is strength, whenever they step out together everyone takes notice. Whether it is taking a stand against child marriage to helping out one another's family, they are a unit. This group is helping to mold the leaders of tomorrow and this is a great way to help in the transformation of their community.

To learn more about CARE’s work in India, please visit http://joinmyvillage.com/

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Jan 15, 2013
Education Empowers Indian Girls

By Paul Towne | Sr. Director of Strategic Partnerships

Asmeena

Thanks to Global Giving community for your generous support of girls’ education in India. I would like to share the story of Asmeena, a 12 year old girl in one of CARE India’s Udaan schools. It might be very difficult for us to understand how sending their daughters to school is a very big act of courage for parents in Mewat because most of us have always taken education as an undeniable reality of our lives. But for Asmeena and many girls like her, the reality includes only the burden of household chores and sibling care. It is socially accepted that education for girls is irrelevant and unimportant.

Asmeena, like many 12 year olds in a village in Mewat district of Haryana state, spent most of her days helping her mother with household work. There is a primary school in her village but she preferred staying home because most teachers in the school are men and her community doesn’t look very well upon girls being educated by male members of the community. Asmeena got another chance to study when CARE India brought Udaan to Mewat. She was one of the first few girls to be inducted in the school and while many girls have been going home and coming back, she has stayed in school without leaving except during holidays.

Asmeena has, in many ways, challenged the boundaries that society has placed on her. Contrary to what is expected of girls in her community, she plays sports, rides a bicycle across the school campus and encourages other girls to study. It takes time and hard work to change the way people think and the only way it can be done is by showing the actual proof of education in the lives of their children. These baby steps that Asmeena is taking to study, to play and to express in more than one ways is actually a giant step in the transformation of her community.

To learn more about CARE’s work in India, please visit http://joinmyvillage.com/

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Learn about CARE's work in India and Malawi

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