Shaping Future of Adolescent Girls inLucknow Slums

Living a life is slum is tough.Girls and women in slums suffer twice-firstly due to gender disparities & mindsets deep rooted in social norms and behaviour prevailing in the society and secondly due to deprivations and limited access to basic facilities existing in slums.This is story of Soni living in Choti Jugauli, Soni’s father, Becha Lal, died when she was 6 years old. The condition of the family deteriorated since then. Soni left her studies after class 10^th, remained untidy, no sense of clothing and having no charm in leading an ordinary life. The family was thinking of getting her married. In the mean time Saloni Project was launched and she joined the Adolescent Girls Group (AGG) in 2012 when she was 16 years old. This decision of hers proved to be the Turning point in her life. Soni, in the AGG, started to take interest on various issues like, education, health, nutrition etc. She interacts freely with her family and peers and above all she now started to think of continuing her studies. Soni is pursuing her Graduation. Now she understands the importance of an educated girl and the independence it brings about. She has convinced her mother to postpone her marriage till she completes her studies and start working. Seeing Soni’s interest her mother supports in studies and respects her decisions.

 Saloni Project is a community based model being implemented to empower adolescent girls in slums of Lucknow. It evolved strategies to facilitate adolescent girl’s friendly programming, community support systems, behaviour change communication systems and main streaming with public systems. It engages adolescents girls, their families, community, government service providers through slum level micro planning, behaviour change communication, skill development and community volunteers. One of the major strength developed under the project keeping sustainability of the impact in view is community volunteers developed in each of the slums. Four to five community volunteers in each of the 100 slums have been developed. Adolescent girls, youths and women representing different social groups are selected by the community as volunteers.. Sarathi builds their capacities through:-foundation training, engagement in community level processes like mobilisation, micro planning, behaviour change communication, interface meetings with government service providers and feedback collection and review of community action plan. They have witnessed increase in their confidence, skills & abilities, mobility, participation, relationship, networking leading to better quality of life, access opportunities, entrepreneurship, and livelihood opportunities. These community volunteers are facilitating adolescent girls, their parents, wider community and other service providers to bring the impact.

Trajectory of empowerment among adolescent girls covered under the project is emerging like:-mobilised into groups, participating in identification of their needs & developing solutions, going back to schools, continuing education, influencing behaviours & decisions, attaining life skills and vocation skills to build their life. Impact indicators set at start of the project related to adolescent girls and community specific issues related to empowerment skills & abilities like participation, communication, self advocacy, decision making, life skills, vocational skills for their positioning and basic needs & rights like protection from violence, no child & forced marriage, education, health, nutrition, water, sanitation, hygiene for improving their conditions. Project has demonstrated favourable results on these indicators:-90% girls are completing their education upto 12th standard, marriage before their legal age of 18 years has almost stopped, mobility of girls is expanded, vocational training agencies are coming forward and parents are enrolling adolescent girls for vocational courses, use of safe hygiene practices like sanitary pads by adolescent girls has increased. Sarathi has also identified agencies like regional science centres, vocational training institutes, banks for exposure and vocational skill development.

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First of all, we take this opportunity to wish a great and giving New Year 2017 to GlobalGiving and all our donors. We are grateful for our work with you in 2016, and we look forward to working together in the New Year 2017.Your continued support brings high value in terms of building platforms & community volunteers for adolescent girls, changing mindsets and behaviours, life skills vocational and mainstreaming with public service provisions in slums of Lucknow.

During this quarter with your support, we reached, engaged and impacted 2660 adolescent girls and their families through a range of our participatory activities such as social behaviour change map, integrated slum action plan, Kishori Utsav (Adolescent Girls Festival), health camps, adolescent girls groups sessions, women group meetings.

 Integrated slum action plans, change maps, community volunteers, adolescent girls groups   have been developed in each of 100 slums covered under this project. 300 adolescent girls groups, 400 community volunteers, 100 women groups have been developed to facilitate adolescent girls empowerment and community development in these slums. Slum action plan is the result of five days excise at slum level engaging adolescent girls, women, wider community members and service providers like health workers, ward members on indicators linked with children, adolescent girls and community needs. These indicators are child & early marriage, children & adolescent girls out of school, menstrual hygiene management, anaemia, immunisation, water, sanitation, mother and child health & nutrition. It spells out problems, self, collective and government actions required to the address the problems. Behavioural changes like sending girls to schools, marrying girls after attaining legal age of 18 years at minimum, hand wash, toilet use, exclusive breast feeding, service seeking.

 As a result of this, more than 80% adolescent girls are going to school and continuing their education, child and early marriages are not happening due to mobilisation, drop out girls have attended basic life courses and vocational training programmes to shape their future, use of toilets and availability of water sources have increased. Community volunteers and adolescent girls are emerging as change makers in their communities. It is encouraging to note that adolescent girls now take self initiatives towards their health issues and needs, sanitation, education and rights. They regularly availing health services like TT vaccination, Iron Folic Pills under government schemes, maintaining their menstruation hygiene like use of sanitary pads, participating in vocational & skill development trainings, counselling of parents on risks of early marriages. 180 adolescent girls were linked with vocational training providers in areas of computer education, setting up beauty parlour, tailoring etc. Awareness raising on water, sanitation, hygiene, health, nutrition has facilitated improvement in behaviours like hand WASH with soap practice and  use of sanitary pads in 60% girls & their families , use of toilets, safe handling of water & food. Demand generated through adolescent girls and community volunteers developed under the project has also enhanced uptake of public service like-190 adolescent girls and children in 68% families were immunised.Thus, adolescent girls empowerment is very well linked with community development.  

This story is of Haidar Canal, one of the slums identified in Lucknow during slum mapping at initial stage of Saloni Project.The slum was suffering from major health issues like diarrhoea, Cholera. Witnessing this turning a serious issue in the slum, Saloni Mitra (community volunteer) Raju, Meena and Sarojini discussed this with the community during their group meetings. In this meeting they realised the reason behind high rate of illness among people was the water supply system. They raised the issue to local governance institution (Municipality Ward Member).They kept visiting and raising their issue until it was resolved. Their constant approach and initiatives moved the authority.The Municipal Corporation has placed a water tank in less than a month providing safe drinking water in each house of this slum.