Shaping Future of Adolescent Girls inLucknow Slums

We appeal all our donros and socially consious community to support our project building base for the  development of adolscent girls and their families in poverty stricken slums.

Project has developed 200 youth community volunteers (locally named as Saloni Mitras) in 50 slums have been developed through foundation training and mentoring by Sarathi team in partnership with GlobalGiving. They are actively engaged in behaviour change counselling on the issues like child marriage, school dropout girls, feedback and support to government service providers & local governance institutions to improve service deliveries, enhancing participation of adolescent girls, women and community for self on their rights and entitlements.

Manisha, community volunteer, living in the slum- Makdum Nagar is a change maker for the adolescent girls of her community. She crafted her own journey and supported adolescent girls of her slum with motivational support under the project. After becoming community volunteer, she started to learn participation in community meetings and activities like integrated slum planning, rights and entitlements of girls & community, communication skills. She, with project support, got a chance to gain vocation skills in tailoring. It motivated her to start training center for the girls   of her. Manisha also approached a private school in her slum area and started working as a teacher. She is now self-dependent and supports financially to her family and her younger sister in continuing her studies. She is very much thankful to project and Sarathi Development Foundation for this support and guidance which brought  a new meaning  in life .

This is a story from Shankar Purwa slum in Lucknow with more than 200 households and population more than 750, but only 11 families have their own toilets and remaining families had not option but to use railway track for defecation . One day Ranjeet son of Kamlesh and Ravi son of Sabhapati went to Railway track for defecation and died in train accident. Community volunteer Radhika discussed this issue in women group meeting for raising the demand for construction of toilets government scheme. Radhika prepared application on behalf of the whole community and submitted to elected representative for the provision of toilets. It is encouraging to note that financial support is being given to the families for the toilets in the slum.   

The project in partnership with GlobalGiving is shaping the future of adolescent girls in slums of Lucknow. While living in tough conditions like poverty, inadequate basic facilities like education, sanitation, health, hygiene, they face wide spread environment of gender inequality. This existing situation has facilitated us to evolve impact driven Saloni Model- An Integrated Adolescent Girls Empowerment Project. It is focussed Project focuses on empowering adolescent girls in age group of 10-19 years, families and communities in an integrated manner .Adolescent girls empowerment by increasing their awareness and knowledge on the cornerstones of empowerment including encouraging education, enhancing life skills education, Increasing knowledge of sexual and reproductive health, protecting from child marriage and providing opportunities for participation and communication on their issues .Impacting families by social & behaviour change communication, demand generation for public service provisions. Engaging Community by integrated slum planning on community needs like health, education, water, Sanitation, building community support systems like community volunteers, resource  centres. Supporting government by interconnecting with government service delivery systems, integrating community resources like volunteers with line departments of the government. These processes have demonstrated visible impact at adolescent girls, their families and community level.