Training Space for 600 Poor Girls in Mumbai

Friends,

June is when major examination results are declared. First such external exam is after class 10. Admissions to Higher Secondary level and Junior colleges depend on results for class 10. All the 47 children in our project have passed this examination and 29 of them have go above 60 to 70 per cent marks. At this stage they will decide if they wish to go for science, commerce or humanities stream. After class 12 they go to undergraduate level. We had 24 programme participants in class 12. 14 of them have received above 60 to 70 per cent. Considering their limited access to academic resources and lack of adequate formal education among parents the results can be termed good. Other participants are still in lower classes. Currently we are looking for scholarships and annual fee amounts for the deserving students who perform well in community work as well as in examination. Seven girls have been selected for scholarship by a US based foundation. Any help towards term fee, book and stationary purchase extended by you is most welcome.

Monsoon is setting in. Girls in bastis are working with men and boys in covering roofs of their homes in hutment colonies with plastic sheets and getting umbrellas repaired. Soon flooding will affect our schedules.

This year we plan to include dilapidated building projects in our work with deprived girls. These projects give 225 to 265 built space to a family, assuming the family size to be 5. This space has a small room and a smaller kitchenette. The best part is indoor toilets. Families are usually bigger and there is no scope for keeping goat or chicken they had when in a basti. These tenements known as SRA (Slums Rehabilitation Authority) come in place of demolished slums. Looking at space situation in Mumbai, SRA is obviously the future and we must know the status of girls there and survey their education and development needs. We hope to start this work in 2018 itself.

‘This is my first time playing musical chairs’, remarked a mother from one of Vacha’s slum communities at Malvani, Mumbai. ‘I am enjoying so much first time after I left school.’ said another nostalgically.

Vacha accelerated its gender parity programme by celebrating International Women’s Day in the 12 bastis (slum communities) where it makes interventions, participating in the Women’s Day march organized by 12 NGOs in Mumbai and a speech by the Project Director of Vacha at Edelgive Foundation.

In 12 bastis, a variety of programmes were organized for the mothers of Vacha girls jointly with girls. The initial groundwork spanned over a week which included planning and resource mobilization. The spectrum of programmes across the bastis was multi-flavored. Outdoor and indoor games included musical chairs, blowing balloons, hairdos using straws, lighting candles, ‘tailing the donkey’, hammering nails, threading needle, darts, tug of war, obstacle race and so on. Henna, art and origami contests were conducted at some bastis. Lectures on eradicating superstitions, generating awareness about TB (tuberculosis) were also held. Our girls in youth groups actively engaged in this effort and felt empowered by participation. ‘So nice to see our mothers taking time off to have fun!’, ‘I never thought my mother could sing.’ were common comments. They felt proud to do this for their mothers and mothers appreciated their Women’s Day plans. Girls committed to do this more often for their mothers.

Reactions and temperaments ranged from peals of laughter to emotional outbursts to women expressing disappointment at the apathetic stance of the government for not taking enough action to curb the societal menace of smoking and drinking. Women were dumbfounded on being asked questions such as how much they valued their own selves and their own lives. On learning the science behind miracles performed by godmen in the anti-superstition drive, some of the women vowed to stay away from these godmen during their hometown visits. Most women remarked that this event made them take a walk down memory lane and into their school years. Some requested for similar gatherings on every Sunday. Mothers were very much moved on listening to talks by their kids acknowledging the efforts of their mothers. It was heart-wrenching to see the role reversal when the “perennially giving” mothers cried on receiving prizes from their kids.

In solidarity with the women’s movement in Mumbai, Vacha team members also joined 12 other women’s and minority groups in the Women’s Day rally. Rendering slogans and songs asserting our rights to freedom, peace and equality, 250 of us marched from Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus to Fort. This was followed by talks analyzing the latest budget from a woman’s standpoint and safeguarding constitutional rights. Older girls from our project always enthusiastically attend Women’s Day programmes and they did this with their own initiative this year. Vacha's Project Director addressed the crowd at EdelGive Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Edelweiss Group (a financial service provider), on Vacha’s journey into the world of girls and women's empowerment.

#PressforProgress   #InternationalWomensDay

Links:

• Website