Empowering girls to help them take decisions for a bright future

“More than 30 girls from slums —either school dropouts or uneducated — will be trained in the first batch. These girls after training will later teach other girls in their community as part of the ongoing project,” said Gopi Menon, Maharashtra UNICEF chief.

This project is designed to create a supportive environment for girls in both their households and in the community. The underlying idea, Menon said, is to reverse the concept of early child marriage, gender discrimination and other intergenerational problems.

“These adolescent girls will be taught to protect their rights and sensitise on gender issues. Also, how to stay healthy and maintain personal hygiene apart from keeping surroundings clean will taught in the programme. The idea is to build a sense of ownership within the community,” said Menon.

“We are initiating this programme as they need to be integrated into development concepts. It was piloted in 25 blocks in the state through the Human Development Mission. We’re going to introduce it in Chandrapur, Nandurbaug and Latur along with other three wards in Mumbai. In Mumbai, the design of the project is for slum pockets of ward k/East, L and R/North,” said Anuradha Nair, social policy specialist, Maharashtra UNICEF.

The project will also focus on providing leadership skills and life skills for unmarried girls on issues such as child marriage, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. It also offers technical training for livelihoods.

“An amount of Rs 1000 will be given to each group for three months of training to run the centre and the balance amount will be saved as additional funds that can be used to purchase ingredients for supplementary nutrition food or reading material or in any community issue that needs urgent attention,” said Menon.

“We already had a human development and life skill component in training, which we are now specifically extending to adolescent girls. Additional components of finance and entrepreneurship will also be included in it,” said Anuradha Nair, social policy specialist, Maharashtra UNICEF.