Education in India

Centre for Women’s Development and Research
Education to Empower 500 Women and Adolescent Girls
Update – October 2009
Nearly five years have gone after the Tsunami Disaster, in fact outside people have forgotten the Tsunami disaster. When comparing to the destruction of Tsunami disaster we wonder how people could able to rebuild their lives soon, it is all because people from around the world who supported the affected people, telling them they are concerned about them and they are not alone. It is the support from concerned people around the world gives us lot of hope and confidence to carry on our work. In the process of rehabilitation work the best thing happened is women got visibility and recognition in the fishing community, otherwise they are not consulted for anything. Now women’s groups in the villages plan an active role in the village development, most of their children particularly girl children attend schools. Now we are focusing more on women’s issues in the villages.
During 2009 we continued our income generation programme for women, and lifeskill and sexuality education for adolescent girls.

Income generation programme for Women: During this period we have provided income generation activities training in palm leaf product making, nursery raising, vermi-composte making, food processing and soap and cleaning solution making. Nearly 200 women participated in these trainings, out of which 160 are single women (Widows and destitute women). Single women’s SHG-Self help groups were formed in 12 villages and 150 women were given loans to start their own business or to strengthen their present business activities like selling fish, vegetables and fruit, cloth selling, Eatables selling. These self help groups also serves as a forum to share their experiences and feelings. We still have to provide further training to improve the quality of the products and also help them in marketing. We are looking for some volunteers with business management background to help us in this regard.
We have installed solar power system in our training centre to tackle the power cut in our state. This also serves as a model for village people to understand the environmental issues, global warming and alternative sources of power.
Life skill and sexuality education for adolescents: We are continuing our life skill and sexuality education for adolescent girls, during this period we have also started working with adolescent boys. We conducted regular weekend workshops for adolescent girls nearly 250 adolesent girls and 60 boys benefitted from these programmes. In addition to that we are also conducting regular computer skill training and tailoring training. School going girls get supplementary education support. We have also organized classes in dance, music and street play.

Future plan: We are happy about our achievements, but at the same time we still have to go miles to achieve women’s equality. Another area we wish to concentrate is the income generation activities. In the present set up they earn between Rs.1000-2000 per month it is not enough. We have to expand the business activities make it an enterprise where women earn more. For that we have to improve the quality of the product we also have to expand he scale of the business. We need more capital money and also people to initiate and strengthen these business. We are planning to start palm product making- There is lot of palm trees in this area, food processing- there is also lot of fruit trees like Mango, jack fruit and cashew nut trees and soap making. We are also planning to start a community college for adolescents to continue our vocational skill training activities.


Women’s Rights are Human Rights
Let’s Together Make it a Reality

Pictures:

• Food Process Training (JPG)
• Computer skill training (JPG)
• Folk Dance by adoelscent girls (JPG)