Empowering Adolescent Girls through Life Skills Education

The Economic Survey of India (July 2014) reveals that 32.6% population in Odisha lives below poverty line, which is second highest in India. Lack of livelihood opportunities further aggravates the situation of vulnerable people and distress migration is one of the manifestations. Ganjam district in Odisha is well known for migration and the trend has increased especially amongst young women and adolescent girls in recent years.

Majority of these men and women land up in the villages and join the unorganized sector ending up as construction workers, municipality sweepers, housemaids etc. The children are often left behind to fend for themselves. Although enrolled to nearby government schools, a majority of these children remain disinterested in studies. Many of them –especially the girl’s dropout and stay back at home to raise their younger siblings and cook for their parents. These young women subsequently end up joining their parents in the unorganized sector and the vicious cycle is repeated. Several houses in the villages are replete with stories of early marriages, death due to early child birth, sexual violence and young mothers deserted by their husbands in rural areas of Odisha.

There is an immediate need of intervention to help these girls reach their full potential by providing them the right support, education and resources. These young women must be motivated to spend more time in school and complete their education. They must be sensitised that discontinuing their school to carry out domestic duties, such as caring for younger siblings, cooking and whiling away their time, undermines their opportunities for education and employment.

The overall project goal is to inspire and empower 100 disadvantaged adolescent girls to transform their lives through life skills education, employment and entrepreneurship.

The project objectives are:

#1 Establish a cluster level adolescent resource centre in rural areas with all information and IT equipments to familiarize the girls with technology, use of mails, search engine, internet and basic Microsoft that will come handy for employment

#2 Provide right training and support for disadvantaged young women to identify and achieve their personal and professional goals by using inspiring stories and move into sustained employment and access further education or job-based training

#3 Create change agents in rural areas to put their ideas into action and encourage culture of social entrepreneurship among the girls through on ground experiments

The expected outcomes of the project:

•Cluster level adolescent resource centre will be established in rural areas with all equipments and facilities inside the slum that can be easily accessed by the girls as and when required.

•35 high school dropout students will be provided remedial classes and prepared to enroll into schools by next academic year.

•100 adolescent girls will be trained on computer literacy and digital environment and 80% of them will be able to operate computers independently

•100 Girls will be trained in communication and personality development and 70% of them will be able to present themselves confidently by end of 1 year

•100 adolescents will be trained under life skills module leading to better sexual reproductive health and a secure life with dignity.

•100 students will be trained on career counselling and helps youth to prepare their 100 career plan

•Interface meets organised with successful social entrepreneurs will help generate interest on social entrepreneurship among the youth.

•At least 40 trained Adolescent girls/young women will establish micro enterprises and others will be placed in formal jobs.

•30 change agents will be created who will inspire other youth to implement minimum 5 need-based community development projects.

VIEWS plans to establish adolescent Girls Resource Centre in Rural areas with all information and IT equipments to familiarize the girls with technology, use of mails, search engine, internet and basic Microsoft that will come handy for employment.

The resource centre physical structure will be powered by solar energy provide a range of basic services like energy to computers, projector, lighting and mobile charging facilities with technology support of technology partner. 10 computers, LCD Projector, Printer and other digital materials will be installed. VIEWS will provide 5 computers to this centre as a organisational contribution. The centre will provide career counselling, communication, personality development including informative and educative audio video e-contents to attract the adolescent girls and renew their interest in higher education.

The centre will also provide story books and games that will demonstrate the use of entrepreneurial skills such as networking, business planning, financial literacy and creativity.