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Karnataka Initiatives for Married Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment

Vidyanikethan has been selected as lead NGO for implementing IMAGE – Initiatives for Married Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment, a multi-sectoral programme, funded by Terre des Hommes (TdH)-Netherlands.

Initiatives for Married Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment (IMAGE)is an innovative and integrated project to address the issues of Early Married Girls (EMG) in Karnataka state of India. Funded by Terre des Hommes, Netherlands (TdH-NL), the project is being implemented in 5 selected districts of Bagalkot, Belagavi, Bidar, Chamarajanagara and Chikkaballapur.

 

Objective:

To Provide opportunities for children in vulnerable situations to develop.

  • Provide necessary life skills for daily living
  • To campaign for the Rights of the children
  • To stop the Exploitation of children in any form
  • Focus: Rights of children of all types of issues and provide opportunities for development
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Geographic distribution

The project will address the issue of EMGs by primarily working with the girls themselves and through various stakeholders like the families, the community and the government. Most of the interventions fall under ‘Provision’ strategy, followed by ‘Prevention’, and ‘Promotion’. TdH-NL India will take the lead role for the program. Coordination, monitoring and knowledge building are the major roles of TdH-NL. There are 5 field implementing partners each covering 20 villages to reach out to 3,000 EMGs, 2,500 highly vulnerable children, and 20,000 community members.

 

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Comprehensive Rehabilitation Programme For Working Children

Comprehensive Rehabilitation Programme For Working Children(CRPWC) was implemented from 2009-2015 in (   ) and emphasized on improving the quality of lives of children and women in the operational area.

The project worked towards reducing and preventing child exploitation, which was present in various forms in our 30 villages. The project also addressed issues related to child exploitation, which includes physical, emotional, sexual abuse, and girl child neglect.

During the project, the team interacted with owners of units that employed children labourers, who were employed in various stone quarries, brick kilns, chicken hatcheries, hotels, agricultural farms, animal grazing activities and other sectors.

CRPWC worked with key stakeholders in 30 villages, children, parents and the community. as it intensely interacts with parents, self help groups and teachers. Thus, it has the opportunity, potential and experience to initiate community based social systems for an exploitation and abuse free upbringing and development of children.

Overall impact of the interventions

  • Ensure rights of children
  • Livelihood promotion to protect rights of children
  • Health education and taking measures to reduce workplace hazards
  • Initiating child care centres (day care centres) for age appropriate development
  • children forums
  • Parents and children are capacitated with life coping skills in order to reduce incidences of domestic disputes, alcoholism, different forms of academic and social abuse (beating, comparison, pressuring children to excel in studies, etc), tobacco and drug abuse, depression and anxiety in the children due to various reasons.
  • Formation and strengthening of women groups
  • Mainstreaming of drop out children and children engaged in child labour units into bridge schools, schools, informal learning systems, and vocational schools.
  • Preparing the foundation for adolescents to engage in sustainable and dignified professions be it placement or self employment
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Banawasi Government School

Eco-friendly practices in a rural Government School in Banawasi, Kanakapura – a role model

The water shortage in many areas of Bangalore affects children studying in schools, especially those in Government managed schools. Rain water harvesting is a self-sustainable solution to overcome this shortage. With the support of AFP and Accenture, Vidyanikethan implemented eco-based and eco-friendly technologies and techniques  at the Government High School in Banawasi, Kanakpura, where about 400 children from rural areas study from 6th to the 10th standard.

Given the large expanse of the ground behind the school, Vidyanikethan also initiated a kitchen garden as a learning experience for the children. The school also installed solar panels to power its lights as there were prolonged power cuts in the area.  In many ways, with the support of AFP and Accenture, this school served as a model school to the other schools by its eco-friendly based practices.

 

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Watershed Programmes

The Department of Watershed Development, Government of Karnataka, and NABARD chose Vidyanikethan as one of its implementing agencies for its watershed projects at Alanatha, Kanakapura Taluk and Thattegere.  Vidyanikethan worked with the community in these areas and key local stakeholders in different phases. Vidyanikethan organized the following activities:

  • Capacity building and awareness generation programmes through street plays and other innovative means
  • Mobilized people to form self help groups to implement and maintain the watershed.
  • Motivated people to give time for activities such as tank de-siltation, boulder bunds, boulder check, grass seeds, farm ponds, drainage line treatment etc.

 

Overall impact of the watershed development project at Alanatha and Thattagere

  • Increase in ground water levels,
  • Support to agricultural activities by better supply of water
  • Adaptation of eco-friendly technological practices such as soil, water and bio-mass conservation, crop protection schools,
  • Improved fodder availability for its livestock population,
  • Improved afforestation and horticulture by planting more forest based and horticulture based trees.
  • Formation of self help groups also led to groupd savings, empowerment of women through awareness and participation in watershed development activities,
  • Opportunity for socio-economic development through training of vocational skills such as tailoring, making of bamboo based products.
  • Reduction in migration to cities by increasing rural livelihood programmes.
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Pearl Project – Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS)

Primary objective: To reduce poverty in the project working by providing opportunities for sustainable livelihoods to 1000 socially and economically marginalized families   living across 10 villages in Soundatti.

Impact

  • Broadened the perspective of the women
    Changed their perception about their own role
    Started taking interest in the overall village administration
    Learnt about the various State and the Central Government schemes designed especially for BPL families and low income groups.
    Understood the importance of sanghas
    Improved practices related to child nurturing care, gender care, pre and post natal care, and new born baby care, protection from seasonal diseases.
    Monitoring the functioning of mid day meals and PDS due to which their activities became more regular
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Rural Poor Development Project (RPDP)

Rural Poor Development Project, supported by TdH-NL, was a major programme of Vidyanikethan. It was implemented in 25 villages of Mathagondapalli surrounding villages of Thally block in western parts of the Krishnagiri District of Tamilnadu during (   ). Subsequent to RPDP, TdH-NL supported CRPWC (Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Working Children)

Areas of work

Medical relief programmes, Education (formal, pre-primary, primary and Early Learning Centres, PLA (Participatory Learning Appraisals) Poverty Relief Programmes and Protection of Natural resources and the environment.

Strategies and interventions used for the implementation of the programme included community mobilization, sensitization programmes, capacity building, training programmes, counseling, referrals, motivating people to take part in community based participatory processes, especially women.

Impact of RPDP

Although the benefits of each intervention impacts primarily on the individual or the family, overall, the interventions in health, education and socio-economic empowerment of RPDP brought about a grassroots based social change in the rural economy.

By motivating the people to access to Government managed educational, health and other social entitlements programmes, RPDP has ensured the effective and appropriate use of the Government’s welfare schemes.  The interventions to address the personal well-being of women and provide them with opportunities in socio-economic development are empowering women at the village level. Overall, these activities harnessed the indigenous skills and resources for local employment and growth opportunities.

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Born Learning programme, Thanisandra

Born Learning Campaign- Thanisandra, supported by United Way

 Vidyanikethan is implementing the United Way supported Born Learning Campaign in 12 Anganwadi centres in Thanisandra, Bangalore, reaching out to about 300 children. The objective is to improve the functioning of the centres by providing nutritional support, services related to child development, and providing learning materials to the children.

Key activities

Training on usage of TLMs (Teaching Learning Material):

A Teacher Training programme was conducted in May-2016,  for all 12 Anganwadi teachers, staff  at Thanisandra  High school  about  the objective of  assessment  and teaching learning materials  to understanding the level  among the children, and  teachers role & responsibility.

Talent Day at Thanisandra Cluster

A talent day was organized on 21st Jan, 2017 at the Thanisandra High School playground, where the mood was like a carnival. The arrangements included identifying spaces for children performance, placing chairs for guests & parents show related logistics and signage etc were all going on simultaneously.

The guests present at the venue, especially the chief guests Mr. Prakash from Child Development Programme  Officer  CDPO and Ms. Sharadhambha Supervisor  were present. The 350 children & their parents who participated from all the centres , were full of enthusiasm. It was a day that they were anticipating since many days. This was a day where they could not only enjoy participating but also bring out their talents & potential to the optimum.

 Impact

  • The teachers learnt about making learning materials from waste materials, which they customized as per the requirement of the school. Many of them said that these issues were not covered in their regular Teaching training programme.
  • The children are showing improvement in the children. Their concentration has improved, and so has their reading and written skills.

Health Camps organized at two Anganwadi centres

Vidyanikethan organized two health camps on 17-9-2016 and 14.12.16 at Nagenahalli Anganawadi centre and Thanisandra anganwadi center. These were done with collaboration of Manipal Hospital and Mobility India. The doctors interacted with mothers on various child and women health issues. The health camp was conducted for three Anganwadi combined ( Thanisandra, Rachenahalli, Saraipalya) Total 70 members have taken treatment including 43 children and 23 women.