By Lizzie Guinness | Programme Manager
Ankita is 15 years old. She has one brother and one sister. Her parents are illiterate and did not understand the importance of education, especially for girls.
Our girls study programme encourages girls like Ankita to stay in education. In the communities that we work with, girls were regularly dropping out at 7th standard and not completing their education, due to parental bias towards boys and fears around girls safety around the home. Girls were expected to learn all the domestic work cooking and home related work by the age of 13 or 14 and were usually married by 16 or 17.
Our project has formed study support groups for 75 girls like Anika. These study support groups include weekly study technique sessions, supervised study and daily independent study. The girls students were provided with study notes or resources of “Home Revise” and tool kits such as mathematics equipments. The girls also benefit from a range of extracurricular activities including computer classes, exposure visits to police stations, malls and other employment opportunities. The girls are also provided with shoes, raincoats and umbrellas so that they can attend school during the monsoon season. The project is also working with the parents through a monthly programme of sensitisation meetings to encourage them to support their daughters to stay in education and delay their marriage. As a result, the parents are now delaying their girls marriage until after 18 years and they have become passionate about their daughters completing their education.
The students have become interested and motivated in their studies, sharing with their parents what they are learning in school and supporting their young siblings to attend school. Anika and her friends are now confidently studying indepedently and meeting each evening as a group to do their homework. They've also got more involved in school activities, taking part in competitions.
Anika has now passed her SCC. Her parents are very proud of her success and are really supporting her siblings with their education. Anika is now travelling alone to college, she spreads the message in her village to other girls about why education is so important, and how they need to develop confidence and skills in new technologies so they can access skilled jobs. Her aim is to become a teacher.
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