Keep Girls in School & End Child Marriage in Pune

Priya is a 17-year-old girl from Mumbai who is currently pursuing her 12th standard at school. She lives with her parents and younger sister in a rented home, where the monthly rent of 4000 rupees adds to the incredible financial strain on her family.

With Priya's mother as the sole earner, working as a housemaid, the family faces significant challenges. Priya's father is unable to work due to complications from a cataract surgery, which has left him with limited vision.

Priya's younger sister struggles with low haemoglobin levels, requiring frequent hospital visits that her family simply cannot afford. As a result, Priya often found it difficult to concentrate on her studies, feeling overwhelmed by the pressures at home and the need to support her family, especially in domestic tasks, which is expected of girls in their community.

Things began to change when a community support officer from Karuna's project introduced Priya to a girls education group. This initiative offered her the opportunity to enrol in various activities designed to support young girls like her. With encouragement from the team and her peers, Priya decided to join.

Through Karuna's support, Priya received training that helped her build confidence and resilience. She was also granted educational sponsorship of 4000 rupees, which allowed her to access essential study materials, including notebooks, stationery, and textbooks. This transformed Priya's outlook and alleviated the financial burden on her family, enabling her to focus more on her education.

With the pressure lifted, Priya's academic performance improved!

She actively engaged in her studies and began participating in extracurricular activities, particularly enjoying sports. The support from Karuna has not only helped her academically but has also encouraged her to explore her interests outside the classroom, finding joy and freedom, outside of simply surviving.

Looking ahead, Priya aspires to complete her graduation and post-graduation in finance, with the goal of becoming an accountant. With renewed determination and a clearer path forward, she is focused on achieving her dreams.

Priya's journey is just one example that illustrates the positive impact that targeted support can have on young individuals, empowering them to overcome limiting beliefs, financial challenges and pursue their aspirations.

Thanks to your support, Priya has gained the tools and confidence needed to puruse a hopeful future of choice. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported this project in 2023. We relaunched this work after many years of working with the girls around the Vishrantwadi slums. Vishrantwadi lies 10 KM from Pune city centre and is close to the airport.

More recently we have focused efforts on girls coming specifically from Nomadic Tribes and De-Notified Tribes (NT-DNT). These are communities who traditionally lived nomadically but under colonial rule, found their ways of life become labelled as criminal.

The De-Notified Tribes were previously ‘Notified’, meaning that they were on official government lists, and branded ‘criminal by birth’. To this day, these communities bear the stigma of criminality, often accused of crimes they have not committed.

As a result of their traditional lifestyles disappearing, sometimes through being made illegal, many of these tribes have had to settle wherever they can. In Pune, many live in the slums around the Vishrantwadi area. The girls in these communities generally face the most disadvantage of all the girls in the slums, suffering from malnutrition and often being forced to drop out of school and marry whilst still in their early teens.

This year we are working to help 150 adolescent NT-DNT girls in the slums, 50 of whom will be given sponsorship support to complete high school. The girls will be supported in their schooling and receive training in life skills, including financial literacy, media literacy, sexual and reproductive health, mental and physical health, communication and critical thinking.

The girls will also learn about basic protection mechanisms and laws which prevent discrimination and abuse such as domestic violence legislation and POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act). These are important due to the high risk of sexual and domestic violence for NT-DNT girls in the slums.

So, thank you once again for your help with supporting this work. We look forward to sharing the stories of the girls we’re able to work with this year.