From Child Labour to College: Support Her Future

Project leader, Prakash, describes the challenges and successes of supporting girls during lockdown conditions in India. 

"The coronavirus situation is a big challenge; to keep girls in touch with their school studies and also to save them from dropping out due to their families needing wage labour or even to get them married at an early age.  The necessary lockdown and closure of schools have heightened these risks.   Many parents are desperate so feel they have to send their girls out as daily wage labourers and in some cases, we’ve noticed that parents are organizing marriages of these girls as they’re cheaper affairs at this time, due to the restrictions on numbers of people that can attend. Once married, the girls will leave their family, so there would be one less person to feed. 

We are working hard to reach and engage these girls and to encourage the families to keep their girls safe and in education. We always work with families so it’s important that any solutions involve the whole community. With poor internet connection and very limited technology, after several meetings we came to the conclusion of developing hard copies of self-learning material which can be distributed to the girls and that we will and encourage and motivate them so that they will stay in touch with their studies.  All teachers involved showed their willingness to help us in preparing the self-learning material,  check and correct the same and guide the girls.    

We are experimenting with safe, small groups too. If the girls living nearby can meet a teacher in a small group and get guidance from them, that also helps with a sense of belonging and motivation. After developing the self-learning material we got it printed and as per our plan, we distributed to 146 girls of 3 remote villages, on a pilot basis. Our staff made home visits to these girls, encouraged and motivated them, told them the plan and what they have to do and how it will help them to keep continue their studies and also keep them in touch with education.  We also motivated the parents that allow these girls to complete their studies."

Thank you for helping us reach girls and fulfil their education, at this time of increased risk and crisis.