Education India Project #5828

Providing Education & Training to Women in India

by Action Change (Formerly GVI Trust)

Project Report | Jan 17, 2018
Plant Smiles, Grow Laughter and Harvest Love

By Helen Mulgan | GVI Kerala, Base Manager

Dear Supporters,

In short, 2017 has flown by. Overall it’s been a great year for developing our projects on the ground in Kerala, seeing us build multiple new partnerships and initiate as many as 5 new projects in the last quarter of the year alone!

In the last three months we’ve been focusing heavily on nourishing the integral pillars that support children in their education; parents, teachers and community. In October last year we began working with the teachers of a local boy’s secondary school. In total 16 teachers joined our classes, which seek to empower them to use English in their lessons more effectively and feel confident in delivering classes to their students. These lessons are short but fun with great attendance receiving excellent feedback, ultimately our objective is to improve the quality of education being delivered to students and increase the engagement and commitment of the teachers. In just three months we’ve already seen an increase in confidence and English speaking ability – plus the teachers are highly motivated and competitive, which makes for lively debates in class!

December in Kerala not only means a month of festive celebrations for Christmas but also a heavy exam period for students in both primary and secondary schools. During this time we usually pull back from our regular life-skill based classes with children to allow them to focus on their academic studies. This gives us a chance to focus on nurturing another pillar of support – their parents. In December 2017 we delivered 3 separate classes for parents that aimed to increase their awareness about how to support their children with ‘Exam Stress’. The workshops focused on areas like; ensuring good nutrition, healthy sleep cycles, the benefits of having breaks, emotional support and much more! These workshops were immensely well received by parents, many of whom gave feedback like:

“I only ever think about getting my son to study, I never thought about how he was feeling or if he was stressed – I will change my attitude from now on and give more support to him.”

In fact, these classes got so much positive feedback that we were invited back to one school to deliver this again to over 300 parents. What an achievement for our team (and a bit nerve wracking too!)

Finally we are proud to report the completion of two new vegetable gardens at our partner who runs a home for about 52 girls, supporting them with pastoral care and facilitating their education. The school and home had two excellent spaces for growing plants and vegetables but due to lack of funding were only able to operate a small garden using grow bags which limit growth and often do not survive the monsoon season. Working with in field volunteers we were able to build two new vegetable gardens with as many as 7 beds for growing vegetables which could be used in the meals served to the staff and children.

Only 1 month after completion of this project the garden is flourishing, growing vegetables like spinach, green beans, cauliflower, aubergine, okra, chilly and tomatoes. Staff at the home are passionate about maintaining the garden and have even developed their own organic pesticides that keep the bugs at bay without compromising the quality of the vegetables and the health of the girls! Most importantly some of the girls are taking an interest in maintaining the gardens, demonstrating patience, care and commitment and learning new skills too.

As with everything we do, setting up new projects takes time, effort, commitment and patience from our team of staff and volunteers on the ground. Without the financial support we receive through GlobalGiving and The GVI Trust, it would be difficult for us to imagine growth of this nature and nearly impossible for us to make it happen. A huge thank you to all of those who supported us in 2017 – watch this space to see what 2018 has in store for us.

With Gratitude,

GVI India

Permalink

Oct 19, 2017
Sex, Gender and Consent

By Zeno Wijtten | Country Director

Dear supporters,

In the whirlwind of programmes and on-going projects it’s always nice to be able to share with you some of the highlights. In August 2017 a team of 14 ran a 6 week programme focused around; Sex, Gender and Consent for 60 boys and 20 girls at local high schools in Pallaruthy and Mundamveli. The workshops sought to build up pupils’ knowledge of the differences between Sex and Gender, issues of Gender equality and awareness of safe sexual behaviour for themselves and others.

Through group discussion, engaging activities and the creation of informative posters, students were able to demonstrate their learning and develop their own ideas about the topics we covered. At present, teaching Sex education to students in Keralan schools is not compulsory. Though there has been talk from school boards about the idea of introducing a Sex Education curriculum for the last 10 years, until now there has been little to no evidential progress. After a recent workshop we supported, that was initiated by local non-profit Child Advocacy Centre Dil Se, in which 20 children from local schools in Std 8-12 openly discussed how, when and If they would like to learn about topics surrounding Sexuality, Gender, Sexual Abuse and LGBTQIA. It was clear from this workshop that pupils would overall feel more comfortable learning about these issues from an adult who was not related to their school or home life.

While Kerala remains a highly traditional state that views sex as something reserved for marriage, there are those who welcome progress in the education of these topics. On a discussion board titled ‘Need for healthy attitude towards sex education’ listed on the Kochi Hindu times webpage, Dr Biju Poulose writes: “Children need to learn to be comfortable with their own changing sexuality and develop a healthy respect for those of the opposite sex” As a response to this research and evidence we decided to initiate introductory classes for Boys and Girls in Standard's 8 & 9 at local secondary schools. The classes were to talk about sex, gender and consent in an open, clear and honest way.

We have been working with St Louis Primary school for over 2 years and during this time have become familiar with St Louis Secondary school, just a few feet away. Since the target age group for these workshops was 11-18 Years old we decided to reach out to St Louis Secondary to offer this classes. Simultaneously we also began a partnership with SDPY Boys Higher Secondary School in Pallaruthy, a school whose teaching staff reached out with interest in our current programmes.

Both schools are Independent schools receiving minimal government support, meaning fees for pupils are low and many of their students come from working class, lower income backgrounds. In the case of both schools teachers were asked to select 50 students who were excelling in English and who would therefore be more able to access the subject material during the workshops. In St Louis, a mixed gender school, 25 girls and 25 boys were chosen and taught separately as per our research into how the students would prefer to tackle these topics.

Over the course of 6 weeks we were able to work through the curriculum guidelines to create a course of material that taught students about Sex and Gender, Consent, Personal Boundaries, Online Safety and much more. These classes were delivered in an activity centric, interactive and engaging way and included; videos, games, trust exercises, poster
creation and team bonding activities.

The impact of these sessions were clear in the work produced by the students and their ability to recall their learnings in an end of topic quiz. Students of both genders were able to confidently; list biological differences between men and women, label diagrams of male and female bodies, explain the term ‘gender’ and pledge to keep themselves and others safe and free from unsafe sexual behaviour. The feedback given by students, teachers and parents was overwhelmingly positive and during the end of programme celebration one parent was able to give a speech in English explaining how the programme had provided ‘valuable life skills for teenagers’. Projects and activities like these are relying on external support and people willing to donate personal time, energy and resources. Thank you for your continued support of this project on behalf of our team but also the teams at the numerous schools and other
organisations we work with.

With Gratitude,

GVI India

Permalink

Aug 15, 2017
Empowered Women Empower Women

By Zeno Wijtten | GVI India, Country Director

A GVI Participant leading a discussion

Dear Supporters,

GVI staff and volunteers facilitated a 2-hour Women’s Empowerment workshop at the HQ of WIN society, for 64 of the staff ‘Animators’ within the organisation. The workshop sought to present a range of issues that are facing women in India and highlight the connection to the global issues women are facing today.

Through group discussion and idea generation we were able to unite the staff team in addressing these issues and thinking about potential solutions they could work towards as an organisation.

Some Context

The recent abduction and assault of well-known Keralan actress in the state caused outrage among activists who say it highlights the lack of safety for all women in India and a lack of justice for victims of sexual violence. According to the data on the Kerala Police website, the number of rape cases in the state has risen from 500 in 2007 to 1,644 in 2016. This shows that progress in women’s safety issues is either non-existent or inefficient.

The WIN Society

The WIN society support various Women’s Empowerment initiatives across the coastal belt of Kerala and are working with over 16,000 families through their efforts. Through offering scholarships and running educational programmes to young people and working to train and empower women into new profitable careers, they are able to tackle some of the issues on the independence and security of women in the state.

The Workshop

With the support of a translator, we were able to discuss 8 key topics related to the limitations placed on women that prevent them from becoming empowered. The women were able to share their experience in encountering and tackling these issues both individually and as part of their organisation. The response to this session helped in strengthening the bond between GVI and the WIN society, we were able to learn about the already impressive achievements of the organisation and discuss how we could support them further.

The great impact from this session was that women taking part felt they were both concerned and motivated to make a positive change to influence the safety of women through their work. Stating that the workshop had ‘reminded them of the work they had already done’ which they found to be a useful tool. The members of WIN society later went on to hold several marches for women’s safety on International Women’s Day in early March, in which GVI supported their efforts.

Thank you for your continued support of this project!

With Gratitude,
GVI India

Divya, an NSP, leading a workshop session

Women leadership workshop preparations

Permalink

‹ 1 ... 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ... 23 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.