Empowering the girl child

It's a beginning. Of the end. Of exploitation.

It's the beginning. Of a beginning. Of empowerment.

Every day, in Hyderabad's walled city, nearly 300 girls between 6 and 18 years of age, mainly Muslims, gather in two centres. Here, in addition to basic education, they are taught about children's rights, environment and health care.

Empowerment against exploitation, empowerment against abuse -- that's what these children, most of them child workers, are experiencing under the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation's Educating Girls for Empowerment -- Edge -- project.

Started last October, Edge aims to break the barriers of children's development by providing them basic knowledge and increasing awareness about their surroundings.

''Our objective is to instill a world view among these children," says programme officer Madhu Ranjan, "Girls are traditionally discouraged about education. In slums their condition is much worse than that of their male counterparts."

The number of non school-going girls with Edge is 1,114. For boys, it's lesser -- 915. In Yakuth Mahal basti, of the 269 girls, 120 are drop outs. In Andhra Pradesh, female literacy rate is only 32.7 per cent, much below the national average of 39.3. Boys, however, enjoy a 44.1 per cent literacy rate in the state.

At the Edge centres, an Urdu educational package -- formulated by Pakistani social worker Nasara Habib in collaboration with UNICEF and the Andhra Pradesh government -- is used to teach the girls about democracy, women's rights, marriage and divorce, communal harmony and environment. The girls are exposed to a wider world view through formal and informal interventions so that gradually their own self-image, aspirations and attitudes become more attuned to today's world.

The effort, Ranjan expands, is to draw these children into the mainstream by providing them basic education, and later admitting them to government and open schools. Vocational training like tailoring, screen printing and the like are also provided at the centre.

Edge has also launched massive campaigns in the form of streetplays, film shows and discussions to bring about a positive change in the local attitude towards education for girls. The programme also provides for conducting regular seminars and meetings to educate the parents about the need for educating their children.

UNI