Fourteen teenage girls from Odisha’s Berhampur have started a campaign ‘kishori shakti karyakram’ beginning from the International Women’s Day on Sunday to empower young girls living in slums of the city.
These activists are in the age group of 14 to 18 years. The campaign includes making adolescents and the community aware about menstrual hygiene, right age for marriage, motivating school and college drop-outs to restart studies, promoting gender equality, skill development and formation of adolescent groups.
Youth organisation, Youth for Social Development, has been training the activists for the past four months. They have already conducted a survey in 40 slums of the city to find out the problems and issues being faced by those living there.
According to YSD secretary Bibhu Prasad Sahu, four women students of Masters in Social Works course from Sambalpur University will join the campaign as interns from April and guide the activists.
Initially, the campaign was started in 33 slums but it will be extended to 40. As part of the campaign, ‘teen clubs’ are being established in the targeted slums. These clubs will have girls and boys as members.
Two activists — Sruti Kumari and Divya Bhanjani — said their first target is to help improve menstrual hygiene among the girls as well as teenage married women living in the slums. According to them, there are many superstitions related to menstruation and several girls and married women do not use sanitary napkins.
“Through the ‘teen clubs’ we will try to bring gender parity and also educate the youngsters about issues related with child marriage,” said Ms. Bhanjani. They will also motivate drop-outs to restart education. YSD will help in this effort. Others will be made aware about various means of skill development through government schemes, said Mr. Sahu.
The activists will be coordinating with Asha volunteers and Anganwadi workers.