22:00
Viva Review 2010
Delhi, India
Viva + 10 churches + 66 local projects = girls with equal sta tus It’s 22:00, and in homes across India many school-age boys are just finishing their homework and packing their books for the next morning. Their parents have high hopes for their education and future careers. But what about their sisters? What are India’s girls doing at 22:00? They are most likely to be found preparing the next day’s meal, helping younger siblings to bed or doing other household chores. Sadly, it is a common occurrence in India that a girl’s education is sacrificed so that her brothers can attend school, as often parents can see no reason to invest time and money in someone who may leave the family to get married. This leaves female children much more vulnerable to forced labour, sexual abuse and almost certainly a lifelong struggle with poverty. The clear correlation between schooling and status means that education for India’s girl children is vital, yet we found that no one project wielded sufficient influence to combat such a large-scale issue. “If you have one person here and one there who want to help the girl child that is good” says Karuna Sagilli, a Viva staff member in India, “but you will not change a nation like that.” So this year saw the beginning of the Jyoti Forum; a national Viva initiative that draws on our city-wide networks to seek out and bring together projects, organisations and churches to champion education for the girl child. Karuna continues, “Viva has united the ideas and enthusiasm of the many individuals to give us real influence, so now we can turn hopes into actions.”
Already these meetings are bearing fruit, with the Delhi group now running a project mentoring adolescent girls and helping them complete high school. Many of the city’s girls struggle to stay in school due to financial constraints or lack of family support, so the project has worked to alleviate social and emotional pressure through regular counselling, and also address practical concerns by connecting them with network projects that have offered subsidised education or help with schoolwork. The hierarchical nature of India’s society means that a change of mindset at the ‘top’ is vital, and so in Madurai we have been helping several legal groups campaign together to see the ‘Right to Free Education Act’ properly implemented. It was passed in early 2009, but its impact has yet to be felt by India’s children.
Jyoti, an Indian girl’s name meaning ‘light’, has focused on combining and maximising the skills and contacts of individual projects to raise the status of girls. Three India-wide forums have been held and local working groups have met regularly in Delhi, Chandigarh, Bangalore, Madurai and Dehradun, bringing together hundreds of people committed to helping girl children receive the knowledge, confidence and freedom to grasp hold of a positive future.
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“As a girl growing up in India I had to fight for my education,” Karuna shares. “Yet here I am, choosing my own path, trying to make a difference in the world. Now the girls growing up in India have all these people fighting for them – just imagine the amazing women they now have the chance to become.”
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