What you can do for International Day of the Girl Child

• While our nation still holds a reputation for gender inequality, efforts are being made to eradicate age-worn thought processes. To highlight such efforts, October 11 was marked as the International Day of the Girl Child, with the underlining aim to ensure a world free of discrimination against girls and young women. The theme, this year, as announced by the UN focuses on adolescent girls and sustainable development.

In an effort to eradicate gender inequality, which is mostly seen in the lower economic groups, we are steadily moving towards positive results. “There has been little progress in this field, but there’s still a long way to go,” says Smarinita Shetty, Director of Dasra Foundation, an NGO based in Santacruz, “Girl empowerment and welfare is a holistic process and we need to create a space where girls are safe, seen and celebrated.”

A matter of priorities
While Mumbai is rapidly developing, questions as to whether the city is prioritising education for the girl child are still being asked. To this, Shetty remarks, “There are many competing priorities for people in Mumbai such as the city’s poor infrastructure, abysmal living conditions for the poor and even the ‘not-so-poor’, lack of adequate employability options for our youth and gender-based violence. In this whole gamut of things, focus on the girl child often tends to get lost.” However, Shetty argues that in order to keep the issue in the forefront, the media, society and philanthropists need to keep fighting for the cause.

In order to celebrate this day, the Canadian Consulate General planned a couple of events, involving schools across the city. Dasra played a major role during this event, by giving facts and figures that are worth noting. A report comparison of ASER figures for girls in the age group of 15-16 years who are currently not enrolled in school have dropped from 22.6 per cent (ASER 2006) to 17.3 per cent (ASER 2014). This is a positive sign, however we haven’t reached our ideal target as yet.

It is only through action that we can actually make a visible change. “Mumbai is rich in terms of NGOs that work across the city to improve the conditions of girls. From anti-sex trafficking, teaching life skills, child rights and protection against abuse, they do it all. However, what such organisations really is support—monetarily as well as morally,” says Shetty.

Dasra’s efforts at a glance
Organisations, which are the wheels of change, end up doing a lot. Dasra, for instance, conducts extensive ground research, which helps other NGOs perform their job more effectively. Shetty explains that the foundation is intermediary—by supporting high-impact non-profits that work with adolescent girls (girls aged between 10–19 years) across the spectrum—from education, health and life skills, all the way to livelihoods.

Apart from this, they also work with corporates and philanthropists to increase awareness about issues pertaining to adolescent girls. By doing so, a larger ecosystem is built as awareness among the stronger and larger bodies to help smaller groups and bring about drastic change occurs.

The most promising aspect, though, is that the research done by such organisations pays manifold. “Research reports offer solutions that can go a long way in empowering girls. An apt example would be ‘Going To School’, a campaign that creates design-driven stories to empower children with the skills they need to participate in the world around them, solving poverty, unemployment and inequality issues,” explains Shetty.

What Mumbai can do
Then again, organisations can do only so much. Shetty elaborates, “Real change can happen only when the mindsets change. Unless every Mumbaikar thinks that girls are on par with boys; that their lives are as important, and that they deserve and are given the same opportunities, very little will change for our girls in this city.” Donating and volunteering with NGOs go a long way in simplifying life for the girl child.

Myth v/s Reality 
Myth: If you educate a girl child, it’s a waste of money. 
Reality: Keeping girls in schools adds $10.6 bn to the Indian economy over their lifetime.

Myth: Child marriages are few and far between in our country.
Reality: 47 per cent of India’s girls who get married are child brides.