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india: education of girls |
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04.05.04 |
Education of the girl child in Patna Sophia Centre for Continuing Education for Women and Children  | The rainy season is a time for sowing, planting and growing. It was in one of these months in 2002 we started a non-formal school, “Sophia Centre for Continuing Education for Women and Children” in Patina –Bihar. Our main objective was to open a primary learning centre for very poor children and school dropouts, debarred from all the avenues of basic education
Signals were sent out over these past months to the local community; our focus is on the education of the socially and economically disadvantaged spotlighting the ‘girl child’ deprived of any form of schooling. Even today material poverty prevents many children from having access to formal education and left with little or no human formation. Discriminated against from birth, as a child of eight or ten years old she has to do cooking, cleaning, take care of the younger ones while parents who belong to the unorganised labour sector are away at work. She is conditioned to be submissive, deprived of proper nutrition while her brothers enjoy better care and food.
Information data revealed the startling fact that some of our girls when very young have already had their marriages fixed and a couple of them were married off when the parents found a fairly suitable match. Once the girl is married she continues to live and work like an unpaid servant in the family circle.
When a parent brings a boy child to the school for admission we insist on getting information about girls in the family, and encourage him/her to bring the girls to school, even if the father is reluctant to supply notebooks, pencils etc. for her education. So the girls between the ages of ten and fourteen, learn to read and write, sitting with children much younger than they are.
We do not insist on their coming daily to school as we are well aware how vulnerable these girls are to pressures at home. From our experiences of these few months we see that there is an urgent need to prepare the girls for married life before they can enjoy their childhood. Given the present situation we are satisfied if we can offer these girls basic education and help them discover their inner strength, and gradually experience the power of the heart of a woman in spite of the difficult circumstances in which they live and struggle.
Looking ahead: The gradual increase in the number of girls in the school prompts us to reflect and find ways of entering their lives and support them in their struggle. We believe that they are not just receivers; they offer us inspiration and a sense of commitment to persevere in our work, so that together with them we can work for a more just world.
Mary Varghese rscj
For Sophia Centre. Patna, India |
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Última modificación ( 24.10.05 )
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