Article on the Status of the Girl Child in India

The following article appeared in today's edition of the New Indian Express newspaper.

Neglecting girl child a shame to India’s past

The New Indian Express
 04 Feb 2012
That the badge of being ancient civilisations cannot always be worn with pride by India and China is evident from the finding of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs that even in the 21st century the female infant mortality rate in these two countries is higher than that of the male infant mortality rate. Not only that, this dubious distinction was ‘achieved’ when the figures were compared with 148 other countries. What is distressing about such statistics is that not only has the advent of the modern, supposedly more enlightened, age failed to improve the condition of girls, but has even caused a worsening as the falling male-female ratio in India shows.

Female foeticide is a main reason for the skewed ratio which can have damaging social consequences. Yet, the fact that it is the well-to-do who indulge in this patent illegality shows how little awareness there is even among the educated classes of either the moral or the social imperatives. Such brazenness is even more shocking than the desperate acts of the poor who often kill their infant girls or abandon them because they look upon the female child as a financial burden. As the continuing instances of dowry deaths have shown, laws are not a solution to the deep-rooted problem, which is related to a traditional bias against women who are expected to remain subservient to their fathers in childhood, husbands in their youth and sons in old age.

If the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostics Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act has not been a notable success, the reason is the hidden social sanction for preventing the birth of a girl child. Hence, the mushrooming of illegal clinics where sex determination tests are done. In addition to further strengthening the punishment for families opting for such tests, it is the overall uplift of the status of women that can save the girl in the womb and ensure her well-being in later life.

School Uniforms for Creche Students

After some discussion on whether or not the expense was justified, we all agreed that school uniforms would be very beneficial for the self-esteem of the children, and their sense of self-worth. The uniforms were stitched by some ladies in the local villages who know tailoring which gave them some work and added income. We think they all look lovely!

Awareness Programs for Village Teenage Girls

We have started regular monthly awareness meetings for teenage girls from local villages. The program consists of games and activies, interspersed with awareness talks on relevant issues, such as hygiene, nutrition, (in India, anemia is the 2nd most common cause of maternal deaths accounting for 19% of total maternal deaths,*) female infanticide, education, aids awareness etc. These meetings have been very well attended with between 60-100 girls regularly participating. They are starting to open up also about the problems they see in their villages, even citing prostitution as a problem, along with high dowries, lack of respect for women etc.
For Pongal (the Harvest festival of South India, which is a big celebration,) the girls also enjoyed dance competitions and displayed a lot of talent. We hope you enjoy the photos below of our meetings.
*'Nutritional Status of Rural Pregnant Women' by
L.H. Madhavi, H.K.G. Singh,Department of Community Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Khaja Banda Nawaz Institute of Medical Science,Gulbarga-585105 (Karnataka)
Click on an image to see a larger version.

Christmas Gift Giving!

Give A Chrismas Gift to a Needy Person.
Here are some gift ideas:
1. Father Tony has identified 16 exceptionally poor elderly people in the villages where we are working. He would like to gift the women (13) with a sari, which we can get for Rs.150 per sari, (about £3.00) and the men with a lungi, costing about Rs.125 per piece. Also, we can get them some warm bed covers for the cooler winter evenings for Rs.100 per cover ($2.00.)
2. Educational Items for Little Darlings, Creches or future school: We have a list of suggestions here along with Indian internet stores where these items can be purchased.

Volunteers

We've been blessed with some wonderful volunteers from Australia recently. Many thanks to Judith, Shioban, Kim and Leanne, for your wonderful help and love for the babies and children.

Progress in Reading

Suleka and the other older 'Little Darlings' are making excellent progress in their reading skills.

Construction begins on the RPI centre for health and education.

The first priority was a gate and boundary to safe-guard building supplies. This is almost finished, and then we will start on the main building.

Celebrating Elder's Day at the Mercy Home

Elder's Day provided an opportunity to have a grand celebration--not only for the elderly residents, but also to inaugurate the new quarters for the sick elderly, and to celebrate the birthdays of Danny (turning 4) and Darshana (turning 3.) We hope you enjoy these video clips and photos of the happy celebration.

Dany and Darshana perform for the elderly:



The Little Darlings performance:



Suleka and Rani sing 'Happy Birthday' to Dany and Darshana



The carers of the babies and 'Lil Darlings' do a cultural performance for the elderly.



The elderly also gave a performance, and then were handed little gifts.

Bathroom renovation for Lil' Darlings

New child's size "Indian" toilet and new shower area. We have also put in a Western-style toilet for the physically challenged children who cannot use the Indian style one.

Bathroom time at a village creche. Sponsorship needed for toilets.

Here you see the village children at a creche going to the front yard for their bathroom time, as there are no toilets. Read how you can sponsor toilets here.

Starting work in one more creche and new supplies.

Thank you to Susee Group, Madurai for donating these supplies for a creche. We have been able to start working in one more creche, in Edyapatti, thanks to these supplies.

BEFORE: The creche only had the following items for 30 children before.

AFTER: Some of the lovely educational items donated by Susee.

A cheery 'hello' from some tuition students.

These are some of the tuition students from the new group we have started at Ediyapatti, near Usilampatti.

Creche Program Launched

With the start of the new school year here, we decided to start working right away in two villages creches. We still don't have all the needed sponsorship for renovations and educational items, but we decided to start with what we have, since the creche had no educational items or teaching at all. Here are a few photos of the children enjoying some action rhymes, construction blocks and colouring!

Clipo Received

We received this lovely box of Clipo for the Little Darlings from an internet store. The name of the sender was not provided, but we send many thanks to our anonymous donor. The children will love this toy.

Excursion for summer students

SHE staff took the students who faithfully attended the summer English classes on a fun excursion to Vagai Dam. As you can see, they all enjoyed themselves.