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Workshops to build the livelihood skills of the underprivileged girl children and women, and street play performances are the highlights this year.
Capacity building of victimised and underprivileged girls marked the Girl Child week celebrations by Smile Foundation this year too. A series of street plays and skill building workshops were organised throughout the city sensitizing people about the plight of girl child and motivating them to be a part of the development process.
Last year, Smile Foundation for the first time organised a street play workshop under Swabhiman, a health and empowerment programme for girl child and women. The workshop was held at Neb Sarai, a Swabhiman Intervention area.
Today, Smile Foundation has a full-fledged street play group, with at least 45 performances held at Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), Delhi Haat, DAV College and 10 urban slums (Nut Colony and Ambedkar Colony in Chhatarpur, Kumhar Basti and Harijan Basti and Gali number 1 to 4 in Neb Sarai, New Ashok Nagar, Shashi Garden (Mayur Vihar), Indira Camp and Valmiki Camp in Begumpur and Sriram J. J. camp) of Delhi to its credit.
Through the street play performances, a total of 100,000 privileged and underprivileged mass including about 80,000 women were sensitized about the significance of family planning and various reproductive health issues including immunization, early registration, condom promotion, HIVAIDS, safe motherhood, female foeticide etc.
Watch these community girls perform and it would be difficult for you to distinguish between a professional street play group and these adolescent slum dwellers.
Continuing with the legacy, this year too Smile Foundation organised a series of street plays at different locations of the city. Along with this, are several skill building workshops organised to provide livelihood skills to victimised and underprivileged girls. The workshop which started on September 19 ended on September 25.
The week long workshop included making of various artifacts like paper bags, decorated pots, anklets, necklaces, etc. The girls exhibited their artifacts at Lady Sriram College on September 19 and Gargi College on September 23 where the articles sell like hot cakes. “Ab hum apna khud ka kaam shuru kar sakte hain (Now we can start our own work),” says Snehalata, a resident of New Ashok Nagar.
