Invest in Adolescent Girls in Rajasthan, India - The Hunger Project UK

Donate today and give the gift of opportunity to girls in India! Enable them to blossom and grow into empowered women.

With an investment from you, The Hunger Project India will be able to support 600 girls in rural Rajasthan, India. These 600 girls will be followed for a period of two and a half years for the total cost of about 100 EUR per girl. By preventing them entering a marriage at an early age they will have the opportunity to finish their education. Not only is their position strengthened by education for future years this also improves the situation of their children in rural communities, as educating girls is known to have a positive impact on families, communities and countries at large.

The girls will be supported in strengthening their voice through Girls Leadership Workshops. Additionally, the importance of girls staying in school will be addressed directly with the schools through interface meetings with school management committees and through Drama Pedagogy workshops. In these workshops girls will learn about gender based violence. The Adolescent Girls program will focus on girls from 13 to 19 years of age and will include girls in school, girls that have dropped out of school and girls from marginalised castes and class backgrounds.

Importance of an adolescent girls program in Rajasthan.
Apart from the economic challenges, the state struggles with a high level of gender disparity and inequality which is aggravated in the rural areas due to low literacy rate among females (43% according the 2011 Census), early marriage and teen-age pregnancy.

The disparity and gap in literacy levels between men and women does make it pertinent for The Hunger Project to focus on themes of promoting education, life skills and leadership of adolescent girls in the area with the support of elected leaders, especially women of their village councils.

Child marriage and girls lack of access to quality education are both rooted in gender inequality and the belief that girls and women are worth less than boys and men. Keeping girls in school is one of the best ways of delaying marriage. When a girl marries young, the chance that she will also become pregnant young is high and this entails health problems for both the young mother and her baby. Additionally, girls who marry later, attain higher levels of education, fare better economically and raise healthier families.

With more families being pushed into poverty because of food shortages and lost incomes, cases of child labour and child marriage have gone up, resulting in school drop-outs. In other cases, school closures and poor access to online technology are other reasons for children dropping out of the education system altogether.

To find out more, visit our website - https://thehungerproject.org.uk/