Samvaad Sessions at Bagiya

Project Saahas - An initiative for women by women had conducted two workshops for girls in a NGO school- Bagiya on 19th and 23rd August highlighting Safety for girls and a joint session with parents reinforcing the importance of Continuity for Education.

The facilitators were Gurgaon Counsellors : Kavita Yadav, Yoshita Sharma, Divya Vaishnava, Pooja Shrivastava.

Project Saahas has been evolved to support girls in the age group of 15 to 21 in Government and low budget schools and Colleges so they may have the Courage to make meaningful and independent choices in their lives.

We are currently a growing community of women- about 50 in nos.

The Programs are three fold:

•  Samvaad: to create dialogue among girls about their social milieu and awareness to deal with the blocks.
•  Pratibha: to mentor girls in exploring their creative talents
•  Sashakt- to build an ecosystem to empower girls with skills and ability to make choices in the world related to work or home.

It was amazing and overwhelming interaction with girls of Bagiya. In our first session we interacted with these girls on what is safe and unsafe touch. With the help of an activity called, "Safety Circle" we explained to them the importance of sharing and not keeping their feelings or experiences or any incident if happened with them to themselves. They were made to write the names of people whom they can approach and speak with in times of any emergency. They were explained these sensitive issues with the help of videos and real life personal share of experiences by the facilitators.

In the second session of Samvaad focus was on the "Continuity of Education" and this was discussed with the parents of these girls. Parents were open and forth coming in sharing their side of the story and challenges. They were shown various ways of how to overcome those and why they should not stop the education of their daughters midway. On the same day girls were explained and inspired to fight their own battles by having presence of their minds and having buddy system. They too were explained the importance of education and how they can benefit from it. All this was done with the help of role-plays.

The purpose of these sessions was to sow the seed of self-confidence and empower these girls for their own safety and make them understand importance of education.