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Updates of all activities of Saheli Trust, Dehra Dun, India

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Dear Everyone,

Greetings from Saheli.

October has been a month of academics with half early college and school exams and our Education@YourDoorstep progressing at a rapid pace. Do read below to know more about our activities in October.

Uttarakhand State Government awards Pushpa

Celebrations broke out in Saheli when the Uttarakhand State Government honored Pushpa, for her achievements in the field of Judo. It was an amazing experience seeing her on the stage receiving the award. She is just 16 years and already a National Champion in Judo. She is getting coaching at the Government Judo Camp at Parade Ground and her coach is quite certain that given an opportunity, Pushpa can reach international level.

Reaching out to women in Choila Village

Located just next to the Aravali Mountain Ranges on the SouthWest of Dehradun, is Choila village. Because of it's remote location not many people visit here and this was our second visit to the place. The women here are surprisingly vocal about their rights and comparatively very free. Many here dream of being well educated and getting a well paying job. It is such a contrast to the extensive female subjugation in the surrounding area.

With the Choila villagers :-)

Education @ Your Doorstep

E@YD program was running full steam ahead, as usual. The picture above shows an English mid term test in Naye Basti village, with the student on the right, desperately trying to recollect the answer. 36 girls / women completed the two month course this month and were awarded merit certificates. It may not sound much while reading, but the jump in the self confidence of the girls who go through this 2 month program is something amazing. While it is true we don't prepare them for a job, but we do prepare them, quite significantly, for life. The aim of E@YD is to "sweep" through as many areas as possible and sensitize as many girls and families as possible, so time is crucial. If we were to prepare them for jobs, then we would need over a year in one location, which would deprive so many girls of the self confidence we try and instill in them.

The 36 girls who finished the program this month.

Message from the Secretary

Dear Everyone,

October has been a month which we all can look back at with satisfaction. 16 girls, we had got enrolled in Open Board (NIOS) for Class X & X11 got their books finally. Another girl got admitted in a college and two other younger girls in Class 8. All of them had dropped their studies for various causes and had been sitting at home, doing nothing.

Classes under E@YD were running full steam ahead and as always, the girls seemed more interested in Computers than English. The children in Shelter were also busy with their exams and academics seemed to prevail everywhere.

Under the Education@YourDoorstep Campaign, upto now, we have reached out to over 130 girls in 11 different villages/ slums. I'm sure you are aware, that our main aim is to interact with the girls, and make them self confident and aware, along with teaching them Basic Computers & English. We also interact with their families and try and change the attitude of their parents towards gender equality. For this we have 5 teachers & 15 laptops. To each girl, we give a book on English & Computers and two registers. Each set of books and registers cost to us Rs 450/-, against a print price of Rs 610/- for books and Rs 40/- for registers. Since each batch consists for 15 girls and there are 3 batches we need around Rs 20,250/- ( $311/-) next month for the next batches. I would like to take this opportunity to request everyone please help us by contributing as much as possible. It is your support which has kept us going till now and it motivates us to go even further. Please reply to this email if you'd like to help out.

Finally, as I always say, we would love to have your feedback, both negative and positive, because that is what helps us grow. Please do not hesitate to comment, all you need to do is to reply to this email. Your words mean a lot to us, so please don't hesitate.

And the invitation to visit our shelter is there for everyone. Please do spare some time and come and feel the spirit of Saheli.

With regards,

Shruti Kaushik,
Secretary, Saheli

...and in the end...

Read our Annual Report for the year 2016