Introduction
Women
and child development has become the buzzword today with women working
alongside men in all spheres and children are expected to get influence by
their environment at different age level.
Women development can be defined as a process leading to enhancing
women’s control over financial, human and intellectual resources. In any
nation, women development can be assessed by their involvement in social,
economic and social fields. Similarly, child’s development is the process of
growth of child from dependency to increase independency. It is important that
parents take every step necessary to ensure that their children grow up in
environment where their social, emotional and educational needs are met.
Issue
As
is a widely known fact, the condition of women in India as well as the rest of
the world personifies pitiful. We have a high rate of female feticide and at
the same time the discrimination against girls in India has been going on since
ages now. Even today, there are several sections of the Indian society where
the girl child is treated as a burden. Leaving behind the educational and
medical front, girls in India lag far behind in receiving affection as well.
Also, being the second most populated country, India has a large number of
youths crowning its resources. However, this resource is misused one as well.
There
are various problems faced by women and children together – Undernourishment
which means lack of sufficient calories in food leading to weakness, lower work
efficiency etc., Malnutrition which means lack of sufficient ingredients such
as vitamins, proteins etc. in the food leading to illness, less weight of child
at birth, high rate of child mortality etc., Limited Education as the number of
school going children is still far from satisfactory.
Development
Programs by Government and NGO
For
the social and economic development of women and children, Government and
certain NGOs have launched various schemes and programs such as:
1. Support
To Training-Cum-Employment Programme (STEP):
The women are given
training in sectors like agriculture, dairying, village and small industries.
2. Swa-Shakti
Project:
Swa-Shakti aims at
increasing women’s access to resources for better quality of life by providing
health and education services and imparting skills to women for income
generating activities.
3. National
Commission for Women:
National Commission for
Women protects constitutional and legal rights of women, recommends remedial
measures, facilitates redressal of grievances and advises the Government on all
matters affecting the welfare and development of women.
This is one of the
programs initiated by LAKSHYAM NGO in New Delhi. Lakshyam’s program,
‘Rooh-Awakening Women Soul’, meaning the spirit, aims at strengthening women
demeanor towards life itself. The program’s first step is to provide remedial
education to children; second step is to provide an essential degree of
exposure along with professional training and third is to equip the girls with
popular platform to sell their skills. This program also targets developments
in ways of financial issues by organizing various workshops that enable poor
women to self- generate employment.
Health awareness campaigns are organized every now and then.
5. Butterfly
– Child Welfare Program:
Lakshyam NGO launched a
similar program for children welfare named “Butterfly – Child Welfare and
Education” that symbolizes freedom with wings of butterfly. This programs aims
at imparting holistic education and well-round development and abolishing the
term “underprivileged”. Students at Lakshyam are taught Hindi, Mathematics,
English and Computer Sciences. It provides free of cost tutorials as well.
